It was a big year for the Brits at Sunday’s Golden Globes with “Slumdog Millionaire,” Kate Winslet and Sally Hawkins taking home major awards.
“Slumdog,” a low-budget film about an Indian teenager looking for love and competing on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” took home the prizes for Best Motion Picture- Drama, Best Director for Danny Boyle, Best Screenplay for Simon Beaufoy and Best Original Score for A.R. Rahman.
With all the film’s honors and Winslet’s double-win, one might also say it’s the year of the underdog. Winslet, widely proclaimed to be the best actress of our generation, was 0-10 at the Golden Globes and the Oscars until last night.
The extremely shocked and humble star won Best Supporting Actress for “The Reader” and Best Actress for “Revolutionary Road.” She relished the moment saying, “Wrap up? You have no idea how much I’m not wrapping up” but sweetly stumbled through her speech by repeatedly telling herself to “gather” and even forgetting Angelina Jolie when acknowledging her fellow nominees.
“Happy-Go-Lucky’s” Hawkins was another speechless Brit. Fellow Best Supporting Actress nominee, Emma Thompson, who was still seated in the audience had to gently sooth and coach Hawkins to compose herself and go on.
Best Actor Mickey Rourke from “The Wrestler” had no trouble with his speech and, on the contrary, gave the audience quite an entertaining one thanking his dogs and saying “balls” twice. Plus, he got flipped off (lovingly, of course) from his director after calling him “a tough son of a bitch.”
Other noteworthy speeches from winners included the “30 Rock” cast who won Best TV Series – Comedy, Best Actor for Alec Baldwin and Best Actress for Tina Fey. Fey proceeded to tell all the web-dissers out there to “suck it,” and Tracy Morgan informed us that “Tina Fey and I had an agreement that if Barack Obama won, I would speak for the show from now on. Welcome to post-racial America!”
You didn’t have to be a winner to score laughs either. Presenter Ricky Gervais swaggered out on the stage with a beer in his hand complaining about how the Hollywood Foreign Press didn’t nominate his comedy, “Ghost Town.”
“That is the last time I have sex with 200 middle-aged journalists,” he said.
Not everyone laughed, however, at presenter Sacha Baron Cohen when he said Hollywood is also suffering from the financial crisis and Madonna had to “get rid of one of her personal assistants. Our thoughts go out to you, Guy Ritchie.” In fact, he was met with dirty looks from Sandra Bullock and Salma Hayek.
Perhaps Hollywood’s not a big fan of Borat…
Speaking of offensive, Colin Farrell who usually goes hand-in-hand with the network censors was surprisingly well-mannered not even cursing once. Although some would say his Best Actor win for “In Bruges” was surprise enough beating out Javier Bardem and Dustin Hoffman.
Gabriel Byrne’s Best Actor in a TV-Drama win and Anna Paquin’s Best Actress-Drama win also threw off Globe handicappers who were expecting more likely wins from “Mad Men’s” Jon Hamm and January Jones.
“Mad Men’s” win for Best TV Series- Drama, however, was easily predicted along with “John Adam’s” sweep and Heath Ledger’s win for Best Supporting Actor for “The Dark Knight.”
Director Christopher Nolan toasted Ledger’s legacy he built for himself in cinema’s history and also acknowledged “the hole ripped in the future of cinema” as a result of his premature death.
Despite the huge, surprising shut-out of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” at least the Globes gave “Slumdog Millionaire” its rightful place in the history of cinema.
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