Golden Globes Winners List: A Night For The Underdogs
by Gil Kaufman

LOS ANGELES (RushPRnews) 01/12/09-It’s fitting that a pair of dark rags-to-riches stories in which the underdog endures great pain to rise up triumphed Sunday night at the Golden Globes. The biggest winner of the evening, “Slumdog Millionaire,” overcame odds just to get made and has built the kind of word-of-mouth buzz most filmmakers only dream of, especially for a small picture filmed in the slums of Mumbai.

And especially on a night when it was up against some major Hollywood heavy hitters like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Doubt” and “Frost/Nixon,” all of which were shut out of the major categories.

While “Slumdog” swept up the awards for best drama, director, screenplay and music score, another up-from-the-ashes tale, Darren Aronofsky’s gritty, grappling redemption yarn, “The Wrestler,” put a golden crown on the classic Hollywood comeback story of actor/brawler Mickey Rourke. He snagged the Best Actor in a Drama prize for his sweat-and-blood-soaked take on washed-up wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson.

Some wins were expected. Who didn’t think, despite stiff competition, Heath Ledger would win a well-deserved posthumous Best Supporting Actor prize for his harrowing take on the Joker in “The Dark Knight”? But the win by little-known English actress Sally Hawkins of “Happy-Go-Lucky” for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy over such boldface names as Frances McDormand and Meryl Streep was a pleasant surprise. And Hawkins’ emotional, rambling and slightly tipsy speech was one of those moments the liquor-lubricated Globes show lives for. Similarly, the surprising Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy win for Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” elicited an endearingly flustered thank-you from producer Letty Aronson.

Kate Winslet’s double win for Best Actress in a Drama for “Revolutionary Road” and Best Supporting Actress for “The Reader” was not totally unexpected, though it was a very rare dramatic twofer coup with long odds. But if you had money on Colin Farrell scooping the Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for his little-seen stint as a hit man on the run in “In Bruges,” you knew something the rest of us didn’t.

The Globes are often a predictor for the Oscars — whose nominations will be announced on January 22 — so you can probably expect to see many of the same boldface names in the running again, including last night’s losers, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anne Hathaway, Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Meryl Streep.

Here’s a full list of the night’s winners:
Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”
Best Original Song: Bruce Springsteen, “The Wrestler”
Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Movie: Tom Wilkinson, “John Adams”
Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Movie: Laura Dern, “Recount”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Drama: Gabriel Byrne, “In Treatment”
Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama: Anna Paquin, “True Blood”
Outstanding Animated Feature: “WALL-E”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: “John Adams”
Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
Best Foreign Language Film: “Waltz With Bashir”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: Laura Linney, “John Adams”
Best Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy: Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: Paul Giamatti, “John Adams”
Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy: “30 Rock”
Best Original Score, A.R. Rahman: “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy: Tina Fey, “30 Rock”
Cecil B. DeMille Award: Steven Spielberg
Best Director – Motion Picture: Danny Boyle “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Colin Farrell, “In Bruges”
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture -Drama: Kate Winslet, “Revolutionary Road”
Best Television Series – Drama: “Mad Men”
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
Best Motion Picture – Drama: “Slumdog Millionaire”

Source: The MovieBlog