The Hindu : Front Page : Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ wins top honours at Globes

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Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ wins top honours at Globes

Sunday’s winners could get a last-minute boost for the Oscars

BEVERLY HILLS (California): The Golden Globes gave top honours to James Cameron’s Avatar and took its cue from the film’s celebration of humanity, with winners ranging from the gritty child-abuse drama Precious to freewheeling comedy The Hangover.

Sunday’s awards ceremony also opened wide to embrace the long-admired Jeff Bridges, who took best dramatic-acting honours for the country-music film Crazy Heart, and a sitcom actress, Mo’Nique, who emerged as a fierce screen presence in Precious.

Cameron was the big winner on the movie side, claiming Best Drama and Best Director for his science-fiction blockbuster and setting him for a possible awards sequel to 1997’s Titanic. His epic about the doomed oceanliner won the same prizes and went on to dominate the Academy Awards. This time, though, instead of being “king of the world,” as Cameron declared at the Oscar ceremony, he has become king of a computer-generated distant moon that made critics gush and sent box-office receipts soaring. The film has grossed $1.6 billion worldwide, second only to Titanic with $1.8 billion.

“ Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other, and us to the Earth. And if you have to go four and a half light years to another, made-up planet to appreciate this miracle of the world that we have right here, well, you know what, that’s the wonder of cinema right there, that’s the magic,” said Cameron.

Other film acting prizes went to Sandra Bullock for the football tale The Blind Side, Meryl Streep for the Julia Child story Julie & Julia, Robert Downey Jr. for the crime romp Sherlock Holmes and Austrian actor Christoph Waltz as a gleefully bloodthirsty Nazi in Inglourious Basterds.

Sunday’s winners could get a last-minute boost for the Oscars, whose nominations balloting closes Saturday. Last year’s big Globe winner, Slumdog Millionaire, went on to garner Oscar glory.

Bullock cited Michael Oher, the Baltimore Ravens rookie lineman whose life is the subject of The Blind Side. She plays a wealthy Memphis woman whose family took the teenage Oher and gave him shelter after discovering he was homeless. “If I may steal from Michael Oher, I may not be the most talented, but I’ve been given opportunity,” said Bullock.

The Globes marked a dramatic turning point for Mo’Nique, who was mainly known for lowbrow comedy but startled audiences with her brutal performance in Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire, directed by Lee Daniels and starring newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, who was a Globe nominee.

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 women that I’m getting mistaken for one,” she said. “I’m very clear that I’m the vessel for other people’s stories and other people’s lives.”

The blockbuster Up came away with the award for animated film.

Pixar Animation, the Disney outfit that made Up, has won all four prizes for animated movies since the Globes introduced the category in 2006. Past Pixar winners are WALL-E, Ratatouille and Cars.

Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner won the screenplay honour for Up in the Air, which Reitman also directed. The foreign-language honour went to The White Ribbon, a stark drama of guilt and suspicion set in a German town on the eve of World War I.

The rain-drenched red carpet was a rare sight for an awards show in sunny southern California, stars in their finery getting damp under umbrellas as storms swept the region.

Though the Globes are one of Hollywood’s biggest parties, the ceremony included sombre reminders of tragedy in the real world, many stars wearing ribbons in support of earthquake victims in Haiti. — AP

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