GOLDEN GLOBES
MARK RETURN OF GLITZ
Copyright 2002 www.variety.com
[ January21st 2002 ]
Hollywood's
biggest stars, such as Nicole Kidman and celebrity
couple Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie,
strolled the red carpet before the Golden Globe
Awards Sunday amid unprecedented security for
one of Hollywood's top awards show.
Each
year the Golden Globes, which are given by 90
voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association, narrow the odds of winning an Oscar
- Hollywood's top film honors awarded in March
by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
As the curtain rises on the 59th Annual Golden
Globe Awards, Hollywood has returned to its trademark
glamour after the television industry's subdued
Emmy awards last November, which were delayed
twice after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The stars
were chauffeured to the Beverly Hilton Hotel,
where the event is held, in limousines stocked
with champagne. They donned tuxedos, sequined
gowns and diamonds, a return to something like
business as usual after Emmy organizers asked
participants to forgo flashy fashion in deference
to the national mood. Even so, the Golden Globes
ceremony took place amid the tightest security
in the event's history and the red carpet was
ringed by police and private security.
This
year's contest for Oscars is wide open in the
race for best film with Crowe's drama A Beautiful
Mind pitted against critical hits such as the
musical Moulin Rouge, starring Kidman, and Ali
with Will Smith playing the legendary boxer. Beautiful
Mind and Moulin Rouge came into this year's Golden
Globes with six nominations each, but they will
be competing in different categories. Unlike the
Academy Awards, which give out only one Oscar
for best film, the Golden Globes split the best
movie category in two parts - one for best drama
and a second for top musical or comedy.
Director
Ron Howard's Beautiful Mind faces tough competition
for best dramatic film honors from The Lord of
the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which won
the American Film Institute's best-picture award
earlier this month. Critics have been split over
three other films that all received widespread
acclaim: dark drama In the Bedroom, the Coen brothers'
offbeat The Man Who Wasn't There, and David Lynch's
love story, Mulholland Drive.
Nominees
for best actors in a drama are led by Beautiful
Mind star Russell Crowe, who received his second
straight nod in the best dramatic actor category
for his portrayal of schizophrenic mathematician
John Forbes Nash. Crowe faces a fight from Will
Smith, who won praise for his performance as the
prizefighter Muhammad Ali in Ali and from Denzel
Washington for portraying a rogue cop in Training
Day. Other nominees are Kevin Spacey in The Shipping
News and critics' pick Thornton for The Man Who
Wasn't There.
After
taking most critics' awards, Sissy Spacek is the
clear front-runner in the best dramatic actress
category for her role as a grieving mother in
In the Bedroom. She faces stiff competition from
Halle Berry in the racial drama Monster's Ball,
Judi Dench for love story Iris, Kidman in The
Others, and Britain's Tilda Swinton in The Deep
End.
In the
best musical or comedy category, nominations included
Moulin Rouge starring Kidman and Ewan McGregor
as a pair of ill-fated lovers, and Robert Altman's
Gosford Park, an upstairs-downstairs tale of murder
amid English high society and its serving class.
They are joined by computer-animated hit Shrek,
Legally Blonde starring Reese Witherspoon as an
unlikely Harvard Law student, and Bridget Jones's
Diary with Renee Zellweger as a British writer.
Best
actress in a movie musical or comedy nominees
were Thora Birch for Ghost World, Cate Blanchett
in Bandits, Witherspoon in Legally Blonde, and
Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary, as well as
Kidman. In the best actor in a musical or comedy,
McGregor was joined by Gene Hackman for The Royal
Tenenbaums, Hugh Jackman in Kate & Leopold, Thornton
for Bandits, and John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig
and the Angry Inch.
While
the spotlight at the Golden Globes shines on movies
and movie stars, the night also is filled with
awards for television shows, actors and actresses.
In those arenas, NBC White House drama The West
Wing, named best dramatic TV series last year,
squares off against HBO's The Sopranos, which
took the title in 2000.
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