"Slumdog Millionaire" fetches four Golden Globes

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — "Slumdog Millionaire" lived up to its underdog theme at Sunday's Golden Globes, sweeping all four of its categories, including best drama and director for Danny Boyle.

Kate Winslet won two Globes all on her own, best dramatic actress for "Revolutionary Road" and supporting actress for "The Reader." "The Wrestler" also had two, dramatic actor for Mickey Rourke and best song for Bruce Springsteen.

"Golden Globes, or the GGs as we very affectionately refer to them — your mad, pulsating affection for our film is much appreciated. Really, deeply appreciated," Boyle said.

"Slumdog Millionaire" also won best screenplay and musical score, firming up its prospects for the Academy Awards. The film features a generally unknown cast in the story of an orphan boy in Mumbai who rises from terrible hardship to become a champ on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," all the while trying to reunite with a lost love from his childhood.

Winslet, who has previously been nominated five times without winning at both the Globes and Oscars, won for her role as a woman in a crumbling marriage in "Revolutionary Road" and as a former Nazi concentration-camp guard in "The Reader."

Woody Allen's Spanish romance "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" won for best musical or comedy film.

The three films that led the Globe field with five nominations each — "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Doubt" and "Frost/Nixon" — all were shut out.

As expected, the late Heath Ledger earned the supporting-actor Globe for his diabolical turn as the Joker in the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight." The Globe win boosts Ledger's prospects for the supporting-actor honor at the Oscars, whose nominations come out Jan. 22, the one-year anniversary of the actor's death from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.

The award was accepted by "The Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan.

"All of us who worked with Heath on 'The Dark Knight' accept with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride," Nolan said. "After Heath passed, you saw a hole ripped in the future of cinema."

Rourke won for a role as a former wrestling star who gets a last chance at glory in the ring, a theme that mirrors the actor's life after he derailed his career with bad-boy behavior.

"It's been a very long road back for me," said Rourke.

Other acting winners were Sally Hawkins as musical or comedy actress for her role as an eternal optimist in "Happy-Go-Lucky"; and Colin Farrell for musical or comedy actor for "In Bruges," in which he plays a hit man laying low in a Belgian tourist town.

The robot romance "WALL• E" won for best animated feature. Director Andrew Stanton thanked producer Pixar Animation and distributor Walt Disney, saying the unusual love story between two robots who communicate in beeps and squeaks "couldn't have been made anywhere else."

The foreign-language film prize went to Israel's "Waltz with Bashir," director Ari Folman's animated documentary about a soldier struggling to recall suppressed memories of his involvement in the war with Lebanon.

Among TV categories, "30 Rock" won best comedy series, with stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin earning the acting Globes in a musical or comedy. "Mad Men" won best TV drama.

The 66th annual Globes, the town's second-biggest movie celebration after the Academy Awards, returned to their somewhat boozy glory.

Last year's Globe show was scrapped after stars said they would stay away in honor of picket lines by the Writers Guild of America, which was engaged in a bitter strike against producers. In its place was a briskly paced news conference where winners were announced from a podium.

The Globes are presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of about 90 reporters covering show business for overseas outlets.