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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Affleck, ‘Argo’ win Globes

Favorite ‘Lincoln’ largely shut out

Ben Affleck poses with the Golden Globe best drama award for “Argo.” (Associated Press)
David Germain Associated Press

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – “Argo” is in big with the Golden Globes, but not so much with the Academy Awards. “Lincoln” is sitting pretty with the Oscars but was mostly left out in the cold at the Globes.

Sunday’s Globes left the Feb. 24 Academy Awards picture still muddled, with the Iran hostage thriller “Argo” winning for best drama and director for Ben Affleck, a prize he already knows he can’t win at the Oscars, where he wasn’t even nominated.

In a breathless, rapid-fire speech, Affleck gushed over the names of other nominees presenter Halle Berry had read off: Steven Spielberg for “Lincoln,” Ang Lee for “Life of Pi,” Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty” and Quentin Tarantino for “Django Unchained.”

“Look, I don’t care what the award is. When they put your name next to the names she just read off, it’s an extraordinary thing in your life,” Affleck said.

Meanwhile, Spielberg’s “Lincoln” came in leading the Globes with seven nominations but won only one award, best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis.

The night featured former President Bill Clinton getting a standing ovation after introducing “Lincoln” and Jodie Foster coming out without really coming out as this year’s winner of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. Foster joked that celebrities are now expected to reveal they’re gay “with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.” She declined: “My reality show is so boring.”

“Les Miserables” was named best musical or comedy and won acting honors for Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway.

Besides the three wins for “Les Miserables” and two for “Argo,” the show was a mixed bag, with awards spread around a number of films.

“Zero Dark Thirty” star Jessica Chastain won the Globe for dramatic actress as a CIA agent obsessively pursuing Osama Bin Laden.

Other acting prizes went to Jennifer Lawrence as best musical or comedy actress for the oddball romance “Silver Linings Playbook” and Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for the slave-revenge tale “Django Unchained.”

“Les Miserables,” the musical based on Victor Hugo’s classic novel, earned Jackman the Globe for musical or comedy actor as tragic hero Jean Valjean. Hathaway won supporting actress as a single mom forced into prostitution.

Clinton upstaged Hollywood’s elite with a surprise appearance to introduce Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” which was up for best drama.