The Golden girl

EVEN if she does not take home a Golden Globe tomorrow, Sandra Bullock is a winner.

With nods for best actress in the drama and the comedy or musical categories, she has a better chance of winning than anyone else – apart from a similarly double-nominated Meryl Streep.

A win would add critical to commercial success. Bullock has had quite a year, with a return to romantic comedy and her first nude scene in The Proposal and seeing the real-life sporting drama The Blind Side become the first femaledriven movie to pass the $200m takings (£123m) mark.

At 45, she is now officially the most bankable star in Hollywood, and taking home a Golden Globe, which puts an Oscar win within reach, would be the icing on the cake.

Bullock has always been popular, not least with journalists because of her friendly and open manner, and has had success with films such as Speed, While You Were Sleeping and Miss Congeniality.

In a rare serious role, she was part of the ensemble cast of the Oscar-winning Crash. Now an Oscar of her own is within her grasp – nominations will be announced on February 2 – to add to the People’s Choice best actress honour she collected earlier this month for The Proposal.

She is heading a girl power revolution that has seen females deadlier than the male at the box office in 2009. With women tending to make lower-budget films, the profit is even greater if they are successful, and Hollywood is a town where money talks.

In these dark days of bad news and economic woe, voters may reward those who make them smile rather than rub their noses in the misery.

The Globes are seen as an indication of how Oscar might vote, but Bullock faces tough competition – and not only the Streep double whammy (for It’s Complicated and Julie & Julia) in the comedy or musical category.

Other best actress in a drama contenders include hot British actress Carey Mulligan, heavily tipped to win for her performance as a schoolgirl having an affair with an older man in An Education.

Another Brit, Emily Blunt, is up for The Young Victoria, and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe for Precious, not released over here until the end of this month.

The Golden Globes do not mark the start of the film The Northern Echo Your campaigning newspaper Founded 1870 No 43,050 COMMENT Editor: Peter Barron Deputy editor: Chris Lloyd Head of advertising and marketing: Chris Moore Regional newspaper sales manager: Vickie Henderson Customer services: 01325-381313 Subscriptions: 01274-705248 or amy.kitchen@bradford.newsquest.co.uk Newspaper sales: homedelivery@nne.co.uk Head office: Priestgate, Darlington, Co Durham, DL1 1NF ■ The Northern Echo (price 45p) is published by Newsquest (North East) Ltd – a Gannett company – at Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF.

The Golden girl Easing the suffering AS Britain begins to get back to normal after the big freeze, the disaster which has struck the people of Haiti is a reminder of how savage nature can really be.

The British weather can be a pain at times – our most frequent source of complaint – but the truth is that we are lucky to live in a relatively predictable climate.

The Red Cross estimates that up to 50,000 people were killed in Tuesday’s earthquake and it is hard for those of us in this country to comprehend a tragedy on that kind of scale.

As frustration grows over delays in aid being distributed, the country’s turmoil continues to produce heartbreaking images of suffering.

But, as so often is the case, positive news can be found in the midst of despair.

Britons donated more than £2m to help Haiti’s victims within 36 hours of the full extent of the humanitarian crisis emerging.

The donations had flooded in before the first radio and television appeals had even been made, underlining the communication powers of internet social media sites such as Twitter.

We live in a rapidly-changing world in terms of science and technology, but it is heart-warming to see that the basic human generosity of spirit remains very much in evidence when it is called for.

We can all play our part and we appeal to our readers to contribute to the disaster fund with whatever they can afford, no matter how small that may be.

Details of how to make a donation are published on Page 7 today. Together we can ease Haiti’s terrible suffering.

16 OPINION northernecho.co.uk SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2010 awards season, as that started before last year had ended.

However, Sunday’s awards will let pundits gauge who’s in with a chance.

Some once-heavily tipped films have dropped by the wayside. Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson’s latest, The Lovely Bones, has gone from a shooin to a maybe now people have seen it.

Others have come from nowhere, such as Precious, with its story of an overweight, illiterate teen, pregnent with her second child and hoping to enrol in an alternative school to change her life.

Up In The Air, the brilliant comedy with George Clooney (a best actor hopeful), has most nods with six nominations, followed by five for another musical, Nine, whose director, Rob Marshall nabbed best picture for Chicago in 2003.

James Cameron’s Avatar, already the second highest-grossing motion picture ever, only mustered four, although one is for best film in the drama category. It can hardly fail to sweep the technical awards board come Oscar time, although whether it can match the 11 gold-plated statuettes that Cameron’s Titanic took home is debatable.

THE Academy Award organisers have made it more difficult to predict by changing the rules and opening the best picture category to ten movies instead of the usual five.

Quentin Tarantino has three chances with his mis-spelt war drama Inglourious Basterds, which is up for best picture, director and screenplay. The film’s best hope is Christoph Waltz as best supporting actor. He’ll have a second chance to win with an inevitable Oscar nomination.

Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, focusing on a US bomb disposal team in Iraq, has already won awards, and Oscar recognition may follow.

Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in Clint Eastwood’s film Invictus must be a strong contender for best actor. He’s up against Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Tobey Maguire and Colin Firth.

Splitting the categories into two leads to odd things. Robert Downey Jr’s performance as Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s film of the same name was seriously comic, but out of place in the comedy or musical category.

■ The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards take place tomorrow. The Bafta film nominations will announced on Thursday and presented on February 21.

The Oscar nominations will be revealed on February 2 followed by the prizegiving on March 7.