Adam Gabbatt (AG), Tom Shone (TS) and Emma G Keller (EGK) 

2013 Golden Globes live: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler host Hollywood elite

Hollywood Foreign Press Association have 14 film awards and 11 TV awards to hand out, and we're here live as the stars drink and politely applaud and drink some more until the end
  
  

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler at the Golden Globes
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler host the Golden Globes. Photograph: Handout/Reuters Photograph: Handout/Reuters

And that's it! From the Guardian Golden Globes live blogging team, goodnight, and see you at the Oscars!

The film awards

Whether by accident or cheeky design, the Globes have played out like the Oscars That Weren’t, with the Academy-snubbed Ben Affleck picking up best director, and Argo picking up best film, while the Oscar-bound Lincoln limps home with its single win for Daniel Day-Lewis.

Otherwise, it was a great night for Harvey Weinstein, whose campaigning for Django Unchained netted two wins (for Tarantino’s script and Christoph Waltz in Supporting Actor), for Les Mis (two acting wins, For Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway) and for Austrians (with, in addition to Waltz, Michael Haneke taking home Best Foreign Film). In a highly competitive year, the Globes decided to spread the wealth.

What does it mean in terms of the Oscar race? Very little, really — the Globes have always hewed to their own course — but it does drive home how daft it was for the academy members to have neglected Affleck in the best director category. They denied themselves their favored David-vs-Goliath storyline, and gave it to the Globes instead. The HFPA saw its opportunity and pounced.

The TV awards

Girls, girls, girls, that was the resounding conclusion of the TV section of the Golden Globes Awards tonight as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave two solid awards to Lena Dunham.

Significantly this was the first year where none of the former cast of Sex and the City put in an appearance at the night’s event. Even the ubiquitous Sarah Jessica Parker spent the night elsewhere. The torch has been passed. It’s worth mentioning the ceremony took place as the premiere of the second season of Girls was simultaneously being broadcast on HBO. 

The other major TV winners were Homeland, with trophies going to Damian Lewis, Claire Danes and the series itself, and Game Change which won Globes for Julianne Moore’s portrayal of Sarah Palin and for the series which won for best TV miniseries or movie.

Gone from victory were the network favorites of the past. Nothing for Modern Family or The Good Wife. Nothing even for basic cable’s Mad Men. If you want to watch quality programming, the message of the tonight was pay for it. Buy premium cable. EGK

And that's a wrap! We'll have closing thoughts shortly from Emma and Tom on the TV and film awards respectively. 

Amy Poehler signs off with this: "Goodnight! We're going home with Jodie Foster!" You and the rest of the internet, Amy.

There it is: Argo for best picture: the Globes have become Affleck’s consolation prize, not Spielberg’s coronation. TS

GONG! Best motion picture drama

Goes to Argo, theGeorge Clooney adaptation of a side-story to the 1979/1980 Iran hostage crisis. Shocker! This really has been a very bad night for Lincoln.

Day Lewis collects best actor with his usual hunched humility. “I hunt and scavenge and drop it like a mouse at [Rebecca’s] feet” – Lovely. Some great vocab – “Quicksilver,” “impoverished” – that lend a terrific punch. Plus he uses the music to round out his tribute to Spielberg. Best speech so far. TS

GONG! Best actor in a motion picture drama

Goes to Daniel Day Lewis, ensuring it's not a total washout for Lincoln. "Are you sure there's room for another ex-president on the stage," he asks. Lots of laconic Britishness on display on stage tonight (we didn't mention Eric Fellner, who accepted for Les Mis a few awards ago).

“I’ve worked for a really long time,” says Jessica Chastain while her publicist winces. “And to Kathryn Bigelow, my director. I can’t help but compare my character of Maya to you…. You’ve done more for women in cinema than you take credit for.” Lovely speech, topped with the grace note of Grandma. TS

GONG! Best actress in a motion picure drama

Goes to Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty

"I've auditioned and fought and been on the sidelines for years. To be here now, it's a beautiful moment," she says.

GONG! Best musical or comedy

With another Globe, Les Miserables is now pulling out front with three wins to Django’s two and Lincoln’s zero. Is it the rarity value of musicals compared to comedies that makes this category so lop-sided? TS

GONG! Best actor in a comedy or musical

It's Hugh Jackman, for Les Miserables, obviously.

Hard to begrudge this award going to as good an egg as Jackman but it’s hard to get too excited either. Les Mis’s second win of the evening, ahead of Lincoln, but behind Django Unchained with three. TS

In case you were wondering, this is why Lena Dunham thanked Chad Lowe in that speech.

Oscar-winner Swank famously failed to thank her husband when accepting an academy award in 2000. They divorced soon after.

GONG! Best television comedy

Girls wins its second Globe, now for best TV comedy series. Lena Dunham accepts as executive producer, but the whole ensemble comes up on stage with the exception of Jemima Kirk who recently gave birth to her second child. Dunham’s second speech is much more unplugged than her (read) first speech. “It took a village to raise this very demented child,” she said. Then everyone whooped as they were played off stage by the band.

What a surreal week Ben Affleck is having. He gets a standing ovation. He delivers the fastest-talking speech of the evening, brimming with Boston modesty, calling his fellow nominees “exceptional talents” and sounding like he means it.

So far, not a crumb for Lincoln, despite at least three clear occasions when it could have gone Spielberg’s way. TS

GONG! Best director

Ben Affleck wins, for Argo.

"I don't care what the award is, when they put your name next to the names that she just read out it is a truly amazing thing."

Lots of thanks, all rattled out too quickly for these aching fingers.

"I really have to thank the cast and crew of this movie. i had an amazing cast,"Affleck says. And he thanks the kids and wife too, for good measure. AG

“This next award says as much about the presenter as it does the recipient” — Robert Downey Jr had said, doing his patented brand of egotist-shtick, while presenting the Cecil B De Mille award to Foster. It sure was.

Foster accepted the award in a goofy, meandering speech during which she half-came-out and half told-everyone-off-for-being-so-nosy.

“Privacy — maybe someday in the future we’ll look back and realize how beautiful it once was," she says.

Curveball of the evening. TS

Jodie Foster comes out

At the age of 50, Jodie Foster chooses the Golden Globes to declare publicly for the first time what has been known for many years, that she is gay.

"I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago in the stone age," she says, referring to her private declarations. But she acknowledges that it has never been said publicly before.

Fey and Poehler are back, each with a tumbler of what looks like whiskey.

"Everyone's getting a little loose now we're all losers," Fey says. But there's a consolation, and a nod to Dunham's thank you speech: "Well we got you through middle school."

It's a welcome return, as was the cutaway earlier of Poehler giggling as George Clooney whispered sweet nothings into her ear.

"You know what Taylor Swift, you stay away from Michael J Fox's son," Fey says. AG

Oh. Tina. Really. That's just MEAN. We must reprint it to show how MEAN it is.

GONG! Best actress in a TV comedy

It's Lena Dunhan for Girls. 

Lena Dunham’s win is a total upset, and very unusual for the Hollywood Foreign Press. At 26 she is by far the youngest nominee in this category, as she pointed out in her acceptance speech when she thanked the other actresses (Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Zoey Deschanel) for getting her through middle school and mono. Ouch. EGK

GONG! Best animated movie

Goes to Brave.

Sacha Baron Cohen introduces this award with a brandy snifter and a Terry Thomas accent, cracks jokes about Russell Crowe’s singing and Anne Hathaway’s underwear. She grins gamely while the ghost of Ricky Gervais cackles loudly in the wings.

GONG! Best actress in a TV drama

Claire Danes gets it for Homeland – which means that, for TV awards, the Globes are turning into a mirror of the Emmys.

Danes first won a Globe for My So Called Life when she was a 15-year-old high school sophomore playing a 15-year-old high school sophomore. In the latest season of Homeland, she shot most of her scenes while pregnant or, as she puts it: “Carrie was in fact carrying.” EGK

GONG! Best foreign-language film

The award goes to Amour.

A great night for Austrians. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s presence gives it away. Writer and director Michael Haneke, the season’s most incongruous winner, joins Sly and Arnie on stage. Whoever thought the maker of Funny Games would take an award from the auteurs behind The Terminator and Rambo? TS

Back to Tarantino for a second. Wow. Screenplay? Harvey has been busy.

Whenever Tarantino takes the stage, there’s always a slight lurch of fear that he will never leave it again. But he kept it short and remembered to give a shout-out to Jackson. Good man.

So far the Lincoln sweep is not taking place. The HFPA look like they are spreading the wealth, as befits the most competitive awards season in years. TS

GONG! Best actor in a television comedy

Don Cheadle wins for Showtime's utterly forgettable House of Lies, beating, among others, Louie CK.

GONG! Best screenplay

Quentin Tarantino wins, for Django Unchained. "Wow I wasn't expecting this! This is a surprise," he says. He seems excited.

"I have a couple of groups to thank, one I have my absolutely magnificent actors," Tarantino continues: "The other thing I have to thank is my group of friends, as I'm writing the script that I read scenes to as I go on."

"You guys don't know how important you are to my process. I don't want input – I don't want you to tell me if I'm doing anything wrong – heaven's forbid," he says. "But you'll never know how much encouragement you'll give me through that."

Tarantino ends: "This is a damn surprise and I'm happy to be surprised."

No one could have ever doubted that Anne Hathaway would win for Les Mis. She doesn’t get a laugh with her “blunt weapon against self-doubt” line, weirdly, but she’s sweet and tremulous and winds things up with her usual blend of sincerity and savvy. Classy. TS

GONG! Best supporting actress in a motion picture

It's Anne Hathaway. "Oh my gosh this is happening."

It's a rather sincere speech, which is ok if you like that kind of thing.

Hathaway, who clearly missed the Statham/J-Lo mash-up earlier, reckons the room is "full of extraordinary artists that have changed my life with their work".

Of the Globe itself, she adds: "Thank you for this blunt object that I will forever more use as a weapon against self doubt."

Hathaway then thanks the studio, "for making an unapologetically sincere, live sung musical", and she's out of there.

Jonah Hill and Megan Fox presented it, by the way. Fox pretended to fancy Hill. It wasn't funny. Get Tina and Amy back on. AG

Jamie Foxx, introducing the Django Unchained clip, gives shout-outs to DiCaprio (“incredible job”) and Waltz (“incredible job”) when it was Samuel L Jackson who really delivered the goods in Django. TS

Pictures

There are no pictures coming through from the main auditorium at the Beverley Hilton hotel, but here's a selection of what we've got from the press room.

“I beat Meryl!” Jennifer Lawrence is husky and fearless collecting her best comedy/musical actress. Does nothing faze her? But for a slight quiver in her voice, she could have been addressing her hair-stylist. “Harvey, thank you for killing whoever you had to kill to get me up here today.” The first win for Silver Linings Playbook, well-deserved. TS

GONG – Best actress in a motion picture – comedy or musical

Goes to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook.

"What does it say, I beat Meryl!," she says. Bet that'll go down well...

“Harvey, thank you for killing whoever you had to kill to put me in this movie," she adds, referring to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's campaign. Mum gets a mention too, for "believing in" what Twitter is referring to as J-Law, when no-one else would. AG

Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig do the presenting for best performance by an actress in a motion picture – comedy or musical, the funniest bit of the show so far, pretending not to have seen any of the films.

"These performances," they chime together, before praising Emily Blunt's performance in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: "When the salmon are coming out," Ferrell reminisces: "And you know, you're in Yemen."

Of Oscar award winner Judi Dench, Ferrell exclaims "Where did she come from?," adding that she "used to be a police officer".

Bill Clinton! The first surprise guest at the Golden Globes. There are segments dedicated to each of the nominees in the best picture category, and Clinton introduces Lincoln. Gasp!

But Amy Poehler put the whole thing in perspective when Clinton left the stage. "Oh my God! That was Hillary Clinton’s husband!” EGK

GONG! Best actor in a miniseries or TV movie

It goes to Kevin Costner, for Hatfields & McCoys. It's his second Golden Globe win.

It's a subdued speech. He thanks "all the people in front of the camera and behind it, people in Romania".

"The first time i came into this room it was a long time ago," Costner says. "I was just walking and hoping to have some kind of career" – before Waterworld, presumably – "I see a lot of friends here tonight," he continues, rather quickly – unfortunately to quickly to type.

By the way, in the best score category, was the win for Life of Pi’s Mychael Dann, the first sign of a possible Lincoln wobble John Williams’ failure to win? TS

Some adverts! For a Cadillac, Sofie Vergara/a can of Pepsi, insurance in case of snow/an obnoxious man landing on your roof, an iPhone 5, Smash. Then back.

GONG! Best original song

Unsurprisingly, this one goes to Adele, for Skyfall, a song it is impossible to sing without sounding as if you are being tickled.

And in her customary awards-ceremony "surprised" opening comment, she blasts in pure Sarf Lundun : "Ohmoigod! I come out for a night out.... I was not expecting this." Of course you weren't. Of course you weren't. TS

UPDATE: That should be "pure norrfff London". Adele is of course from Tottenham, as is pointed out in the comments. 

GONG! Best original motion picture score

It's Mychael Danna, for Life of Pi. What must make the award particularly special is that it's presented by Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez.

"Thank you to Fox for being crazy enough to make this movie." He shares the award with Ang Lee, and "shout[s] out" to his musicians.

Danna doesn't have that much time to thank people though, the music maestro being drowned out and then swept off the stage by sweeping music. Oh the irony. AG

Best table-hopping so far: Downey kissing Mel. The old Air America pals. The beginnings of Mel’s career rehab? Also, has John Goodman’s head shrunk?

All over the US, people are scratching their heads — “Damien Lewis is a Brit?” The other thing awards shows are good for: outing green card holders. TS

GONG! Best television series – drama

Homeland wins for for its second season, which was widely accepted to be much weaker and more implausible than the outstanding first.

Accepting the award, producer Alex Gansa said he felt it was an affirmation of season 2. But critics hope that the show comes back from a season finale where a bunch of major characters were killed to a more realistic (and dramatic) season 3. EGK

Awards presenters Paul Rudd and Salma Hayek are left high and dry by a malfunctioning autocue ahead of the best television drama award. Sadly neither of them have the chops to extemporise.

GONG! Best actor in a television series – drama

Damian Lewis wins for Homeland. "All of us at Homeland have been on the most extraordinary journey and to have picked up a little treasure like this is a great perk," he says.

Lewis says he shares the award "with the best cast and crew working in tv today", before making a touching dedication:

I want to dedicate this to my mum, who I know is up there tonight looking down on me, bursting with pride, and telling everyone else up there how well her son is doing in acting. Mum I love you, Hollywood Foreign Press Association thank you very much.

HFPA president Dr Aida Takla O'Reilly comes out and kills the mood for a bit.

"Would the camera please scan the room so the audience can appreciate the greatest talent in television and cinema," she requests.

The producer does not oblige. O'Reilly exits left. AG

It seems everyone is busy backstage practicing their rolled ‘r’s for authentic pronunciation of Les Misérables. TS

Part of the fun with awards shows is wondering what forthcoming roles the haircuts are for. My guess is Waltz’s short-back-and-sides is for the new Terry Gilliam, The Zero Theorum (also explains the astronomical metaphors). TS

GONG! Best actress in a miniseries or TV movie

This one's for Julianne Moore, for her performance as Sarah Palin. Its a second Globe for Game Change. Moore thanks TIna Fey and Katie Couric for "making the difference" in the 2008 election – i.e., derailing Palin. We hope that Fey comes back and re-does her Sarah Palin impersonation in the show. Moore’s might have been more authentic but Fey’s was funnier. EGK

GONG! Best mini-series or tv movie

It's Game Change! Take that, Palin.

Director Jay Roach accepts the award, and gives thanks for being allowed to make a film about politics. "It's great year for that, obviously, in all the films," he says.

Roach thanks "this incredible cast". "Woody, Ed, Sarah and one of the most amazing actresses I've ever worked with Julianne Moore."

He adds, rather testily: "With you and Tina Fey we have three of the most incredible impersonations of Sarah Palin, counting Sarah Palin's." AG

GONG! Best supporting actress in a TV miniseries

Maggie Smith gets it for Downton Abbey. She a darling of Hollywood, so this one was no surprise. But she didn’t come for the ceremony, so we are already 90 seconds ahead of the game without her acceptance speech. We’re picturing the phone ringing in the middle of the night in England with someone calling to tell her the good news. EGK

GONG! Best supporting actor in a motion picture

... goes to Christopher Walz for Django Unchained.

First upset of the evening – Euros looking after their own. Even Waltz sounds thrown. More astronomical/scientific metaphors from the method-hating Austrian (last time it was planets). TS

And we're off! A slow start from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, but then it picks up quickly.

Poehler has the best gag so far, at the expense of Kathryn Bigelow/James Cameron (but mostly Cameron):

"I haven't really been following the controversy over Zero Dark Thirty, but when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron." AG

And as we move inside for the actual awards we have to give our own award for biggest fashion disaster of the night. Hands down the winner is Sienna Miller for reasons that will be obvious. See below. EGK

Ben Affleck seems to be slightly overexcited. He's speaking very, very fast. Too much coffee, probably. His beard looks good though. Meanwhile the Patriots are beating the Texans with just a minute left on the clock.

In the Guardian office we have turned down E! – so we're missing out on the insights of Kelly Osborne and Humpty Dumpty – and are watching NBC. AG

Memo to E! Your red carpet show is wearing a bit thin. We’re a bit bored of the 360 glam cam, and the manicure thing. Your interview questions tell us nothing we haven’t heard a million times before, and if the actresses seem more bored than ever at reciting the names of the designers they’ve just been jacked into it’s your job to inject some excitement into them. What about a 3D camera? How about banning certain words from interviewees? No-one should be allowed to say they have “dressed for comfort” from now on. Ban references to the fact that it’s a bit chilly. Dare to be a bit risque. We hate to say it, but you’re making us miss Joan Rivers. Push the boat out, put a camera on the steps leading up to your stage – pointing up. EGK

Adele and Taylor Swift are both big gets for the awards show tonight. Both were obvious nominees for best song in The Hunger Games and Skyfall respectively. Being awarded meant they showed up, and the Golden Globes organizers were so excited about the Swift attendance they issued a special press release about it last week. EGK

Adele is the latest celebrity to tower over Ryan Seacrest. Her dress is collecting the red carpet a bit, she says.

She's nominated for her song Skyfall from that Bond film called Skyfall. "It's a big responsibility to do a Bond song," Adele says. "I didn't want to let everyone down by doing it."

Continuing the British theme, Sienna Miller appears. She has three earrings in one ear, and no earrings in the other ear. Insane. AG

And the Ryan Seacrest award for dumbest question to be asked by a television interviewer goes to ... Ryan Seacrest!

Julianne Moore: "I emailed Tom Ford and asked him to make me a dress."

Ryan Seacrest: "What was the subject line?"

Hugh Jackman is the first nominee to show up from the Les Miserables family. We are still waiting for Globe favorite and fashion icon Anne Hathaway.

Taylor Swift has just thanked E! host Ryan Seacrest for sending her "baked goods", which we can only assume, in Hollywood terms, is a huge insult. She repaid this diss by standing very close to him and pointedly looking down at the dome of his bouffant.

Good news Clooney’s arrived. EGK

Hollywood couples on the red carpet so far – and Hot Hollywood Couple is an oxymoron – include Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban who look like they have the same hairstyle, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, Emily Blunt and Krasinski, and Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber. No Brangelina (luckily).

Naomi and Rachel had the same glamorous retro hair and reduced their super star husbands to arm candy. But the best couple-appearance so far has been that of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Both looked stunning on their way backstage to prepare for hosting the show. EGK

Benedict Cumberbatch, nominated for Sherlock, makes the mistake of being far too British for the red carpet, and actually stopped talking when he didn't have anything else to say.

"So thrilled to be here," he says, like Hugh Grant in Four Weddings, before going quiet in the absence of an actual question.

This threw his interviewer Giuliana Rancic, who lots of people are being unkind about on the internet into such confusion she called him Robert and threw to commercial. Never stop talking, Benedict. AG

If you hadn't noticed by now, the west coast has been beset by bitter, bitter cold. Or at least according to the chatter on the red carpet it has – in reality it's 56F.

But they've got to talk about something I suppose, and so we have Jodie Foster, who will be receiving the Cecil B Mille Award for "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment", fielding questions about the icy temperatures.

Foster says that luckily actors are: "Used to that. We're always in bikinis when its 40 degrees out and in Eskimo suits when it's hot, so."

Meanwhile, Rachel Weisz has arrived. Accessorised with JAMES BOND. Which is a bit unfair on everyone else. And Lucy Liu is wearing a frock apparently inspired by my nana's 1970s unbreakable plates. AG

Color-wise it’s all or nothing on the red carpet tonight. Lot of black: Amy Poehler looked smoking in a black tuxedo with no shirt or bra. Also memorable in black at opposite ends of the age spectrum are Debra Messing and Sarah Hyland.

Nude is worn by Julianne Hough, Megan Fox and Ariel Winter.
Red is a winning look if Claire Danes Jennifer Lawrence and Zoey Deschanel are anything to go by, but to my mind the black/lace combo is tonight’s coolest look, see Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey. EGK

What about the serious business of the awards? Our film critic Tom Shone offers his predictions.

Aside from the all-important matter of "who can get in the first joke about Nicole Kidman peeing?" the biggest question of the evening is clearly "do the Globes offer themselves as consolation prize to Ben Affleck, or do they further speed the coronation of Steven Spielberg?"

Lincoln has the most nominations going into the Globes but Spielberg has won twice before, for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, as well as a lifetime-achievement-award a few years back. Meanwhile, Affleck's shut-out from the Oscar nominations grows more mysterious by the day. Globe voters love actors-turned-directors: Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson have all won in the past. I suspect the HFPA might split the vote, giving best drama to Lincoln and best director to Affleck.

Similarly radiant enigmas include: can Leonardo DiCaprio sneak supporting actor away from Tommy Lee Jones? Di Caprio has never won. Tommy Lee Jones has (for The Fugitive in 1993.) DiCaprio looks good in a tux. But I still give Jones the edge. Django has lost some of its awards-season oomph.

Might The Untouchables knock Amour off its stride? Possible but not likely.

Might Silver Linings Playbook dethrone Les Mis? I dreamed a dream.

Might Wreck-it-Ralph or Brave trump Frankenweenie? Slightly more likely.

Might Les Mis's Suddenly steal original song from Adele? Don't see it.

If forced at gunpoint to name a possible big upset I would say: first-time nominee Naomi Watts takes best actress away from Jessica Chastain. The rest of the actors — Day-Lewis, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence — would seem to have their categories in the bag.

Beyond that, the only certainties are these: Anne Hathaway will be, if not the first to cry, then by far the best. Tony Kushner will pour forth glories from the moment he opens his mouth. And any room which contains Bill Murray, Jack Black, Emily Blunt, Aziz Ansari is not going to lack for electricity. As many cut-aways to Murray as possible, please.

To get the party started, here is Poehler and Fey's drinking game, as told to The Hollywood Reporter:—

  • Drink any time an actress cries in a speech.
  • Drink any time you see a person actively not listening to someone onstage.
  • Drink any time someone says, “I didn’t prepare anything!”
  • Take off an article of clothing any time they show Judi Dench.
  • Take off an article of clothing any time Maggie Smith wins.
  • Eat a meatball sub any time someone thanks Harvey Weinstein.

Dresses

Megan Fox is asked about her dress by Ryan Seacrest: "It's Dolce & Gabbana, it's tight and it's lacy, and that's all there is to it."

On Twitter @FashionweekNYC knows all about the dresses, and is apparently on the red carpet. Taylor Swift, recently dumped by One Direction's Harry Styles for "only ever talk[ing] about antiques", shall be wearing a "custom dark plum Donna Karan gown".

From the same source: Zooey Deschanel is wearing an Oscar de la Renta frock.

Fashion at the Globes reflects the distinctive personality of this awards ceremony, writes Guardian fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley.

Like the awards themselves, the dresses worn on the Globes red carpet are a weather-vane which can help predict which way the Oscar wind will blow. But at the Globes the dresses, like the awards, tend toward more risk-taking choices in contrast to the solidly establishment ethic of the Academy Awards.

An actress such as Emma Stone might risk a daringly low-plunging cleavage, as she did in Lanvin at the Globes last year, but make a more demure choice at the Oscars.

Clean, sleek columns are a more fashion-forward choice on the red carpet than the Cinderella-esque meringues which held favour for years. But there are new trends emerging, including return of the boho-luxe look which briefly made Primrose Hill the centre of the fashion universe in the early years of this century. Short, full skirts are a strong catwalk trend, seen everywhere from Dior in Paris to Jason Wu, and may well make an appearance on the Globes red carpet where – unlike the Oscars – floor-length hemlines are not seen as obligatory.

White dresses, a standout catwalk trend for the season, are likely to be a theme of this awards season as actresses take a lead from Gwyneth Paltrow, who scored strong style points for her white Tom Ford column dress at last year's Oscars. Electric blue and emerald green, frequently worn for evening events by the Duchess of Cambridge, are also likely to figure on the red carpet. 

Just two hours to go until the awards start, and NBC is already live from the red carpet. In the Guardian office we are watching E!, where Kelly Osborne and A Man reckon it is quite a cold evening.

For those of us who aren't there, the Globes are helpfully doing a bit of live coverage of their own tonight.

Fans of exclamation marks might like to follow @GoldenGlobes on Twitter! Someone really excitable is running the account!

They're on Instagram as well, if that's your thing, and the Globe bosses are apparently running two Facebook accounts: Golden Globes and Celebs on Facebook, which worryingly seven of my friends like.

Welcome to the party

Hello and welcome to the Guardian's live coverage of the most important film and television awards ceremony in the US. Largely because it is the only film and television awards in the US.

It is the 70th Golden Globe Awards, and people whom lazy journalists describe as “the great and good of Hollywood” – the actors and directors and so on– will gather together in Los Angeles's Beverly Hilton hotel to find out whether they've won one of these prized Globes.

Most of the Great and Good of Hollywood won't win, of course, but they will drink and hopefully grimace. There are 14 film awards, and 11 television awards, and an early boost for attendees is that Ricky Gervais, who it seems no one likes any more, has been replaced as host by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who it seems everyone likes. A lot. (See this Twitter search, for example). 

Old pals Fey and Poehler are actual friends, a rare thing in the showbiz world of glad-handing, backstabbing and general 30-pieces-of-silver-esque-skullduggery. The pair’s friendship – they’ve been mates for 20 years since meeting in Chicago – has not been lost on the world’s media, this outlet included, but we’re going to carry on celebrating it here as a) they both seem really nice and b) they’re both really funny.

Here’s one of the latest videos of Fey and Poehler talking about what we can expect tonight.

But, to the awards. Best drama is between Argo, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty. Best director Ben Affleck (Argo), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Ang Lee (Life of Pi), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained). Early favourite for best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis. Best actress seems closer, but you can read the full list of nominations here.

The voting works like this: the "about 90" members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – that is as accurate as the official Golden Globes website gets – vote for their very favourite film of the year. The one with the most votes wins. The deadline for voting was on Wednesday.

I’ll be your host for tonight’s shebang, ably assisted by our film columnist Tom Shone and resident TV and showbiz expert Emma Gilbey Keller, so do join us for our live coverage from 6pm ET. We’ll have the latest word on the Globes hosts, Globes fashions, Globes winners, losers, and boozers, and just to keep it light, probably something about the depictions of torture in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty.

 

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