Golden age for film and TV as favourites reign

The major honours at the Golden Globes ended up with the favourites as American Hustle won three awards, but 12 Years A Slave concluded the night as best film drama.

David O Russell’s con caper American Hustle swiped best film comedy, and acting awards for Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence.

Despite missing out in the other six categories it was nominated in, the unflinching historical drama 12 Years A Slave won one of the most important gongs.

“A little bit in shock,” said its British director Steve McQueen, before shrugging “Roll, Jordan, roll” — the lyrics to the old gospel song sung in the slavery epic.

However, best picture was the only award for the firm, which had seven nominations, tied for the most with American Hustle.

The awards returned Lawrence, a winner last year for Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, to the stage for an acceptance speech — something she said was no easier a year later.

“Don’t ever do this again,” she said to herself. “It’s so scary.”

Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto both won for their startlingly gaunt performances in the Texas HIV drama Dallas Buyers Club.

Leonardo DiCaprio, a nine-time Globe nominee, won his second Globe for best actor in a comedy for his uninhibited work in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Alfonso Cuaron won best director for the space odyssey Gravity, a worldwide hit and critical favourite.

The film will probably join American Hustle and 12 Years A Slave as an Oscar front-runner on Thursday, when Academy Awards nominations are announced.

The night’s biggest winners may have been hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, whose second time hosting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Beverly Hills, California, ceremony was just as successful as last year’s show.

Poehler and Fey last year brought the Globes telecast to a six-year ratings high of 19.7m, winning universal praise along the way for their irreverent cracks that playfully punctured Hollywood’s veneer.

The pair came out with a spree of punchlines, dishing them around the Beverly Hills Hilton, much to the delight of its starry audience. Matt Damon, Meryl Streep and, naturally, George Clooney were among the targets. Fey particularly had the crowd roaring with a description of Gravity, which stars Sandra Bullock and Clooney.

“George Clooney would rather float away in space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age,” said Fey.

The Globes are unique in celebrating both film and television. Perhaps more than ever, those lines were blurred this time, capping a year in which TV was much celebrated as the more dynamic storytelling medium.

The beloved and now concluded Breaking Bad earned some of the night’s loudest cheers for its first Globe wins: Best drama TV series and best actor in a drama for Bryan Cranston, who called his honour a lovely way to say goodbye.

The big TV film winner, the Liberace melodrama Behind the Candelabra, was made for HBO by one of cinema’s most talented directors, Steven Soderbergh, after Hollywood passed.

U2 award

U2 and Danger Mouse won the award for best original song for ‘Ordinary Love’, recorded for the Nelson Mandela biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

U2 singer Bono said working on the film completed a decades-long journey with Mandela, having played an anti-apartheid concert some 35 years ago.

“This man turned our life upside down, right-side up,” he said of the South African leader who died in December. “A man who refused to hate not because he didn’t have rage or anger or those things, but that he thought love would do a better job.”

Fox faux pas

The E! Entertainment network apologised to actor Michael J Fox for an online graphic during its Golden Globes coverage that listed his Parkinson’s disease as a “fun fact”.

The graphic was shown during E!’s live stream of red carpet coverage Sunday, although not on TV. As the actor was entering the Beverly Hills Hilton, the “fun fact” graphic noted Fox’s diagnosis in 1991. Fox was nominated for best actor in a comedy for his new NBC show.

The network said it regretted the insensitive remark. In its statement, E! said: “We understand the serious nature of the disease and sincerely apologise.”

It also shared this “fun fact” about Robert Redford: “Robert Redford was stricken with polio as a child.”