Beverly Hills: The 72nd annual Golden Globes Awards spread the love around to everyone except North Korea and Bill Cosby.
The awards season favorite, Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making Boyhood won both best director for Linklater and best supporting actress for Patricia Arquette. The sweetly humanist film had a similarly touching effect on one of Hollywood’s glitziest evenings. Taking out her written speech, Arquette apologized: “I’m the only nerd with a piece of paper.”
“Bottom line is we’re all flawed in this world. No one’s perfect,” said Linklater. “I want to dedicate this to parents that are evolving everywhere and families that are just passing through this world and doing their best.”
Perhaps the chief Oscar rival to Boyhood, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s backstage romp Birdman, also fared well. It won best actor in a comedy or musical for its lead, Michael Keaton, who plays a former superhero star tinged with his own history, and best screenplay.
Reflecting on his life, Keaton’s voice broke up as he thanked his son, whom he called his best friend. “Shoot,” he said. “Two things I swore I wasn’t going to do: cry and give air quotes.”
But in a shocker, Birdman was upset by Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel for best film, comedy or musical. The film was Anderson’s biggest box office hit yet, but not an award season favourite.
“Je Suis Charlie” reverberated through the ceremony, from signs held aloft on the red carpet by the likes of Helen Mirren to the speeches of Cecil B. DeMille winner George Clooney, who evoked the name of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that was recently attacked by deadly terrorists. Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Theo Kingma drew a standing ovation for a speech pledging support of free speech “from North Korea to Paris.”
Clooney, a young lifetime achievement honoree at 53, had been among Hollywood’s most vocal about preserving free speech after hackers threatened violence over The Interview.
“It’s a good chance for us to meet face to face and apologize for all those snarky things we said to each other,” said Clooney, referring to the embarrassing emails leaked by the hackers. He also spoke sincerely about his new wife, Amal Clooney: “It’s a humbling thing when you find somebody to love.”
In one of the evening’s most hotly contested categories, best actor in a drama, Eddie Redmayne emerged as victorious over Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), David Oyelowo (Selma) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler) for his performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
Julianne Moore won best actress in a drama for her startling performance as an academic with early on-set Alzheimer’s in Still Alice.
Amy Adams surprised in taking best actress in a comedy or musical for her performance in Big Eyes. “I didn’t even reapply lip gloss,” said an unprepared Adams.
The first award of the night went to J.K. Simmons for best supporting actor for his performance as a domineering jazz teacher in the acclaimed indie Whiplash. He thanked his confident co-star, Miles Teller, whom he called: “A young actor of such maturity and brilliance that he inspired me every day to want to scream at him and hit him in the face.”
The DreamWorks sequel How to Train Your Dragon 2 took best animated film over the favourite, The Lego Movie. The Russian entry Leviathan took best foreign language film.
As the only major awards show to honour both movies and TV, the Globes have also benefited from television’s rise. Hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler alluded to that by leading the crowd in a call-and-response cheer, chanting “Movies ... Awesome! TV ... Better!”
Amazon, crashing the party like Netflix did before it, celebrated its first — and second — Golden Globe for the sexual identity comedy Transparent, winning best TV series, musical or comedy. The show’s star, Jeffery Tambor, landed best actor in the category, dedicating his award to the transgender community.
AMC’s adaptation of the Coen brothers’ acclaimed 1996 film, Fargo, came in the leading TV contender with five nominations and promptly won best miniseries or movie, as well as best actor, miniseries or movie, for Billy Bob Thornton.
“You can say anything in the world and get in trouble. I know this for a fact,” said Thornton. “So I’m just going to say thank you.”
Led by Fey and Poehler, the Globes have been on a terrific upswing in recent years. Last year’s awards drew 20.9 million viewers, the most since 2004. Accepting the Globe for best original song for Glory in the civil rights drama “Selma,” the rapper Common raised the status of the group behind the Globes even higher: “I want to thank God and the Hollywood Foreign Press.”
The Hollywood Foreign Press, a group of mostly freelance journalists, has lately cleaned up its reputation for idiosyncratic choices and awards swayed by celebrity. Last year, the HFPA chose the eventual Academy Awards best-picture winner, 12 Years a Slave, as best drama and American Hustle as best comedy.
