Nikki Glazer herself did not win a Golden Globe on Sunday evening. “It is my first time shedding a Golden Globe, Nikki Glazer,” she stated after shedding greatest stand-up comedy to comic Ali Wong.
However she gained one thing rarer: rave evaluations for internet hosting the ceremony.
Glazer — an everyday star of the superstar roast circuit, who has billed the present as “Ozempic’s greatest evening” — took on a notoriously tough position that required a fragile steadiness. She needed to poke enjoyable at Hollywood and its foibles simply sufficient to entertain viewers at residence, however not a lot as to alienate the A-list viewers within the ballroom.
“I am not right here to roast you tonight,” Glazer stated into her opening monologue. “I would like you to know this. How might I, actually? You’re all so well-known, so proficient, so sturdy. I imply you’ll be able to actually do something. I imply, apart from telling the nation who to vote for.
With the warmth at a simmer for the three-hour telecast, Glazer managed to ship probably the most positively acquired internet hosting of the Globes in years because the present tried to rise from scandal story and virtually growing older.
Within the ballroom, Glazer’s jokes saved the viewers laughing and entertainment critics i saw her set as something from a comeback for a present that wants one. Robert Lloyd of The Los Angeles Instances wrote that “within the sense of commerce she killed.” In Vainness Truthful, Richard Lawson wrote that her efficiency “recalled the sleek gliding of yesteryear, when many awards have been held with a hum of professionalism that’s sincerely missing in our present age of pointless tinkering and poor internet hosting.”
She acquired applause from a lot of her colleagues c comedy worldwith comic Man Branum suggestive that she’s internet hosting the Oscars, and Jon Stewart — who hosted the Oscars twice to poor evaluations the primary time — weighed in approvingly.
The final two years of internet hosting the Globes have positively been extra uneven.
Whereas internet hosting the present in 2023, Jerod Carmichael addressed the program’s diversity crisis directlynoting that the group that organizes the Globes “did not have a single black member till George Floyd died” and speaking about his reluctance to host to start with. Final yr, host Joe Coy’s efficiency flopped, drawing sufficient criticism to immediate the comic to admit it the next day in an interview during which he declared the place a “tough room”.
Glazer’s set had a a lot softer touchdown: Her jokes poked enjoyable at Hollywood with out gutting it, and she or he sprinkled sufficient self-deprecation to maintain the viewers smiling.
The upside of Wong’s Golden Globe loss? “I simply gained $11,000 betting on Ali Wong on a European playing web site,” she joked.
In one other dig at himself, Glazer opened with a efficiency that blended two films nominated: the movie-musical “Depraved” and “Conclave,” a drama concerning the election of a brand new pope. She began to performed a parody referred to as “Pope-ular,” earlier than performing as if a producer in her earpiece lower her off — “Wait, that is gross?” — and instructed she was embarrassing Elton John.
With a revolving wardrobe of sparkly robes, Glazer briefly touched on heavy or edgy topics (“The after-party will not be nearly as good this yr,” she joked, referencing the abuse allegations in opposition to Sean Combs), however largely saved issues gentle. She poked enjoyable at Timothée Chalamet’s moustache, ribbed Selena Gomez’s fiance and pissed off Harrison Ford. She revealed her private fantasies about actor Glenn Powell, snapped Adam Sandler little about Chalamet and poked enjoyable at Hollywood vainness.
“The purpose of constructing artwork is to not win an award,” Glaser stated. “The purpose of constructing artwork is to create a model of tequila so fashionable that you simply by no means must make artwork once more.”
Her materials was not with out Hollywood criticism, nevertheless it tended to heart extra across the mundanity of the trade than its abuses.
“The solid and crew prepared the ground with 11 mentions,” she stated halfway by way of the present as she introduced a scoreboard that tracked the cheers within the winners’ speeches. “Moms maintain sturdy with three cheers.”
What about God? Zero. “There is not any shock on this godless city,” she quips.
For an awards present that overcame years of disaster and criticism, Glazer embraced the keenness: She appeared actually, actually excited to be there. On the finish of the present, she declared her job “enjoyable and straightforward” – and she or he did not appear to be kidding.