I'm Julia Turner, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, You Again edition.

This is also the daily podcast from slate.com for Wednesday, January 14th, 2009.

On today's program, we're going to talk about the Golden Globes back after their rather

anemic press conference version of themselves last year during the writer's strike.

24, the hit show on Fox, back after a blessedly long hiatus and notorious, a movie out

this week about the life of rapper Biggie Smalls.

We also have a new sponsor that we're really excited about this week, audible.com, which

we're going to tell you a little bit more about later in the podcast. But let's start with the Golden Globes. We all watched it this weekend. What were some of the big surprises for you, Dana, watching the ceremony? Yeah, the Globes is a place where you can sometimes have a few surprises, if only because the Globes has these unusual categories that the Oscars doesn't have like Best Comedy Slash Musical, which, for example, allowed Colin Farrell to win Best Actor in a Comedy Slash Musical for his performance in Bruges, which wasn't a movie that I love, but it's sort of interesting to have it pop up again. It came out in January of 2008, and everyone's sort of forgotten about this. I know when he got up, I thought, that movie really came out last year?

It seems like a long time ago.

I mean, that was all before the election.

Think of everything we've been through since In Bruges came out. Did you guys see in Bruges? No. I hadn't seen it. I confess, I don't remember what it's about. It's sort of a noir. I mean, it's not a movie that I would send either of you rushing off to, but people that love sort of, I don't know how to describe it, sort of macho noir camp love in Bruch. Oh, that category. Like, it's not unrelated to Tarantino, although it takes itself a lot less seriously than most Tarantino movies. But anyway, it's sort of a fun little movie about these two hit men who are exiled to Bruges Belgium by their, by Ray Fines, who plays

their, you know, their boss. And they just have to hang out in Belgium doing nothing,

cooling their heels, you know, while this, you know, the rap sort of wears off from whatever

their latest hit was. And they just like eat a lot of pastry? There's, there's muscles

and French fries and, you know, medieval sculpture and things like that.

And actually the setting is one of the great things about the movie, and it has a nice mood. So, you know, I wouldn't keep you away from it. But it is true that it's a movie that really changes your mind about Colin Farrell. I think the last thing I'd seen him in was Alexander, and I had basically given up on him. and he's actually quite a funny comedian if he's got good material to chew on.

He was on scrubs, like two scenes to go, and it was quite funny. and I had basically given up on him. And he's actually quite a funny comedian if he's got good material to chew on.

He was on Scrubs, like two scenes to go, and was quite funny. I didn't realize that until I saw that rerun on recently. Unfortunately, he's always cast in these very brooding roles, you know, like in the Miami Vice movie and things like that, which, you know, he's sort of photogenicly right for, but they're just a boring thing to do with your career.

Right.

So Colin Farrell is a surprise.

John, were there any other surprises? things like that, which, you know, he's sort of photogenically right for, but they're just a boring thing to do with your career.

Right.

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