There was plenty of Glee at the Social Network that was the Golden Globes in Hollywood, where the big prizes went to a TV show about a song-filled high school and a film about the birth of Facebook, depriving the British hopeful The King’s Speech of six of the seven awards it was up for. Only Colin Firth triumphed at the first major awards ceremony of the year, which, in most categories, is seen as a reliable indicator for next month’s Oscars.
For the second year in a row, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association hired Ricky Gervais to host its evening of glitz and glamour. He opened with a nod to the increasing number of 3D films, and suggesting that the only film of the past year without 3D characters was The Tourist. This raised the question of how the film got three nominations – was it because the members of the HFPA just wanted to spend the evening with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. It certainly couldn’t be the fabled bribes, he suggested, because who would see tickets to a Cher concert as a bribe? “It’s not 1975,” he quipped.
After Gervais had started digging his comedic claws into more of Hollywood’s favorites, the evening launched with Christian Bale taking the Best Supporting Actor trophy for playing the drug-addicted brother of boxing champion Micky Ward in The Fighter. The film also picked up the prize for best supporting actress: Melissa Leo played the mother of the pair.
The top acting prizes went to Colin Firth for playing King George VI in the drama, The King’s Speech, Natalie Portman for the ballet drama Black Swan, Paul Giamatti for the comedy Barney’s Version and Annette Bening for the lesbian comedy The Kids Are All Right, which also took the prize for best comedy. Best Drama went to The Social Network, which also took the prizes for best director, for David Fincher. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for the same film also won him a Golden Globe. And the film picked up the best score, for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
The HFPA’s annual awards ceremony also honors the best achievement in television, where, as in the film categories, the main prizes are handed separately to dramas and comedies. Katey Segal’s performance in Sons of Anarchy earned her the best actress award for drama. Steve Buscemi took the best acting award for Boardwalk Empire, which also won best TV drama. Glee took the prize for Best Comedy series, as well as best supporting actor in a comedy, for Chris Colfer, and Jane Lynch was the best supporting actress for the same show.
The best actress in a comedy series was Laura Linney, the star of The Big C. And Jim Parsons, from Big Bang Theory, was awarded the Golden Globe for best actor in a TV comedy.
Bridging the gap between television and films are categories for miniseries and TV movies. Olivier Assayas’ biopic of the terrorist Carlos the Jackal, Carlos, won the main prize in this category, with Al Pacino taking the Golden Globe for best actor in a miniseries or TV movie for playing another real-life character, the euthanasia doctor Jack Kevorkian, in the TV movie You Don’t Know Jack. The best actress in this category went to Claire Danes for her portrayal of another real person, the autistic author and scientist Temple Grandin.
Other awards included Toy Story 3 for Best Animated Feature, the Danish film In A Better World took the Best Foreign Language Film and Cher’s song You Haven’t Seen The Last of Me was the Best Song, for Burlesque.
The HFPA also gave its Cecil B De Mille lifetime achievement award to Robert De Niro, who quipped, on seeing his forty year career condensed into three minutes, “I made nothing but hits!”