Richard Linklater's 12-years-in-the-making Boyhood was right on time at the Golden Globes, winning the night's top honor, best drama, as well as best director for Linklater and best supporting actress for Patricia Arquette.
The sweetly humanist film had a similarly touching effect on one of Hollywood's glitziest evenings. Taking out her written speech, Arquette apologized: "I'm the only nerd with a piece of paper."
"Bottom line is we're all flawed in this world. No one's perfect," said Linklater. "I want to dedicate this to parents that are evolving everywhere and families that are just passing through this world and doing their best."
Perhaps the chief Oscar rival to Boyhood, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's backstage romp Birdman, also fared well. It won best actor in a comedy or musical for its lead, Michael Keaton, who plays a former superhero star tinged with his own history, and best screenplay.
Keaton's voice broke up as he thanked his son, whom he called his best friend. "Shoot," he said. "Two things I swore I wasn't going to do: cry and give air quotes."
Birdman was upset by Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel for best film, comedy or musical. The film was Anderson's biggest box-office hit yet, but not an award season favorite.
Kicking off the show, hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler wasted no time in skewering Hollywood's most tender subjects: the hacking of Sony Pictures over The Interview, the sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby and television's rise as a cultural rival to movies.
In their opening, the duo welcomed Hollywood's "despicable, spoiled, minimally talented brats" to the Globes to celebrate "all the movies that North Korea was OK with." They several times visited with a North Korea government character, played by Margaret Cho, who voiced her displeasure with all aspects of the show.
"Je Suis Charlie" reverberated through the ceremony, from signs held aloft on the red carpet by the likes of Helen Mirren to the speeches of Cecil B. DeMille winner George Clooney, who evoked the name of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that was recently attacked by terrorists.
In one of the evening's most hotly contested categories, best actor in a drama, Eddie Redmayne emerged as victorious for his performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything over Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), David Oyelowo (Selma) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler).
Julianne Moore won best actress in a drama for her startling performance as an academic with early onset Alzheimer's in Still Alice.
Amy Adams surprised in taking best actress in a comedy or musical for her performance in Big Eyes. "I didn't even reapply lip gloss," she said.
The first award of the night went to J.K. Simmons for best supporting actor for his performance as a domineering jazz teacher in the acclaimed indie Whiplash.
The DreamWorks sequel How to Train Your Dragon 2 took best animated film over the favorite, The Lego Movie. The Russian entry Leviathan took best foreign language film.
Amazon, crashing the party like Netflix did before it, celebrated its first -- and second -- Golden Globe for the sexual identity comedy Transparent, winning best TV series, musical or comedy. The show's star, Jeffery Tambor, landed best actor in the category, dedicating his award to the transgender community.
AMC's adaptation of the Coen brothers' acclaimed 1996 film, Fargo, came in the leading TV contender with five nominations and won best miniseries or movie, as well as best actor, miniseries or movie, for Billy Bob Thornton.
Led by Fey and Poehler, the Globes have been on an upswing in recent years. Last year's awards drew 20.9 million viewers, the most since 2004. Accepting the Globe for best original song for "Glory" in the civil-rights drama Selma, the rapper Common raised the status of the group behind the Globes even higher: "I want to thank God and the Hollywood Foreign Press."
Information for this article was contributed by Anthony McCartney of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/12/2015