Avatar wins Best Film award at Golden Globes
2010-01-18 [16:12:43 hrs] | | The science-fiction blockbuster Avatar has won best drama at the Golden Globes and picked up the directing honour for James Cameron, raising the Titanic filmmaker's prospects for another Academy Awards triumph.
Winning the dramatic-acting honors were Sandra Bullock for the football tale The Blind Side and Jeff Bridges for the country-music story Crazy Heart.
The acting prizes for musical and comedy went to Meryl Streep for the Julia Child story Julie & Julia and Robert Downey Jr. for the crime romp Sherlock Holmes. The supporting-performance Globes were won by Mo'Nique as an abusive welfare mother in Precious and Christoph Waltz as a gleefully bloodthirsty Nazi in Inglourious Basterds.
The Vegas bachelor bash The Hangover won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy Sunday, while James Cameron earned the best-director Globe for his science-fiction blockbuster Avatar.
Cameron's space fantasy is following in the footsteps of his Titanic as a box-office record-breaker and awards darling.
The win for The Hangover, a huge audience favorite, brought uncharacteristic awards attention for broad comedy, a genre that often gets overlooked at Hollywood honors.
"I just want to thank my mom, who supported my decision to become a director when she realized I wasn't as smart as my two sisters," said Hangover director Todd Phillips.
Avatar also was up for best drama, along with the Harlem tale Precious, the recession tale Up in the Air and the war stories The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds.
Acting winners were Jeff Bridges in the country music tale Crazy Heart, Sandra Bullock in the football tale The Blind Side, Robert Downey Jr. in the crime romp Sherlock Holmes, Meryl Streep as chef Julia Child in Julie & Julia, Mo'Nique as a loathsome, abusive welfare mother in Precious and Christoph Waltz as a gleefully bloodthirsty Nazi in Inglourious Basterds.
Cameron had kind words for ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, nominated as best director for The Hurt Locker.
"Frankly, I thought Kathryn was going to get this. She richly deserves it," said Cameron, whose Titanic earned the directing and best-drama Globes 12 years ago on its way to Academy Awards triumph.
The blockbuster Up came away with the award for animated film.
While Streep is a perennial at awards shows, the prize marked a dramatic turning point for Mo'Nique, who was mainly known for lowbrow comedy but startled audiences with her ferocious performance in Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphir.
"First let me say, thank you, God, for this amazing ride that you're allowing me to go on," the tearful Mo'Nique told the crowd.
She went on with gushing praise for Precious director Lee Daniels and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, a best dramatic actress nominee at the Globes with her first film role, playing Mo'Nique's abused, illiterate daughter.
"Lee Daniels, the world gets a chance to see how brilliant you are. You are a brilliant, fearless, amazing director who would not waver, and thank you for trusting me," Mo'Nique said. "To Gabby, sister, I am in awe of you. Thank you for letting me play with you."
Streep's competition for best actress in a musical or comedy included herself. She also was nominated for the romance "It's Complicated."
"I just want to say that in my long career, I've played so many extraordinary woman that I'm getting mistaken for one," Streep said. "I'm very clear that I'm the vessel for other people's stories and other people's lives."
Waltz, a veteran Austrian actor who is a relative newcomer in Hollywood, won the supporting-actor Globe as a gleefully bloodthirsty Nazi in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.
"A year and a half ago I was exposed to the gravitational forces of Quentin Tarantino," Waltz said. "He took my modest little world, my globe, and with the power of his talent and his words and his vision, he flung it into its orbit, a dizzying experience."
The nominees offered a mix of far-out fantasy (Avatar) and ripped-from-the-headlines reality (the Iraq drama The Hurt Locker, the recession tale Up in the Air) at the Globes, Hollywood's first major film honors that will help sort out the Oscar picture.
Though one of Hollywood's biggest parties, the Globes bore somber reminders of tragedy in the real world, many stars wearing ribbons in support of earthquake victims in Haiti.
Films from Pixar Animation, the Disney outfit that made Up, have won all four prizes for animated movies since the Globes introduced the category in 2006. Past Pixar winners are WALL-E, Ratatouille and Cars.
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