Golden Globe Award Winners

Best Picture Drama - Atonement
Best Picture Comedy or Musical - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Best Actor Drama - Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Best Actress Drama - Julie Christie, Away From Her
Best Actor Comedy or Musical - Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Best Actress Comedy or Musical - Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
Best Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Best Supporting Actress - Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Best Director - Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Best Screenplay - Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Best Foreign Language Film - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (France)
Best Animated Feature - Ratatouille
Best Original Score - Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Best Original Song - "Guaranteed," Into the Wild

Wow. What a night. The HFPA really threw some curveballs at us. I didn't do very well with my predictions (I only guessed 8 out of 14 correctly), but it was a fantastic night for my ideal winners, which made up 12 out of 14. 13 out of 14 if you count Into the Wild's win for Best Song.

First of all, I was THRILLED to see both Marion Cotillard and Cate Blanchett triumph. And I nearly jumped out of my seat when Sweeney Todd won Best Picture (Comedy or Musical). The failure of Juno to win any awards was a triumph for ingenuity over likability, which is a rare thing indeed for the Golden Globes. I hope this sounds the death knell for its Oscar chances. It will still get a Best Screenplay nod of course, and probably Best Actress...but I really hope it doesn't go any farther than that.

The victory of Atonement was a surprise to say the least, and a boost for its Oscar chances, which were almost dead in the water. Sweeney is still a longshot (remember, Dreamgirls won that award last year), but its win here definitely doesn't hurt.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly also got a huge, very well deserved boost. Of course it is ineligible for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars (Persepolis is the official French entry), but Julian Schnabel is on fire. The film may just make it into the top 5 after all. God knows it deserves it.

The NBC telecast was an embarrassment. Why did they have to get Billy Bush to co-host? The man is an idiot, making moronic statements about how he thought Cate Blanchett's performance in I'm Not There was just "an impersonation of a man." What a plebian assessment of a great, nuanced performance. And what kind of host makes a statement like that after she won the award? Very poor taste, Mr. Bush. Very poor indeed. The host's job is not to complain about the winners, but to inform us and move on. Leave the assessments to the people who know what they're talking about.

But he and co-host Nancy O'Dell were your typical bland, robotic tabloid TV announcers. So what do you expect? And why did they insist on continually showing that clip of Nikki Blonsky kicking over her family's coffee table after learning she had been nominated? Blonsky was good in Hairspray, but her gee-whiz small town girl goes to Hollywood persona is getting old fast. And, like Jennifer Hudson before her, I don't forsee her having much of a viable Hollywood career post Hairspray.

Anyway, insipid telecast, GREAT choices. If only There Will Be Blood had won Best Picture this would have been a perfect night. Kudos to all the winners. Now on to the Oscars! Here's hoping it's Billy Bush (and Juno) free.

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