Gothamist was a bit underwhelmed by this year's Golden Globe nominees, and we were thinking of not liveblogging. But, gosh darn it as we watched the E! preshow and saw the starlets sparkle their way down the red carpet, we realize it was hopeless, so here we are. Let it be known that:
- Keira Knightley looks gorgeous in her white Valentino - and there's something surprisingly youthful about the dress, even though there's that huge design element/amulet
- Scarlett Johansson is beautiful and busty
- Marcia Cross can do no wrong - she can make tangerine look awesome
- Charlize Theron has overtanned again
- Johnny Depp is wearing his usual suit without tie (red shirt)
- Nicolette Sheridan does not look over-Botoxed with fish lips!

For the love of God, NBC! We do not need a Pussycat Dolls remix theme song for the Golden Globes! This is worse than Nancy O'Dell and Shaun Robinson! And there are lyrics about Anthony Hopkins wanting to lick the Cecil B. DeMille? FIE ON YOU, GOLDEN GLOBE PRODUCERS!

Queen Latifah is the first presenter. Looks like Penelope Cruz and Gwyneth Paltrow are sitting next to each other - most random seating ever. She pays tribute to Martin Luther King. Wait, she wasn't even presenting. Huh. And Terrence Howard and Mariah Carey are sitting next to each other!

Adrien Brody and Natalie Portman, who has that gamine chic thing going on, are out to present best supporting actor in a film. George Clooney looks hot, as per usual, and he wins for Syriana. He complains that he's not drunk yet; he thanks lots of people including Jack Abramoff - "just because." He wonders, "Who would name their kid 'Jack' with '-off' at the end of the last name?" Damn it, we love you, George.

Now they present best supporting actress...Scarlett Johannsson is sitting next to Jeffrey Katzenberg...Frances McDormand's not there...Michelle Williams looks lovely... The award goes to Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener - we think she kisses her fiance Darren Aronofsky second. We actually liked her a lot in The Constant Gardener and think it's a pretty good choice, but Scarlett and Michelle were great, too. She says she shares this with Ralph Fiennes, director Fernando Mereilles, and producer Simon Channing-Williams. And she ends with "Darren Aronofsky, I love you!" Aw.

Jessica Alba and Luke Wilson come to present Best Supporting Actor in a TV movie, miniseries, or series. She looks great, Luke might be a little bloaty. Aw, Donald Sutherland (nominated for Commander in Chief) - he will always be the first Sutherland in our heart. And Paul Newman, the usual awards no-show, wins for Empire Falls. BOOOORING. It's like "Gimme a Richard Russo novel adapted for HBO and you're guaranteed an award."

Brandon Routh, soon-to-be Superman, and Teri Hatcher, former Lois Lane, are paired for Best Supporting Actress in TV movie, miniseries, or series. He's cute, but Kate Bosworth in the Superman stills looks too wispy to be Lois Lane. And the winner is...Sandra Oh! Yes! All those years of toiling on Arli$$ paid off - we think she has tons of Cable ACE awards. She's so excited - it's a big year, what with splitting up with Alexander Payne and being on a hit show. She freaks out. Ooh, they show Ellen Pompeo - her hair is down; for your reference, Renee Zellweger's hair is pulled back, so there will be no mistaking Ellen for Renee or Renee for Ellen, even though they are both insanely thin.

Drew Barrymore, all emerald green, presents a clip for Good Night and Good Luck. She's showing a bit of nipple - must be cold in there! They do have nipple tape - don't these stars have stylists? Then Emmy Rossum comes out to talk about the Hollywood Foreign Press; Emmy always looks lovely, but she seems to look at least 10-15 years older than she is. She needs to dress in more fun dresses, less "serious" jewelry, and less shellacked hair.

Ooh - Jesse L. Martin and Nicolette Sheridan. Jesse looks so handsome! And Nicolette really does look good - we give her Most Improved. Best Actress in a Drama Series is...Geena Davis for Commander in Chief. That was pretty obvious. HFPA loves to give it up for Oscar-winning actress in "serious" dramas - that's just the way it is. Geena looks great (especially at 49 years and 360 days), and she's very funny, making a joke about a little girl telling her that the show made her want to be the President some day - and the punchline is that never happened.

Evangeline Lilly (who sorta looks like Kate Beckinsale) and Ian McShane are up to present Best Actor in a Drama Series. This is the category of hot actors: Patrick Dempsey, Matthew Fox, Hugh Laurie, Wentworth Miller, Kiefer Sutherland. And Hugh Laurie wins. He gets to speak with his British accent, which makes women swoon even more. His schtick is that he has 172 people to thank, but not enough time, so he's put their names on separate pieces of papers and will draw them at random from his pocket. He thanks the script supervisor, the makeup person, and his agent. And then thanks some more people. Hey, fun fact we just noticed: Geena and Hugh both starred in Stuart Little. Does this mean a Golden Globe is in the stars for Jonathan Lipnicki?

Whoa, there's a L'Oreal commercial with Penelope Cruz. We like Penelope when she's in Pedro Almodovar films, but this kind of sucks.

Melanie Griffith comes out to present her daughter, Dakota Johnson, as this year's Miss Golden Globe. PS - she won a Golden Globe for Working Girl, one of the best movies ever. Her daughter is very cute, though in a hipstery, slouchy, like-every-other-freshman-waif-at-NYU way. Melanie was a MIss Golden Globe back in the day; we wonder if little Stella Banderas will have to do this in 10 years. Anyway, mom Melanie presents a clip for The Producers, one of the best comedy nominees.

Queen Latifah and Matt Dillon stall when the Teleprompter seems to break down! They are presenting Best TV Movie or Mini-Series. Hmm, we didn't see Showtime's Sleeper Cell, but we need to. The winner is Empire Falls. Boring. Pamela Anderson and WIlliam Peterson are out next, she looks surprisingly tasteful. Yay, it's the Best Actor in a Comedy nominees. Ooh, Steve Carrell wins for The Office. Nice! The HFPA gave Ricky Gervais a Best Actor award years back. Carell gives a really sweet and funny speech that salutes his foxy wife (he met her at Second City!).

Tim Robbins presents a clip for The Constant Gardener and his delivery is terrible. Tim, for the presenter schwag you're getting, you could liven it up. Now Jamie Foxx is out...and we're worried he'll start singing the nominees for Best Actress in Comedy or Musical Film - and trips over Laura Linney's name. Reese Witherspoon wins for Walk the Line and is so cute. She says that Ryan Philippe "hit her so hard she fell over" and gives a very thoughtful speech.

Chris Rock comes out and jokes that it's MLK Day and people only have to nice to black people for a few more hours. He does a riff on Desperate Housewives and Weeds being the nominees. And Mary Louise Parker wins! Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman stand up, Eva wonders if she should stand up too and Marica Cross stays planted. Mary Louise Parker tells Chris he was funny and she says she wants to make out with Elizabeth Perkins! MLP also pays tribute to John Spencer - aw.

Emma Thompson, wearing a super-lowcut dress, presents a clip for Pride and Prejudice. She makes a joke about having done Sense and Sensibility - and namechecks Ang. Oh, she's so funny. If we can't be Emma Thompson, Gothamist would like to marry her.

Eric "The Hulk" Bana and Kate Beckinsale (who costarred with Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing) present the award for Best Actor in TV movie or Miniseries to Jonathan Rhys-Myers in Elvis. Excellent - we enjoyed him in Match Point (though he was dumb in Bend It Like Beckham). His speech is pretty by the book, which is boring for us. Ah, Eric and Kate are still around to present the Best Actress (TV Movie or Miniseries) award to...yes, Lieutenant Van Buren, S. Epatha Merkerson for Lackawanna Blues. She won an Emmy for this and memorably lost her speech down her dress. She says, "This is amazing. I'm 53 years old and this is my first lead role. I feel 16 but I'd believe that if I weren't in the middle of a huge hot flash." She thanks NBC for employing her and Dick Wolf (benign?), people at HBO, etc.

Colin Firth presents a clip for Match Point (people hoot when Scarlett's name is mentioned)...now we're wondering if Nanny McPhee, the film Emma Thompson and Colin are in, is a Universal film...and it is!

Oh, Lord, no, Harrison Ford in a beard! He's there with Virginia Madsen to present the Best Screenplay award. Harrison seems stoned-ish - or drunk. And Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossama win for adapting the E. Annie Proulx short story, Brokeback Mountain, and that strummy music comes. After seeing BBM, that music haunted us. Diane Ossama, Aw, Larry McMurtry so cute, thanks his Hermes 3000 typewriter for keeping him out of the "dry embrace of the computer" for 30 years. (To see how dorky cute Larry McMurtry is, check out this picture!)

Josh Duhamel (who did arrive with Fergie!) and Jill Hennessy present Best Comedy to...Desperate Housewives and lots of squealing ensues. Well, at least none of the actresses won the best actress award, so no Vanity Fair-shoot style griping. Snooze - we only like Bree and Lynette on that show, everyone else bores.

Penelope Cruz comes out and she really sucks with presenting the clip for Mrs Henderson Presents - can't Matthew McConnaughey phoenetically teach her? And there he is! Presenting Best Foreign Film with Sarah Jessica Parker who looks really old and/or like J. Lo with the hair in a huge bun. The winner is Paradise Now, from Palestine, and director Hany Abu-Assad (we think) gives a speech ending with the statement that Palestinians deserve to be free.

Ooh. Showing all those skinny waifs how it's done, Catherine Deneuve comes out and to present a clip of A History of Violence. (Okay, fine, her dress isn't that great.) But what we want to know is why Julian McMahon is called "Star of Fantastic Four" and not "star of nip/tuck"!! Rosario Dawson is his co-presenter for film score, and the winner is...John Williams? What? For Memoirs of a Geisha? Only members of the Hollywood Foreign Press saw that movie! And speaking of, check out the MadTV spoof of Memoirs of a Geisha.

Mariah Carey has flown to Hollywood to present the Best Song award. Why were Faith Hill and Tim McGraw there, then? The song from Brokeback Mountain, A Love That Will Never Grow Hold, wins. Gustavo Santaolalla, the composer, thanks everyone, and Bernie Taupin, the lyricist, thanks Martin Luther King and notes that any day Emmylou Harris sings is a great day. We agree!

Hmm, pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow is presenting Anthony Hopkins with the Cecil B DeMille Award. This is the time for us to do some laundry, wash dishes, and groom our eyebrows. We know Sir Tony's highlights: A Lion in Winter, The Silence of the Lambs, Howards End, Remains of the Day, maybe Shadowlands...Nixon... Will they show Remains of the Day for a gratuitous Brad Pitt shot? What about The Edge? Gothamist personally loves 84 Charing Cross Road with Anne Bancroft. Oh, they went with a Hitler clip - we missed that one. This is pretty boring. We love Anthony Hopkins as much as the next "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" reciter, but he's been feted enough.

Everyone's favorite Aquagirl, Mandy Moore, presents the clip for The Squid and the Whale. Remember when Jeff Daniels was supposed be a big star after Terms of Endearment? Or The Purple Rose of Cairo? But The Squid and the Whale isn't his first Brooklyn-set drama - check out The House on Carroll Street, with Kelly McGillis. Clint Eastwood comes to present the Best Director award - and he sounds a little shaky, to be honest. And it goes to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain. He calls Clint Eastwood, "The Man." He thanks editor Tim Squyres, saying that he forgot to thank him five years ago (when he won for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and it's been bugging him (we love Tim Squyres - he's edited all Ang Lee films plus did a bang-up job on Gosford Park for Robert Altman). Lee thanks more people, and ends by saying "Happy New Year" in Chinese.

John Travolta presents the Best Actor in Comedy or Musical awards to Joaquin Phoenix, for Walk the Line. Joaquin is incredulous that he's won something in the "Comedy or Musical" category. But wasn't Parenthood a comedy? He seems to forget to thank Reese, but he did seem rather dazed.

Ah, now we know why Tim McGraw was in the house: He presented the clip for Walk the Line. Gothamist would just like to say that you, Mr. McGraw and Ms. Hill, are no Johnny and June Carter Cash. And now Reene Zellweger, not looking too pointy and bony comes to present the award for Best Comedy or Musical Motion Picture...which is Walk the Line. Cathy Konrad, director James Mangold, accepts the award...it's a long way from Kate and Leopold! (But she did produce Citizen Ruth among other things.) And who knew that the other producer, James Keach, was Jane Seymour's husband?

God, another reason to hate the NBC broadcast of the Golden Globes: They are touting the end of Will & Grace, and so the four principals are out to present an award. Bored bored boring. Quick aside about Grey's Anatomy: Gothamist watches it, but it really isn't that good - the plots suck and the music makes things to "plinkety-plunk" pat. Anyway, the winner is Lost. Solid choice - Damon Lindehof was funny.

Dennis Quaid present the clip for Brokeback Mountain; brother Randy was in it. He says, "It rhymes with 'click flick,'" and Gothamist falls on the floor. So inappropriate! Why not a "is that a cow prod in your pocket or are you happy to see me?" joke?

Leonard DiCaprio comes out to presents the Best Actress in a Drama award to a breathy Felicity Huffman for Transamerica. She hugged Harvey Weinstein (after husband William H. Macy) on the way up. She gives a sweet speech. You may see her on the TNT reruns of Law & Order, where she plays a suburban housewife decorator-turned-call girl. But Gothamist really misses Sports Night.

Slinky Hillary Swank is the presenter for Best Actor in a Drama. This is a competitive category, lots of cheering - ooh, and Philip Seymour Hoffman wins for Capote. Sort of an upset, as lots of people thought the money was on Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was really amazing. So cute, he points out that director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman are in the corner, and thanks them for giving him the "best role" of his life. Aw.

Last award of the night: Denzel Washington presents Best Motion Picture, Drama, to Brokeback Mountain. James Schamus, Columbia lecturer (shout-out to alma mater!) and current Focus Features head, gives a great speech - he's so erudite. Gothamist highly recommends people to check out the commentary tracks on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sense and Sensibility to listen to Ang Lee and James Schamus chat about the filmmaking process.

Denzel closes the show, and we can't wait for Inside Man. Anyway, it was a huge night for independent cinema - the big winners were small films, from Transamerica to The Constant Gardener, Brokeback Mountain to Capote; even Walk the Line was from Fox's specialty division. As for TV, HBO did sweep up a couple awards, but ABC won Best Comedy, Best Drama, and Best Actress in a Drama. Gothamist's feeling is that these awards, while boring, were actually pretty good - better than the Oscars will be and definitely better than the Emmys were. Ta ta till tomorrow.

Were you intrigued or bored? Did you watch 24 instead? Were you happy anyone won or upset someone didn't? And did Marcia Cross look amazing? Give us your fashion picks and pans, too!

Here's the Official Golden Globe Awards website