Women Affairs

There was more than a touch of irony in Cate Blanchett's win at today's strike plagued 65th Annual Golden Globes for her best supporting role in the film, I'm Not There. Blanchett was not there to pick up her statuette. Nor were any of the other big winners thanks to the two-month screenwriters' strike that has crippled film and TV production in the US. Johnny Depp, Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Glenn Close, David Duchovny and Ricky Gervais were also no-shows inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel's ballroom, despite all winning Golden Globes. In fact the most famous people in the room were the US entertainment show hosts invited to announce the winners during the 30-minute press conference that replaced the traditional three-hour star studded awards dinner. With no stars, no red carpet and no long-winded acceptance speeches, the presentation had all the appeal of watching paint dry. "I wish circumstance would allow me to be there," said Blanchett in a stateme...

Cate Blanchett will get two shots at an award and Russell Crowe stars in a movie in line for best film when the Golden Globes are handed out next month. Blanchett has been nominated for best actress for her reprisal role as England's virgin queen in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and is in line for a best supporting actress award for playing Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. American Gangster, co-starring Crowe, is in the running for best film and a Golden Globe best actor award for star Denzel Washington. Two movies set against different wars, Atonement and Charlie Wilson's War, dominate the nominations, with Atonement earning seven nods including best drama. Experts said the Golden Globe nominations did little to define leaders in the Oscar race. Still, there were clear winners such as drama Atonement, comedy Charlie Wilson's War and musical Sweeney Todd, and one chief loser, Into the Wild. David Poland of website Movie City News was pointed when asked what the...

Best Actress Nominee Cate Blanchett tonight played down the Oscar hype surrounding her latest portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I. Speaking at the London premiere of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Blanchett put Academy Awards talk surrounding her reprisal of the role which won her a Best Actress nomination in 1998 down to the "time of year". "Oscar who?" Blanchett said in a red-carpet interview with Sky News. When pressed on the film's chances at the awards next year, Blanchett said: "I don't know. Who knows? "In the end, when you reprise a role, you just hope the film is going to stand on its own two feet, which I think this does. "That's all you can hope for really." Blanchett, her Australian supporting cast, Geoffrey Rush and Abbie Cornish, and the film's editor, Jill Billcock of Melbourne, had been early front-runners for Oscars, which will be awarded on February 24. But the movie's hopes were hit by negative reviews in America ear...

Finally, Queen Cate reigns again in Hollywood. Almost 10 years after her breakout performance as Elizabeth I - the role that introduced Cate Blanchett to Hollywood and bestowed on her the aura of thespian nobility - she has resumed the throne. Blanchett took her time to give her assent to a sequel to Shekhar Kapur's 1998 film. The script had to make the case for going back to it, she says. In between, she snagged an Oscar for playing Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator. The early reaction to Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which so far has been released only in the US, has been less giddy than it was for the original. But if there has been one constant about Blanchett's film career, it's this: critics can damn the film and exalt the star all in one sentence. Trade paper Variety's take on the second Elizabeth: "It's a bravura, Oscar-calibre turn from Blanchett. But the film, as pageantry-fashion parade of a sequel, is two notches below the first film." The new film...