People's Choice Awards Big Winners Are...
The people have spoken. 2008's first major movie, television and music awards show, "The People's Choice Awards," was broadcast on CBS on Tuesday evening.
Queen Latifah hosted the show, which ran for about 120 minutes. It was hosted in a magazine-style format. The awards show was forced to ditch the normal star-studded gala in favor of a more quiet affair with pre-taped segments.
This was the 34th annual People's Choice Awards. There were 38 categories in all. Reuters reports that Johnny Depp won for favorite male movie actor, and Reese Witherspoon won for favorite female movie actress.
Drew Barrymore and Joaquin Phoenix won as favorite leading actors this year. This year's favorite action stars were Matt Damon and Keira Knightley. Damon is the star of the successful "Bourne Identity" series, whose third installment of this past year enjoyed a successful run in theaters. Knightley was in the hugely successful "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. "Pirates" was voted as favorite "threequel," and favorite movie.
"Knocked Up" won for favorite comedy, and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" won for favorite drama. "Knocked Up's" Katherine Heigl won another award, for favorite female television star, and her "Grey's Anatomy" co-star Patrick Dempsey won for favorite male television actor.
Popular medical show "House" won for favorite drama. Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani were awarded as the favorites in singers.
The Golden Globes will also be altering its appearance next week, reports E! Online. The Globes, instead of being a festive occasion with the stars out in droves, will be far scaled down to a news conference the following weekend. A controversy arose after many realized that the Writers Guild of America strike was not going to end quickly or easily. How the upcoming awards shows, including the forthcoming Oscars, would deal with the strike, has been an issue which has been resolved piecemeal. As the WGA refused to allow a strike-free haven for actors at the big awards shows, it also became clear that many Screen Actors Guild members would not be crossing any awards show picket lines, in a show of solidarity with their fellow Hollywood-ites.
Another issue which has been brought up is whether or not SAG-members will be striking themselves next year, accoridng to E! Online. If so, solidarity with WGA strikers during their strike could spell solidarity with SAG during their go-around.