Globetrot/ 12 Years A Slave, American Hustle take top Golden Globes

The film 12 Years a Slave took the coveted Golden Globe for best drama and American Hustle won best musical or comedy in a kick-off to the Hollywood awards season that foreshadows a wide scattering of honours for a year crowded with high-quality movies.
Only two films garnered more than one award at the 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards, an important but not entirely accurate barometer for the industry’s highest honours, the Academy Awards to be held on March 2.
American Hustle, a romp through corruption in the 1970s directed by David O. Russell, was the top winner with three Globes for its seven nominations, while modest AIDS film Dallas Buyers Club starring Matthew McConaughey, took home two acting awards for him and co-star Jared Leto. British director Steve McQueen’s brutal depiction of pre-Civil war American slavery in 12 Years a Slave, based on a true story of free black man Solomon Northup who was sold into slavery, only won one award out of its seven nominations. It was entirely shut out from the acting honours, for which it had been a presumed favourite. But best drama is the top award of the Golden Globes and McQueen thanked actor and producer Brad Pitt, who played a small part in the film but a big role in getting it made. “Without you this movie would never had gotten made, so thank you, wherever you may be,” McQueen said.
Among those that left empty-handed were two darlings of critics, the Coen brothers’ paean to the 1960s folk scene Inside Llewyn Davis and Alexander Payne’s homage to the heartland, Nebraska.
The first big night of the Hollywood awards season is the purview of the 90 some journalists in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), who wield outsized clout in the awards race as buzz around these honours influences members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in their voting for the Oscars. The Globes have a mixed record when it comes to predicting the Oscar best picture, though last year’s best drama winner, Argo, did go on to win the Academy Award for best movie.

Leonardo thanks scorsese
The HFPA is known to also reward big Hollywood names and this year Leonardo DiCaprio won best actor in a musical or comedy for his role as a fast-living, drug-popping, swindling stockbroker in the The Wolf of Wall Street, his fifth collaboration with director Martin Scorsese. “As the history of cinema unfolds, you will be regarded as one of the great artists of all time,” DiCaprio told Scorsese as he accepted the award.
The HFPA honored Woody Allen with the Cecil B. DeMille award recognizing outstanding contribution to the entertainment field. Famously averse to awards shows, the 78-year-old Allen sent one of his favorite actresses, Diane Keaton, to stand in for him.

Golden Globe Awards draws best TV audience in 10 years

The telecast of the 71st annual Golden Globe Awards drew its best audience in the past decade as 20.9 million people tuned in to watch the Hollywood awards show, Comcast Corp-owned network NBC said recently. The three-hour awards show, which honours the year’s achievements in film and television, rose 6 per cent in total viewers compared to last year and was up 2 per cent in the 18-49 age group most coveted by advertisers, according to early figures from Nielsen Media Research.
The show hosted for a second consecutive year by comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler paid dividends again for NBC as the Golden Globe Awards beat other televised ceremonies such as the Emmys and People’s Choice Awards for viewers.
Fey and Poehler, who poked fun at their peers and themselves, have earned critical praise for their performances over the past two years, compared to the mixed reviews for predecessor, acidic British comic Ricky Gervais. The duo have already signed on to host next year’s Golden Globes.