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'Atonement' Brightest Star At Golden Globes

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By DAVID GERMAIN, The Associated Press

Published: January 14, 2008

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The tragic romance "Atonement" was named best drama Sunday at a Golden Globes event that was deflated from star-studded revelry to dry, news conference-style awards announcement because of the Hollywood writers strike.

The bloody stage adaptation "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" was chosen as best musical or comedy. Its star, Johnny Depp, won for best actor in a musical or comedy for the title role, playing a vengeful barber who slits the throats of his customers in the adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage musical.

Also winning two awards was the crime saga "No Country for Old Men," which earned the screenplay Globe for writer/directors Ethan and Joel Coen and the supporting actor honor for Javier Bardem as a merciless killer tracking a fortune in crime cash poached by an innocent bystander who stumbles onto a drug deal gone bad.

"Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press!" Bardem said in a written statement after his win. "It is a great honor to have been recognized with this award in a time when there are so many outstanding performances in this category."

"Atonement," which led contenders with seven nominees, also won for best score. The film stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, both losers in the best dramatic acting categories, in a period drama that traces the dire consequences that follows a jealous teen's false criminal accusation against her sister's new lover.

Daniel Day-Lewis was named best dramatic actor for the historical epic "There Will Be Blood," in which he plays a baron of California's oil boom in the early 20th century whose commercial interests put him at odds with a young preacher.
Julie Christie won best dramatic actress for the gloomy drama "Away From Her," starring as a woman succumbing to Alzheimer's who forms a new attachment to a fellow patient that causes heartache for her steadfast husband.

Cate Blanchett won the first award of the night, taking the supporting actress Globe for the Bob Dylan tale "I'm Not There."

Actors and filmmakers skipped the Golden Globes because of the two-month strike by the Writers Guild of America, which had planned pickets outside the show if organizers had tried to do their usual televised ceremony. Globe planners and NBC canceled the three-hour bash in favor of an hourlong news conference at which reporters from entertainment news shows announced winners.

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