Sawt Falasteen - Golden Globes gala kicks off with 'Emilia Perez' leading favorites

Hollywood's best and brightest, from Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman to Timothee Chalamet and Daniel Craig, hit the red carpet under sunny skies, before comedian Nikki Glaser kicked off the ceremony with an irreverent monologue.

"Welcome to the 82nd Golden Globes, Ozempic's biggest night," she quipped, referring to the weight-loss drug that has proven wildly popular in famously looks-conscious Hollywood.

"Emilia Perez," French director Jacques Audiard's genre-defying film about a Mexican drug lord who transitions to life as a woman, held the most nominations going into the show with 10 -- the most ever for a comedy or musical.

It picked up an early win for Zoe Saldana as best supporting actress, nudging out her co-star Selena Gomez, while Karla Sofia Gascon is in the running for best actress as the film's title character.

Big wins at the Globes, a sometimes eccentric bellwether for the Academy Awards, could help the movie build vital momentum toward the Oscars in early March.

But it faces competition from a plethora of rivals, in a year with no clear favorites and no lack of strong contenders, each jostling for awards voters' attention.

"Emilia Perez" is up against smash Broadway adaptation "Wicked," Cannes darling "Anora," tennis love-triangle film "Challengers," Jesse Eisenberg's "A Real Pain," and body horror film "The Substance" starring Demi Moore, for best comedy or musical.

The Golden Globes offer separate awards for dramas and comedies/musicals, widening the field of movie stars in contention -- and thus highlighting more performances for Academy voters, who will soon cast ballots for the Oscar nominations.

In the Globes' drama section "The Brutalist," starring Oscar winner Adrien Brody as a Hungarian Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States, leads with seven nominations, followed by papal drama "Conclave" with six nods.

Beyond the two favorites, others vying for the best drama prize include Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," sci-fi epic "Dune: Part Two," 1960s reform school tale "Nickel Boys" and 1972 Munich Olympics thriller "September 5."

- Global Globes -

The Globes are in year two of a revamp, following a Los Angeles Times expose in 2021 that showed that the awards' voting body -- the Hollywood Foreign Press Association -- had no Black members.

Now under new ownership, and with the HFPA disbanded, organizers are hoping to capitalize on a ratings bump registered last January, and perhaps even burnish the gala's status as a predictor of Oscars success.

Deadline awards columnist Pete Hammond told AFP before the gala that the Globes had become "definitely more international" and "open to different kinds of movies."

But Hollywood A-listers remain center stage, along with a few big names from the worlds of music and theater.

"Wicked" earned nominations for Tony winner Cynthia Erivo as the green-skinned Elphaba and pop sensation Ariana Grande as the bubbly pink-clad Glinda.

Erivo will compete for best actress in a comedy or musical with "Emilia Perez" star Gascon, "Anora" star Mikey Madison, Amy Adams of "Nightbitch," Moore, and "Challengers" star Zendaya.

Jolie, portraying opera diva Maria Callas in "Maria," goes head-to-head with Nicole Kidman for erotic thriller "Babygirl" in the lead actress drama section.

Chalamet, for his turn as Dylan in "A Complete Unknown," is up against Brody, and Craig for literary adaptation "Queer."

The show also honors the best in television, with comedy "The Bear" earning five nominations, and historical epic "Shogun" and comedy "Only Murders in the Building" tied at four.

N.Awad--SF-PST