Cameron strikes gold with sci-fi blockbuster

SCIENCE-fiction blockbuster Avatar was the big winner at the Golden Globes in Los Angeles last night.

The epic film won the prize for best film drama and picked up the directing honour for James Cameron, raising the Titanic filmmaker's prospects for another Academy Awards triumph.

It was a repeat of Cameron's Globes night 12 years ago, when Titanic won best drama and the directing prize on its way to dominating the Oscars.

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Cameron said: "Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other, and us to the Earth. And if you have to go four-and-a-half light years to another, made-up planet to appreciate this miracle of the world that we have right here, that's the wonder of cinema right there, that's the magic."

As he accepted the directing Globe, Cameron had kind words for ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, nominated as best director for The Hurt Locker.

"Frankly, I thought Kathryn was going to get this. She richly deserves it."

Winning the dramatic-acting honours at the awards, hosted by comedian Ricky Gervais, were Sandra Bullock for the American football tale The Blind Side and Jeff Bridges for country music story Crazy Heart. The crowd gave a standing ovation to Bridges, a veteran generally overlooked for key Hollywood honours.

The acting prizes for musical and comedy went to Meryl Streep for the Julia Child story Julie & Julia and Robert Downey Jr for the crime romp Sherlock Holmes.

Streep's competition for best actress included herself. She also was nominated for the romance It's Complicated.

"I just want to say that in my long career, I've played so many extraordinary woman that I'm getting mistaken for one," Streep said. "I'm very clear that I'm the vessel for other people's stories and other people's lives."

The supporting-performance Globes were won by Mo'Nique as an abusive welfare mother in Precious and Christoph Waltz as a gleefully bloodthirsty Nazi in Inglourious Basterds.

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The Las Vegas bachelor bash The Hangover won for best musical or comedy, bringing uncharacteristic awards attention for broad comedy, a genre that often gets overlooked in Hollywood.

The blockbuster Up won the award for animated film.

Films from Pixar Animation, the Disney outfit that made Up, have won all four prizes for animated movies since the Globes introduced the category in 2006. Past Pixar winners are WALL-E, Ratatouille and Cars.

Mad Men won for best TV drama, while Michael C Hall won best actor in a TV drama for Dexter, in which he plays a serial killer who only kills other murderers.

Dexter also won the supporting-actor TV honour for John Lithgow. Other TV winners included Juliana Margulies as best actress in a drama for The Good Wife and Toni Collette as best comedy actress for The United States of Tara.

Though one of Hollywood's biggest parties, the Globes bore sombre reminders of tragedy in the real world, with many stars wearing ribbons in support of earthquake victims in Haiti.

The winners could get a last-minute boost for the Oscars, whose nominations voting closes on Saturday. Last year's big Globe winner, Slumdog Millionaire, went on to dominate the Oscars.

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