The people's choice
And the award goes to ...
By Todd Leopold
CNN
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Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer host the 30th annual People's Choice Awards.
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ON CNN TV
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"Eye on Entertainment" talks about the weekend's happenings on CNN's "Live Today" between 10 a.m. and noon EST Thursday.
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(CNN) -- There used to be four entertainment awards anybody cared about: the Grammys in February, the Oscars in March, the Tonys in June and the Emmys in September (or May until the mid-'70s).
Sometimes the awards recognized genuine excellence. Other times they recognized popular acclaim. On occasion, the two coincided.
But more important, given society's craving for celebrities, celebrity fashion and celebrity honors -- and television's craving for ratings and glitz -- they were also the only games in town.
If you wanted to watch esteemed performers walk down a red carpet, you had to watch one of the Big Four. (Just as, if you wanted to watch really good college football teams, you had to watch a New Year's Day bowl game, not some fly-by-night competition on December 22.)
Now there are dozens of awards shows, so many it's impossible to say when "awards season" begins anymore. Heck, you haven't arrived as a cable network until you've invented your own honors program, and if you're one of the major TV broadcasters, any time is a good time for a celebrity-attended party -- even if the celebrities are third-tier performers on loan from "Battle of the Network Stars."
All this to pay tribute to the People's Choice Awards, which will mark its 30th telecast Sunday.
You may not be able to name a single winner of a People's Choice award -- well, you can probably name some merely by reeling off a list of hit shows, songs and movies, but that doesn't count -- but the People's Choice is a survivor. And in today's entertainment environment, survival is more than half the battle.
Eye on Entertainment casts its vision back, way back ...
Eye-opener
The People's Choice Awards make no bones about honoring the "best." The People's Choice Awards honor "favorites."
That way the PCAs have avoided recognizing "Toto IV" (Grammy album of the year, 1982), "Titanic" (Academy Award for best picture, 1997) or Pia Zadora (Golden Globe for new star of the year, 1982) as the "best" of their years and categories, leaving much better choices as also-rans.
("Best" is so subjective, anyway. If I say chocolate almond is the best ice cream flavor, I'll get nothing but arguments from pistachio partisans and French vanilla fans. But if I say chocolate almond is my favorite, who can argue?)
So the People's Choice Awards serve a worthwhile purpose. The Oscars are often dismissed as a popularity contest; the People's Choice Awards are a popularity contest, and the show makes no apologies.
Moreover, the People's Choice Awards telecast brings out the stars. Everyone likes to be popular, and a People's Choice Award codifies popularity. If you're not grateful, you're an ingrate.
Watchers get the best of both worlds: almost-meaningless awards and lots of celebrities.
In the next two months, the big guns will roll out. The Grammys will tell us what a few music-biz logrollers think are the best records of the year; the Golden Globes will offer the aggregate opinion of the fewer than 100 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. And the Oscars will leave out a bunch of worthwhile films, and start arguments all over again.
Given that atmosphere, enjoy the People's Choice Awards. They're just a popularity contest. You can still like chocolate almond and be right.
The 30th annual show's hosts are Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer, stars of CBS' "Two and a Half Men." By an amazing coincidence, the People's Choice Awards show also airs on CBS -- 9 p.m. ET Sunday.
On screen
• Albert Finney has spent his life telling tall tales in director Tim Burton's film "Big Fish." The movie also stars Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Helena Bonham Carter. It goes into wide release Friday.
• In "Chasing Liberty," the president's daughter (Mandy Moore) escapes from the White House to see what life is like for "real" 18-year-olds. On the Internet Movie Database, the film is compared to "Roman Holiday." I'll leave that to the critics, but I don't think Moore is going to win an Oscar like Audrey Hepburn. With Mark Harmon as the president. Opens Friday.
• "My Baby's Daddy" takes a rather serious subject -- three men whose girlfriends all become pregnant at the same time -- and plays it for comedy. Eddie Griffin, Michael Imperioli and Anthony Anderson star. Opens Friday.
On the tube
• I've always had one question for Donald Trump: If you have so much money, how come I've never seen you with a decent haircut? Maybe one of the contestants on the new series, "The Apprentice" -- in which a group of go-getters pursues a job as an employee of The Donald -- can tactfully make the same point. No truth to the rumor that second place gets a nice box of steak knives. Thursday, 8:30 p.m., NBC.
Paging readers
• In "Absolute Friends" (Little, Brown), John le Carre -- a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Iraq war -- takes his subject head-on. The son of an Indian army officer and the son of a Nazi are pressed into a propaganda battle involving Iraq and find their perceptions of events changing. Due Monday.
• Elmore Leonard's "Mr. Paradise" (William Morrow) involves a cheerleader-dressed stripper on retainer from an old man, her Victoria's Secret model roommate, thugs, death and a Detroit homicide cop all mixed up in a plan to get the old man's money. In other words, classic Leonard. Due Tuesday.
• Arthur C. Clarke teams up with Stephen Baxter for "Time's Eye" (Del Rey), the first volume in a series about an earth in which time has been scrambled and medieval warriors run into 21st-century astronauts. Due Tuesday.
• Pete Rose finally admits he bet on baseball in "My Prison Without Bars" (Rodale). Due Thursday.
