Kidman, Crowe: Golden Globe winners

Arthur J Pais

A Beautiful Mind, a box-office hit inspired by the successful battle of a Princeton mathematician against schizophrenia, won a slew of Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, January 20, including the best picture (drama) nod.

The evening also saw The Lord Of The Rings, a huge box-office hit adored by the critics, failing to win any of the four categories it had been nominated in.

No Man's Land, a Bosnian film, won in the foreign film category beating such formidable opponents as Amelie from France and Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding.

Russell Crowe who played John Nash, the mathematician who overcomes his illness to win the Nobel Prize in A Beautiful Mind, won the best actor, trouncing, among others, Will Smith in Ali and Denzel Washington in Training Day.

In his heartfelt speech, Crowe, who is widely expected to win an Oscar, said that while A Beautiful Mind is rightly meant to entertain people, the filmmakers and he hoped it would also help people think of being more compassionate and understanding.

Earlier in the evening, Jennifer Connelly won the best supporting actress for her spirited performance as the never-giving-up wife of Nash. One of the reasons why the film has turned out a big success is that it is also treated as a mature love story.

In an evening that saw the triumph of many small budgeted films, Sissy Spacek won the award for her riveting performance as the mother of a murdered teenager in In The Bedroom. The film, made for about $8 million, has already grossed $10 million in a limited run.

In a surprise turn, veteran Robert Altman, who likes to make films outside the Hollywood canon, won the best director award in the comedy/musical category for his comedy of manners, Gosford Park, which also doubles as a mystery. The film, made in Britain for about $15 million, has grossed an impressive $11 million in a limited run. It is playing on 658 screens and would add on another 300 screens in the coming week.

Gosford Park failed to win the best picture nod in the comedy/musical category, yielding to the musical inspired by Bollywood, Moulin Rouge, which also won a best actress award for Nicole Kidman. She was also nominated for her sterling performance in the supernatural thriller, The Others, in the drama category.

"My hands are shaking. I never thought I would be in a musical leave alone win an award for one,'' Kidman, whose personal life hit the rocks after her producer and actor husband Tom Cruise sought a divorce, said to wide applause. Kidman, who portrays a singer at the legendary Paris nightclub involved in an ill-fated love affair with a struggling writer portrayed by Ewan McGregor, thanked her parents and sister for being around her during her toughest moments.

A Beautiful Mind and Moulin Rouge were nominated in six categories but they did not compete with each other. Unlike the Academy Awards, which give out only one Oscar for best film, the Golden Globes split the best film category in two parts -- one for best drama and a second for top musical or comedy.

A Beautiful Mind won four Golden Globes while Moulin Rouge took home three.

A decade ago, hardly anyone took the Golden Globes seriously, though the awards have been around for over five decades. Mainstream publications pointed out how many of the 90-strong Hollywood Foreign Press members were hardly full time journalists

Over the years, the Golden Globes have gained respectability and visibility, after the Foreign Press instituted a strict code. Today, over 100 million people view the awards globally. Practically every big name Hollywood movie and television mover and shaker attends the event.

Though most of Hollywood, including Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks were there for the awards -- not to forget Harrison Ford, who won the Cecil DeMille award for lifetime achievement -- Gene Hackman could not make it. He was delayed by a shooting stint abroad.

Hackman nabbed the Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical for The Royal Tenenbaums in which he played the eccentric patriarch, Royal Tenenbaum, of a family of frustrated geniuses.

One of the more surprising moments of the evening arrived early on when British actor Jim Broadbent won best supporting actor for his role in Iris. The film, on show in a handful of cities, presents him as John Bayley, husband of British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch, who nurses her as she battles Alzheimer's disease.