Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!

Welcome back from a glorious three-day tribute to MLK, Jr. Hope you’re rested and free from all that holds you down. Me, I’ve got a bone to pick with the Hollywood Foreign Press.

Anyone living under a rock may not be aware, but I expect the rest of you to be with me on this. The Golden Globe Awards played out live on the flopping fish known as the NBC network, and all was well until the end disaster, the hat trick of bizarre choices to carry home the shiny orb: Sandra Bullock for Best Actress Drama (The Blind Side), James Cameron as Best Director and for Best Picture (Avatar).

Now, Sandra Bullock is a fine lady, and in The Blind Side she shows off a bit more emotion than in her typical romcoms — but that’s because she’s starring in a picture that belongs on the Hallmark channel. But Carey Mulligan held more than just a smile and a coupla tears in An Education, more than enough to clean the floor with the Bullock of today or the Bullock of Demolition Man days.

Likewise, James Cameron more than executed his masterpiece, he delivered a pleasurable reel of unmatched visual grace from any such film this year or of the last decade. That being said, the story was choppy, some fight scenes were predictable, and there wasn’t much in the way of character growth or development. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is known for running their own awards show for ratings and star-studded evenings, rather than true accolades. But sometimes you need to learn to draw the line between “chasing ratings” and “artistic integrity.” This is a line which the HFPA failed to even indulge on Sunday night.

As far as complete and utter film execution in the year 2009, here are the best choices for Directing in 2009, some nominated the other night, others just below any “common moviegoers’” radar:

Kathryn Bigelow — The Hurt Locker. What this film lacks in arcs and A — Z storytelling, it makes up for in spades with the tension and editing of the bomb diffusion scenes. Cap on that the harsh performance of Jeremy Renner, and you’ve got a technical achievement to match wits with the best of earth, or Pandora.

Duncan Jones — Moon. A budget of $5 Million and a lunar landscape second only to our Moon itself, Duncan Jones’s feature debut features the best performance you won’t read about last year: Sam Rockwell. And yes, Duncan is David Bowie’s son.

Quentin Tarentino — Inglourious Basterds. War meets spaghetti Western meets the pop-culture infusion of Tarentino’s mind. No one can handle scene structure and the suspense of a long take like him, and it doesn’t hurt that he writes his own material, too.

The Coen Brothers — A Serious Man. Seriously, the Coens pull no punches in their bizarre slice-of-life story of a MidWest professor in the late-60s whose life unravels when his wife has an affair. Dark comedy ensues. A little lighter material for the Coens since No Country for Old Men (not counting the quirky Burn After Reading, of course).

Wes Anderson — The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Stop motion animation done the way it hasn’t been done for sixty years, Anderson takes his sophisticated style to the world of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story. He apparently took his voice actors out on location (out in the forest, in a sewer) to record their dialogue, which added to the sudden reality to talking animals.

Spike Jonze — Where the Wild Things Are. Overall a bit underwhelming, Jonze’s dedication to the source material and the hopefulness penetrating each scene should be enough to invoke that frog in the back of your throat feeling in any parent, or child. Plus the monsters are all invited to my next mission, wherein I invade another country to build forts out of trees, and a command post for future Angle Operations.

Soon we review the year’s writing accolades, wherein I breakdown the travesty that is the WGA (Writers Guild of America) and their omission of Inglourious Basterds from this year’s nominations (place taken by Avatar. Explain, good sirs).

Signing off.

Sgt. Angle