A heady mix of
political drama and romance--both gay and
straight--won major Golden Globe awards on
Monday with Brokeback Mountain earning the Best
Film Drama prize and Walk the Line Best Musical or
Comedy. Brokeback, which has wowed critics and found
a sizable audience at box offices with its gay love
story, walked off with four Golden Globes, more than
any other movie, including Best Director for Ang Lee,
Screenplay, and Song. The movie entered the show a favorite
among its rivals after having been nominated in a leading
seven categories, and it now becomes a clear
front-runner for the Oscars, the U.S. film industry's
top awards, to be given out in March.
But Walk the
Line, about the long love affair between singers
Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, may be a close number
2. It earned three Golden Globes and won trophies for stars
Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Best Actor
and Actress in Musical or Comedy, respectively.
Felicity Huffman was named Best Actress in a Film
Drama, playing a transgender woman on the verge of a
sex change in Transamerica, and Philip Seymour
Hoffman was named Best Film Actor in a Movie Drama for
his role as gay author Truman Capote in Capote.
The film awards
capped a night in which gay movies and characters
dominated the winner's circle, and the movies' makers and
actors urged audiences to see beyond the gay stories
and into deeper themes of love, family ties, and
fearmongering. "You can never categorize or stereotype
a region or a place. People fall in love, period," Lee
said backstage. This is a universal story.... I just wanted
to make a love story."
But politics
played a major role at the Golden Globes too, especially
early in the evening when George Clooney was named Best
Supporting Actor in a Film playing a veteran CIA agent
in the Middle East oil drama Syriana. "This is early,
I haven't had a drink yet," Clooney joked when he took
the stage to accept his award, the first award of the
night. But he turned serious when acknowledging the
film's writer-director, Stephen Gaghan, as well as Warner
Independent Pictures for releasing such a politically
charged film. "These are tough questions to ask, and
I'm very proud that the studios are willing to ask
these questions," he said about Syriana's take on the
Middle East and the politics of oil.
British actress
Rachel Weisz was named Best Supporting Actress in a Film
drama for her portrayal of a social activist in Africa in
the thriller The Constant Gardener. Palestinian film
Paradise Now, which looks at why suicide bombers
take their own lives and kill others, was named Best Foreign
Language Film. Its director, Hany Abu-Assad, called
the award "a recognition that the Palestinians deserve
their liberty and equality unconditionally."
Golden Globe
winners are chosen annually by about 85 members of the
Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are widely watched
as a measure of which movies will later vie for
Oscars, which are voted on by some 6,000 members of
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Golden
Globe winners often go on to win Oscars, and the stars
turned out for Monday's show in tuxedos, gowns, and
fine jewelry to wow viewers in some 172 countries
around the world.
Unlike the
Oscars, Golden Globes also are given out for television
shows, and in that arena, the ABC network swept the
top categories, with its hit show Lost earning
Best Drama Series and another of its top-rated
programs, Desperate Housewives, taking the
prize for Best Comedy. Among TV winners, Geena Davis,
who was named Best Actress in a Drama Series for playing the
first female U.S. president in Commander In
Chief, offered audiences one of the award show's
lighter moments in an evening that held few surprises.
When she collected her trophy onstage, Davis noted
that a young girl had tugged at her dress before the program
and told her that Commander In Chief inspired
her to be president. As the crowd sighed, Davis
smiled. "Well, that didn't actually happen," she said.
"But it could have.... And were that to be the case,
then all of this would be worth it."
British actor
Hugh Laurie won the award for Best Actor in a TV Drama
playing a hard-edged doctor in medical drama House.
Steve Carell was named Best Actor in a TV Comedy
playing an insensitive boss in The Office, and
in a surprise, Mary-Louise Parker took home the Golden
Globe award for her role as a pot-selling suburban mom in
cable TV program Weeds. Empire
Falls, about life in a small town, won the Golden Globe
for Best Miniseries or TV Movie, and Paul Newman
earned Best Supporting Actor honors for the same
program. Sandra Oh was Best Supporting Actress for
hospital TV show Grey's Anatomy. (Bob
Tourtellotte, Reuters)
Here is a
complete list of winners from the 2006 Golden Globes:
FILM
Drama:
Brokeback Mountain
Musical or
Comedy: Walk the Line
Actor in a Drama:
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Actress in a
Drama: Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Actor in a
Musical or Comedy: Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
Actress in a
Musical or Comedy: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Supporting Actor:
George Clooney, Syriana
Supporting
Actress: Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Director: Ang
Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Screenplay: Larry
McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain
Foreign Language
Film: Paradise Now
Original Score:
John Williams, Memoirs of a Geisha
Original Song: "A
Love That Will Never Grow Old," Brokeback Mountain
TELEVISION
Drama Series: Lost
Comedy Series:
Desperate Housewives
Actress in a
Drama: Geena Davis, Commander In Chief
Actress in a
Comedy: Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
Actor in a Drama:
Hugh Laurie, House
Actor in a
Comedy: Steve Carell, The Office
Supporting
Actress: Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy
Supporting Actor:
Paul Newman, Empire Falls
Miniseries or
Made-for-TV Movie: Empire Falls
Actress,
Miniseries, or Made-for-TV Movie: S. Epatha Merkerson,
Lackawanna Blues
Actor,
Miniseries, or Made-for-TV Movie: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Elvis
Cecil B. DeMille
Award: Anthony Hopkins
