Dreamgirls and Babel win big at Globes

The Oscars got their front-runners on Monday: Dreamgirls and Babel are likely to duke it out for best film, while Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker take the lead in the fight for best actors.

All won Golden Globes and with that the vital momentum needed to move toward the big prize, the February 25 Oscars.

The Globes, produced by the minuscule Hollywood Foreign Press Association, may not always predict the final Oscar winners, but they help set the debate in the hectic weeks leading up to the film industry's highest honors.

The list of Globe winners this year pretty well complied with conventional wisdom, although some Oscars voters may find the selection of Babel as 2006's best drama a bit too gut-wrenching. A story about the globalization of pain and suffering, Babel was filmed in five languages in four countries and is far from traditional Hollywood fare.

It is expected to go up against Dreamgirls, director Martin Scorsese's gangster drama The Departed, quirky family film Little Miss Sunshine, and The Queen, which stars Mirren, when Oscar nominations are announced on January 23.

Scorsese left the Globes a happy man too--he was named best director for The Departed, giving his film a chance for wider glory.

Although he has created classic films like Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, Scorsese has never won an Oscar for best film or best director, and the Hollywood that denied him those prizes may be ready to show its sentimental side.

Mirren stopped a reporter when he tried to ask a question about her Oscar chances. She won the best actress in a drama award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.

THE BIG O

"No stop," she told the reporter. "It's the big O. I never had a big O. They say the Earth moves. I can't wait."

When Whitaker's name was announced as winner of best drama for his portrayal of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, he jumped up. Winning, he said, "was like a jolt of lightning."

Dreamgirls won three awards, more than any other film, including best supporting actor and actress for Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson.

Babel earned only one award but it was a big one--best film drama. It entered the Golden Globes as the most nominated movie, with seven nominations.

The movie's director, Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, noted the long and trying journey to get his movie made across three continents--Africa, North America, and Asia.

He said Babel transcended borders with its gut-wrenching performances.

"I think the power of cinema is universal and at the end, emotion doesn't need translation and that's the beauty of it."

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays a dimwitted reporter in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, was given the award for best actor in a film musical or comedy.

In his characteristically dry manner, Cohen thanked his costar, Ken Davitian, who sat on his face in a naked wrestling match in the film.

"I was faced with a choice--death or to breathe in the air that had been trapped in a small pocket between his buttocks for 30 years," Cohen joked. "Kenneth, if it was not for that rancid bubble, I would not be here today."

In the other top film honor Meryl Streep won the award for best actress in a comedy for her portrayal of a wicked fashion editor in The Devil Wears Prada. It was the sixth Golden Globe of Streep's career. (Reuters)