‘La La Land’ Steals the Show at the Golden Globes and Leaves Aussies Empty-Handed

The one prediction for this year’s Golden Globes was that the cast of “La La Land” wasn’t going to leave the event empty handed. And that’s exactly what happened. The colourful musical was the big star of the night, winning all seven Globes it was nominated for. It collected the prizes for best picture musical or comedy, best director, best score, song and screenplay, and had the protagonists, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, win best actor and best actress. No movie had won over four Globes since the drama “Midnight Express” won six in 1979.

“I’m in a daze now officially,” said director Damien Chazelle as he accepted the award.

The category for best drama was a competition between two greatly acclaimed films: the lyrical “Moonlight,” directed by Barry Jenkins, that got six nominations, and the family drama “Manchester by the Sea,” directed and written by Kenneth Lonergran, that got five, including one for Casey Affleck, who won the Globe for best actor in a drama.

The prize for best comedy was awarded to “Atlanta,” an FX series about a rapper and his manager cousin. Protagonist Donald Glover, a.k.a. singer Childish Gambino, who just a couple of weeks was performing at Falls Festival in Victoria, Australia, won best actor in a comedy.

Contributing to this year’s notable diversity at the awards, Tracee Ellis Ross won best comedic actress for playing a mom and doctor in the ABC series “Black-ish,” becoming the first black woman to win in the category since Debbie Allen won it in 1983 with “Fame”.

In the TV category, the Netflix-original series “The Crown” that chronicles the life of Queen Elizabeth II, won best drama, and the Claire Foy, who plays Elizabeth, was named best actress in a drama. The series left its popular rivals like Netflix-original “Stranger Things” and HBO “Westworld” with no awards.

One of the main highlights of the evening was Maryl Streep, a 30-time Golden Globes nominee and eight-time winner, receiving the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. It’s particularly impressive considering the fact that since 2000, only two women have won the award: Oscar winners Barbara Streisand and Jodie Foster.

Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton and Mel Gibson were the Australian hopefuls for the evening, yet none of them got an award.

Aside from a minimal technical malfunction experienced by the presented of the night Jimmy Fallon from the “Tonight Show,” the ceremony was drama-free and went as smoothly as it was expected. As usual, the extent of its success will be determined by the Nielsen ratings, which are expected to be higher than the 18.5 million viewers of last year, since Fallon had been promoting the gig for a while on his highly popular show.

Now it’s time so sit back and start writing out predictions for the 89th Academy Awards ceremony happening on February 26.