A judge in Los Angeles issued a ruling yesterday that the lawsuit filed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association against dick clark productions will go to trial later this month.

HFPA owns the Golden Globes; Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder's Red Zone investment fund owns a majority share of the obnoxiously lower-cased entertainment firm.

dcp has produced broadcasts of the awards show since 1983. The suit arose out of dcp's deal with NBC last year to continue to air the show through 2018.

HFPA lawyers say dcp had no authorization to make that deal since the association, and not the production company, controlled the television rights. dcp, in turn, argues that its 1993 contract with HFPA gives it the right to negotiate with NBC for as long as that network airs the show.

Both sides had filed motions for summary judgment in their favor. But U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank rebuffed them yesterday and said she'll let a jury decide who wins.

Fairbank set a trial date of Aug. 30. Variety reported recently that dcp intends to call former longtime teenager Dick Clark to the witness stand.

Clark sold the company that bears his name in 2002. In 2007, Red Zone and the theme park chain Six Flags jointly purchased dcp for $175 million. Snyder controlled Red Zone, a private equity fund, and at that time he was chairman of the board of Six Flags, a publicly traded company. Snyder's Red Zone reportedly got 60 percent of dcp; Six Flags got a reported 40 percent.

Six Flags struggled throughout Snyder's reign atop the company, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections in 2009. Snyder was out of Six Flags when it emerged from bankruptcy court.

He retained control of dcp, however, and has hired a lot of the management team he had with him at Six Flags, including former Six Flags CEO Mark Shapiro.

As a vestige of its time with Red Zone, Six Flags still owns a share of dcp.

Photo by Peter Dutton via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

For the celebrity-obsessed print edition of Washington City Paper, I wrote this week about Dan Snyder's increasing renown in Tinseltown.

Locals here might be surprised to find out that the Washington Redskins might not be the most famous property currently under Snyder's control, at least not on the global stage.

Believe it or not, for a few years now, Snyder has also controlled the TV broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards, which will air this Sunday on NBC.

Dan Snyder and Ricky Gervais, bedfellows! How weird is that?

In 2007, Snyder bought the Golden Globes' longtime producer, Dick Clark Productions (dcp), through a complicated and wholly unorthodox (but totally Snyderesque!) transaction that had Snyder combining moneys from Red Zone, the McLean-based private investment fund he runs, and Six Flags, the public company for which he then served as chairman of the board. (Snyder's since been removed from Six Flags, which he directed into bankruptcy, but still runs dcp.)

Locals won't be shocked, however, to learn that Snyder's got scads of detractors since buying his way into Hollywood—and not because he's kept the World's Oldest Teenager out in the cold on New Year's Eve (yeah, Snyder's company controls "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve!") these last few years.  One of the biggest Snyder bashers out west happens to be the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which founded the Golden Globe Awards in the 1940s.

HFPA is currently suing Snyder's Red Zone and dcp (the annoying lower-case acronym used by the company predates Snyder) in federal court in California, alleging that the Redskins owner recently sold TV rights to future Golden Globes telecasts despite not owning said TV rights—HFPA says dcp's contract to produce the show runs out this weekend—and also that Snyder's company hasn't provided an honest accounting of the revenues brought in by the programming.

A dcp spokesman, meanwhile, says that no matter what's in the federal complaint, the production company had the contractual right to negotiate a new TV deal with NBC to broadcast the Golden Globe Awards through 2018. HFPA, in dcp's version, is no more than a jealous and ungrateful partner.

Donovan McNabb should be interested in this weekend's telecast. Gervais will be hosting Sunday's show, his second outing as emcee. When he was brought in last year, dcp was hailed for its brilliant get, much like the Skins were when they landed McNabb before the 2010 season.

But, Gervais was slammed for such things as not following instructions from show coordinators, freelancing, and losing steam in the second half of the Golden Globes broadcast. In other words, the same sort of bashing McNabb took in his first run with the Redskins.

Yet, despite talk that he'd be replaced for those foibles, Gervais will indeed be front and center when the 2011 Golden Globes kicks off.

Also, much like McNabb, on paper, Gervais' performance seems golden. Some bits from the review of last year's show that appeared in the UK's Daily Mail:

Irreverent Gervais sipped on a glass of beer during the show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, quipping at one point: "I like a drink as much as the next man... unless the next man is Mel Gibson." As Gibson—who was convicted of drink driving in 2006—walked on to present the Best Director gong, he pretended to slur his words.

Few were spared a lashing by Gervais, who at one point said: "Just looking at all the faces here reminds me of the great work that's been done this year... by cosmetic surgeons. You all look great."

At that punchline, the camera quickly cut away from Meryl Streep, instead opting for a long shot of the crowd.

"It is an honour to be here in a room full of what I consider to be the most important people on the planet: actors.

Actors aren't just loved here in Hollywood, they're loved the world over because they're recognisable. You can be in the Third World and you get a glimpse of a Hollywood star and it makes you feel better. You can be a little child, a little Asian child, with no possessions, no money—but you see a picture of Angelina Jolie and you think, 'Mummy!'

He also turned the air blue at one point when he claimed to have had 'penis reduction' surgery – going from two male members to just one.

He joked that he would rather be at home pleasuring himself than being watched by millions.

McNabb surely felt similarly during that Monday Night Football game vs. the Eagles...

In 2008, firms that were nowhere near as leveraged as Six Flags, which is anywhere from $2 billion to $3 billion-and-some-change in debt, tended to sign on for Chapter 11 protections or just go away.

But Six Flags, albeit with its stock still cratered (down from a Snyder-era high of $11.93 to just 16 cents a share a couple months ago) and its future bleaker than Levi Johnston's, made it through with no such filings.

And with the new year has come the first good news of Snyder's disastrous reign atop the corporation, which began with a stockholder coup he led in late 2005 amid promises he'd boost the stock price and make the parks more family friendly: A barrister in Texas on Friday ruled in favor of Six Flags after a nasty battle over the chain's request to be allowed to sell booze at two parks in the state.

From the Dallas Morning News:

The beer taps could be flowing soon at Six Flags Over Texas and its Hurricane Harbor water park after a yearlong licensing fight.

A state administrative law judge issued two nonbinding opinions Friday recommending that the parks be allowed to sell alcoholic beverages. Carolyn Beck, a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission spokeswoman, said the agency's administrator rarely rules against an administrative law judge.

After the ruling, Sharon Parker, a Six Flags spokesperson, said she "hopes that beer will be on sale" when the two parks open on Feb. 28.

Apparently, in Snyderland, nothing says "family friendly" like tapped kegs. By this standard, the grounds of FedExField must be the familiest friendliest acreage in this time zone. God love the Mayor...

Alas, not all the recent headlines have pulled Snyder's chain the right way.

Also last week, an animal rights group reaffirmed Six Flags' Vallejo, Calif., outpost as one of the "Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants" for 2008.

That's a list the park makes every year. But a Six Flags official named Nancy Chan told the Vallejo Times-Herald that the designation was "a little insulting" to the animal caretakers there.

How you think the elephants feel, Nance?

And Snyder's first run as overseer of a full-blown Golden Globes Awards show (the writers strike in Hollywood last year crippled last year's production) was a disaster.

Despite the presence of his former suite-mate Tom Cruise, the telecast, which was produced by the now-Snyder/Six Flags-owned Dick Clark Productions, garnered what Nielsen Media Research called "the smallest audience since the awards moved to network TV in 1994."

No wonder Snyder wants more booze.

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder's Six Flags soap opera.

(Seriously. I expected to FF through it underwhelmed, a la the common man's trophyfest, the People's Choice Awards. But I was enraptured, unable to skip a single "thank you" or moment of the brilliant Mingle Cam.)

But it's probably just because the Hollywood Foreign Press has terrible taste.

Not all the time, of course. There were plenty of deserving (or at least herd-approved) noms and wins: Slumdog Millionaire took all four categories for which it was nominated (best picture drama, best director, best screenplay, and best original score). I was thrilled that Mickey Rourke, looking totally gangsta, won Best Actor for The Wrestler, and although I was generally zipping through the television categories, I had to stop to watch the love for 30 Rock, my only must-see show that I can admit to adoring without shame. (As opposed to Rock of Love, whose every incarnation I got sucked into. There, I said it.)

But Burn After Reading and Mamma Mia! for best comedies? Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson for their (literally) walk-in-the-park performances in feel-good romance Last Chance Harvey? I wasn't blown away by Sally Hawkins' Globe-winning turn in Happy-Go-Lucky, but I'm glad she won the category, because between her, Thompson, Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!), Frances McDormand (Burn After Reading), and Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Hawkins was the only actress who actually had to break a sweat.

That said, here are some of the show's highlights:

1.) Sting, presenting Best Song but looking like he should be slaying vampires with a dark beard and goth-y black coat;

2.) Bruce Springsteen's win for his contribution to The Wrestler, because I'm just as happy to hear him talk as sing;

3.) Andrew Stanton, who said that his wife and kids "inspire every emotion I try to capture onscreen" in his acceptance speech for the lovely WALL*E;

4.) Colin Farrell, who was funny when he blamed his sniffing on a cold and "not the other thing it used to be" while presenting an award and touching when he talked about love while accepting one for In Bruges;

5.) Renee Zellweger's crazy-person dress, which narrowly beat Maggie Gyllenhaal's fashion disaster;

6.) Rourke giving a loving shout-out to his pets, because "sometimes when a man's alone, all you got is your dog;"

7.) Darren Aronofsky, so seemingly mild-mannered, caught on camera giving Rourke the finger;

8.) Tracy Morgan announcing that "I am the face of post-racial America. Deal with it, Cate Blanchett!"

and, perhaps my favorite,

9.) Tina Fey telling her Internet haters to "suck it":