2004 Golden Globes
Return
Of The King wins best picture.
Peter Jackson takes best
director
The
final installment of the fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the
King won four trophies at Sunday's Golden Globe Awards, including best drama
and best director for Peter Jackson. The last film in the blockbuster trilogy,
it also gathered two musical awards for Toronto-born composer Howard Shore,
who won for best original score and for best movie song Into the West, which
was performed by Annie Lennox. "I never realized that seven years on this
movie would end up turning me into a Hobbit," Jackson joked, referring to the
shortish, big-footed magical characters in the J.R.R. Tolkien stories. "Doing
these movies for a composer is a gift," Shore said on stage. "It's a labour of
love, really, to translate Tolkien's words. I have great inspiration from his
books and from Peter Jackson's great filmmaking." Charlize Theron won best
actress in a drama for her work in the film Monster. The Barbarian Invasions
by Montreal filmmaker Denys Arcand failed to win in the foreign language
category, as a movie called Osama from Afghanistan took the prize. In other
categories, Diane Keaton as an older woman in love in Something's Gotta Give
and Bill Murray as an aging actor in a platonic romance with a younger woman
in Lost in Translation collected Golden Globes for lead comedy performances.
"Getting to play a woman to love at 57 is like reaching for the stars with a
step ladder. I know I got lucky," said Keaton. Lost in Translation won best
comedy picture. Murray thanked Lost in Translation writer-director Sofia
Coppola and went on to dryly mock Hollywood award speeches, declaring he had
fired all his agents and representatives and had no one else to thank. He also
poked fun at the idea that comedy performers are overshadowed by dramatic
stars. "Too often we forget our brothers on the other side of the aisle -- the
dramatic actors," he said. "I'd just like to say: Where would our war, our
miseries and our psychological traumas come from?" Coppola collected the best
screenplay trophy, and thanked her father -- The Godfather director and
co-writer Francis Ford Coppola, calling him "a great screenwriting teacher."
Among TV nominees, HBO's six-hour adaptation of playwright Tony Kushner's
Angels in America won five trophies, including best miniseries or TV movie.
But movies got most of the attention. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association
event is regarded by many in Hollywood as one of the year's biggest parties,
but it's also a way to generate front-runner buzz for the Oscars. The
Globes are distributed by a relatively small group, about 90 journalists who
cover entertainment for foreign-based media outlets. Tim Robbins and Renee
Zellweger collected supporting movie performer honours. Robbins' supporting
role as a grown child-abuse survivor suspected of murder in Mystic River
earned him the first trophy of the evening. "Wow! We just sat down. The good
thing about this coming early is that I get to drink now," Robbins joked.
Later in his acceptance speech he shouted to director Clint Eastwood: "Clint,
you are the man! I have never felt so trusted and in such good hands as when
we were on the set for that movie." Zellweger received the supporting movie
actress award for playing a tough-as-bark backwoods woman in Cold Mountain.
She previously won two lead comedy actress Golden Globes for Nurse Betty in
2001 and last year for Chicago. Zellweger told the crowd that playing the
character of Ruby was "one of my greatest joys." To her co-stars Nicole Kidman
and Jude Law, she said: "It was a privilege to shovel out the barn with you."
The Globes have a history of honouring future Oscar winners, including
Titanic, American Beauty and Gladiator. A win often bodes well for performers,
too, with previous Globe winners including Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry,
Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich and Jack Nicholson for As Good as It Gets.
Besides winning best TV movie or miniseries, Angels in America won four
performing awards. Co-star Meryl Streep and Al Pacino were picked best TV
movie lead performers and supporting TV honours went to Jeffrey Wright and
Mary-Louise Parker.
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