68th Annual Golden Globe Awards Recap

Host Ricky Gervais takes aim with a drink at the ready.

Aside from those few in the television categories, the fact that the biggest surprise at the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards last night came in the category of Best Foreign Language Film really shows the night was one of predictable winners.

Though I predicted the HFPA would stray off the path and give the award for Best Picture Drama to "The King's Speech" over "The Social Network," this didn't turn out to be the case.

David Fincher's Facebook movie was the big winner of the night nabbing the highest number of awards at four. Along with Best Picture Drama, its wins included Best Director for Fincher--who took a break from his "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" filming to accept his award in a rather ungrateful speech--along with wins for Aaron Sorkin for Best Screenplay and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for Best Score.

Following "The Social Network" were "The Fighter" and "The Kids Are All Right" tied at two wins leaving "The King's Speech" and "Black Swan" with one win each.

Ricky Gervais hosted again and was out for blood in his sharp jokes aimed at specific actors/actresses, the HFPA itself and, yes, "The Tourist." He was almost unreasonably harsh--yet undeniably the highlight of the entire show--and probably won't be invited back to host next year considering he ended the show with, "And God, for making me an atheist."

Melissa Leo and Christian Bale won their respective supporting acting awards for "The Fighter" while Colin Firth for "The King's Speech" and Natalie Portman for "Black Swan" took home their respective lead acting awards. These four are all now locked for the acting awards at the Oscars, no questions asked.

Annette Bening rightfully took her award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for "The Kids Are All Right" while Paul Giamatti beat a double Johnny Depp nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for his role in "Barney's Version," which was a welcome win for the evening.

Bening's speech was among the best of the night along with Portman's which made me desire to hear them both give Oscar acceptance speeches come February. If only. Another memorable speech came from Melissa Leo simply because she was bursting at the seams and perhaps had a bit too much to drink.

Along with acting came the obvious winners of "Toy Story 3" for Best Animated Film and "The Kids Are All Right" for Best Comedy or Musical.

"Burlesque" earned an award for Best Original Song.

Without any technical awards to hand out, Christopher Nolan's "Inception" was completely left in the dark. And lest we forget the lack of nominations altogether for "True Grit" meanwhile Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld were both invited to present. Except the latter was a bit of a slap in the face as she was forced to present next to Justin Bieber.

From a rather mean-spirited tone set by the host and one retaliated by the presenters to a rambling Robert De Niro accepting his Cecil B. DeMille Award cracking jokes about his own crappy career in recent years and to counting the number of times the camera cut to Brangelina and catching that eye-roll from Helena Bonham Carter, it was a night not lacking in entertainment.

In terms of the actual awards, though, there is no mystery left. At this rate "The Social Network" will without a doubt go on to win Best Picture at the Oscars, and the awards we've already been seeing will fall right into place. Here's to one of the most predictable award seasons in years.

Full list of winners for the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards.

See you in a week for the announcement of the 83rd Annual Academy Award nominations!