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Brokeback Mountain leads the pack with four Golden
Globe wins

Brokeback Mountain leads the pack with four Golden
Globe wins

Huffman_globes

A heady mix of political drama and romance--both gay and straight--won major Golden Globe awards on Monday with Brokeback Mountain earning the Best Film Drama prize and Walk the Line Best Musical or Comedy. Felicity Huffman (pictured) was named Best Actress in a Film Drama, playing a transgender woman on the verge of a sex change in Transamerica.

A heady mix of political drama and romance--both gay and straight--won major Golden Globe awards on Monday with Brokeback Mountain earning the Best Film Drama prize and Walk the Line Best Musical or Comedy. Brokeback, which has wowed critics and found a sizable audience at box offices with its gay love story, walked off with four Golden Globes, more than any other movie, including Best Director for Ang Lee, Screenplay, and Song. The movie entered the show a favorite among its rivals after having been nominated in a leading seven categories, and it now becomes a clear front-runner for the Oscars, the U.S. film industry's top awards, to be given out in March.

But Walk the Line, about the long love affair between singers Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, may be a close number 2. It earned three Golden Globes and won trophies for stars Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Best Actor and Actress in Musical or Comedy, respectively. Felicity Huffman was named Best Actress in a Film Drama, playing a transgender woman on the verge of a sex change in Transamerica, and Philip Seymour Hoffman was named Best Film Actor in a Movie Drama for his role as gay author Truman Capote in Capote.

The film awards capped a night in which gay movies and characters dominated the winner's circle, and the movies' makers and actors urged audiences to see beyond the gay stories and into deeper themes of love, family ties, and fearmongering. "You can never categorize or stereotype a region or a place. People fall in love, period," Lee said backstage. This is a universal story.... I just wanted to make a love story."

But politics played a major role at the Golden Globes too, especially early in the evening when George Clooney was named Best Supporting Actor in a Film playing a veteran CIA agent in the Middle East oil drama Syriana. "This is early, I haven't had a drink yet," Clooney joked when he took the stage to accept his award, the first award of the night. But he turned serious when acknowledging the film's writer-director, Stephen Gaghan, as well as Warner Independent Pictures for releasing such a politically charged film. "These are tough questions to ask, and I'm very proud that the studios are willing to ask these questions," he said about Syriana's take on the Middle East and the politics of oil.

British actress Rachel Weisz was named Best Supporting Actress in a Film drama for her portrayal of a social activist in Africa in the thriller The Constant Gardener. Palestinian film Paradise Now, which looks at why suicide bombers take their own lives and kill others, was named Best Foreign Language Film. Its director, Hany Abu-Assad, called the award "a recognition that the Palestinians deserve their liberty and equality unconditionally."

Golden Globe winners are chosen annually by about 85 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are widely watched as a measure of which movies will later vie for Oscars, which are voted on by some 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Golden Globe winners often go on to win Oscars, and the stars turned out for Monday's show in tuxedos, gowns, and fine jewelry to wow viewers in some 172 countries around the world.

Unlike the Oscars, Golden Globes also are given out for television shows, and in that arena, the ABC network swept the top categories, with its hit show Lost earning Best Drama Series and another of its top-rated programs, Desperate Housewives, taking the prize for Best Comedy. Among TV winners, Geena Davis, who was named Best Actress in a Drama Series for playing the first female U.S. president in Commander In Chief, offered audiences one of the award show's lighter moments in an evening that held few surprises. When she collected her trophy onstage, Davis noted that a young girl had tugged at her dress before the program and told her that Commander In Chief inspired her to be president. As the crowd sighed, Davis smiled. "Well, that didn't actually happen," she said. "But it could have.... And were that to be the case, then all of this would be worth it."

British actor Hugh Laurie won the award for Best Actor in a TV Drama playing a hard-edged doctor in medical drama House. Steve Carell was named Best Actor in a TV Comedy playing an insensitive boss in The Office, and in a surprise, Mary-Louise Parker took home the Golden Globe award for her role as a pot-selling suburban mom in cable TV program Weeds. Empire Falls, about life in a small town, won the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or TV Movie, and Paul Newman earned Best Supporting Actor honors for the same program. Sandra Oh was Best Supporting Actress for hospital TV show Grey's Anatomy. (Bob Tourtellotte, Reuters)

Here is a complete list of winners from the 2006 Golden Globes:

FILM

Drama: Brokeback Mountain

Musical or Comedy: Walk the Line

Actor in a Drama: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

Actress in a Drama: Felicity Huffman, Transamerica

Actor in a Musical or Comedy: Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line

Actress in a Musical or Comedy: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

Supporting Actor: George Clooney, Syriana

Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener

Director: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain

Screenplay: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain

Foreign Language Film: Paradise Now

Original Score: John Williams, Memoirs of a Geisha

Original Song: "A Love That Will Never Grow Old," Brokeback Mountain

TELEVISION

Drama Series: Lost

Comedy Series: Desperate Housewives

Actress in a Drama: Geena Davis, Commander In Chief

Actress in a Comedy: Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

Actor in a Drama: Hugh Laurie, House

Actor in a Comedy: Steve Carell, The Office

Supporting Actress: Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy

Supporting Actor: Paul Newman, Empire Falls

Miniseries or Made-for-TV Movie: Empire Falls

Actress, Miniseries, or Made-for-TV Movie: S. Epatha Merkerson, Lackawanna Blues

Actor, Miniseries, or Made-for-TV Movie: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Elvis

Cecil B. DeMille Award: Anthony Hopkins

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