BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA?Pete Docter, co-director and co-writer of ?Up,? which won the Golden Globe Best Animation Film Award on Sunday evening, cited the contributions of Filipino-American talents who worked on the movie.

At an after-party following the awards show presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Docter praised Ronnie Del Carmen and Ricky Nierva, ?Up? story supervisor and production designer, respectively.

?Both are incredibly talented,? Docter said. ?Ronnie makes screenplays come to life. He makes materials that are not ?film-able? translate well to the screen. Ricky?s drawings are full of life.?

Docter revealed that he is collaborating with Del Carmen and Nierva in upcoming projects. ?I hope they stay with Pixar,? Docter added. ?Up? also won Best Original Score Award (for Michael Giacchino).

Pixar Animation, the Disney outfit that made ?Up,? has won all four prizes for animated movies since the Globes introduced the category in 2006. Past Pixar winners are ?WALL-E,? ?Ratatouille? and ?Cars.?

?Up? features the voice of Ed Asner in a tale of a lonely, bitter widower who renews his zest for adventure by flying his house off under helium balloons to South America, where he encounters his childhood hero and a hilarious gang of talking canines.

The annual Globes are presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of about 90 reporters covering show business for overseas outlets. Sunday?s 67th awards ceremony was aired on NBC.

Top honors

This year?s top honors went to the science-fiction blockbuster, ?Avatar,? which claimed Best Drama trophy and, for James Cameron, Best Director, setting him up for a possible awards sequel to 1997?s ?Titanic.?

The epic feature about the doomed ocean liner won the same prizes and went on to dominate the Academy Awards.

(Last year?s big winner, ?Slumdog Millionaire,? went on to garner Oscar glory as well. Nominations for the Academy Awards closes on Saturday.)

This time around, instead of being ?king of the world,? as Cameron declared at the Oscar ceremony, he has become king of a computer-generated distant moon that made critics gush and sent box-office receipts soaring. ?Avatar? has grossed $1.6 billion worldwide to date, second only to ?Titanic? with $1.8 billion.

Accepting the Globe, Cameron said: ??Avatar? asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other, and us to the Earth. And if you have to go four and a half light years to another, made-up planet to appreciate this miracle of the world that we have right here, well ? that?s the wonder of cinema right there, that?s the magic.?

The foreign press group seemed to take its cue from this celebration of humanity, with the rest of the winners in the movie categories ranging from the gritty child-abuse drama ?Precious? to freewheeling comedy ?The Hangover.?

Sunday?s ceremony also opened wide to embrace the long-admired Jeff Bridges, who took Best Dramatic Actor honors for the country-music film ?Crazy Heart,? and a sitcom actress, Mo?Nique, who emerged as a fierce screen presence in ?Precious.?

Bridges, a beloved veteran generally overlooked for key Hollywood honors, got a standing ovation at the ceremony hosted by Ricky Gervais.

?You?re really screwing up my under-appreciated status here,? Bridges said.

The son of late actor Lloyd Bridges, Bridges thanked his father for encouraging him to go into show business. ?So glad I listened to you, dad,? he said.

Other film acting prizes went to Sandra Bullock for the football tale, ?The Blind Side?; Meryl Streep for the Julia Child story ?Julie & Julia?; Robert Downey Jr. for the crime romp ?Sherlock Holmes?; and Austrian actor Christoph Waltz as a gleefully bloodthirsty Nazi in ?Inglourious Basterds.?

Bullock cited Michael Oher, the Baltimore Ravens rookie lineman whose life is the subject of ?The Blind Side.? She plays a wealthy Memphis woman whose family took in the teenage Oher after discovering he was homeless.

?If I may steal from Michael Oher, I may not be the most talented, but I?ve been given opportunity,? Bullock said.

The Vegas bachelor bash ?The Hangover? won for Best Musical or Comedy, bringing uncharacteristic awards attention for broad comedy, a genre that often gets overlooked at Hollywood honors.

Mo?Nique, mainly known for lowbrow comedy, had startled audiences with her brutal performance in ?Precious: Based on the Novel ?Push? By Sapphire,? directed by Lee Daniels.

Streep?s competition for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy included herself?she also was nominated for the romance, ?It?s Complicated.?

?In my long career, I?ve played so many extraordinary women that I?m getting mistaken for one,? Streep said. ?I?m very clear that I?m the vessel for other people?s stories and other people?s lives.?

Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner won the screenplay honor for ?Up in the Air,? which Reitman also directed. The foreign-language honor went to ?The White Ribbon,? a stark drama of guilt and suspicion set in a German town on the eve of World War I.

TV triumphs

Fox?s spunky new TV musical comedy series ?Glee? was honored, while Best TV Drama went to AMC?s 1960s Madison Avenue saga ?Mad Men? for the third year in a row.

Michael C. Hall was named Best Actor in a TV Drama for Showtime?s ?Dexter,? in which he plays a serial killer with a code of ethics, targeting only other murderers. Hall?s publicists said last week that the actor is being treated for Hodgkin?s lymphoma and that the cancer is in remission.

?Dexter? also won the supporting-actor TV honor for John Lithgow. Other TV winners included Juliana Margulies as Best Actress in a Drama for CBS? ?The Good Wife? and Toni Collette as Best Comedy Actress for Showtime?s ?The United States of Tara.?

Pinoy lover

The rain-drenched red carpet was a rare sight for an awards show in sunny southern California, stars in their finery getting damp under umbrellas as storms swept the region.

But right there before the program, host Ricky Gervais quipped, ?I love Filipinos! They are my favorite fans!? Gervais was a member of a pop duo, Seona Dancing, that had a hit in the Philippines in the 1980s.

Gervais also threatened to roast anybody who was ?thinner, richer, handsomer and more glamorous? than himself, and he did, picking on some of the A-listers in the audience, including Sir Paul McCartney.

Philippine fashion

Although the Globes are one of Hollywood?s biggest parties, the ceremony included somber reminders of tragedy in the real world, with many stars wearing ribbons in support of earthquake victims in Haiti.

One bright note, Oliver Tolentino, the Filipino designer who opened a shop on Los Angeles? trendy Melrose Avenue, made an impact on the red carpet and after-parties with his gowns, which were worn by Margaret Gardiner, a journalist and the first Miss Universe from South Africa; and Jannelle So, host of the popular Los Angeles area TV talk show, ?Kababayan LA.? The two ladies received many admiring comments on their gowns, and asked about the designer.

Also seen on the red carpet was Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, who came with Fil-American Martin Huberty.

Ferguson is one of the producers of the acclaimed ?The Young Victoria,? for which Emily Blunt was nominated in the Best Actress-Drama category.

?I have just returned to London,? Huberty said. ?I was in Manila for a big (Prieto-Valdes-Legarda) family reunion. I have produced films for the past twenty odd years. My goal is to get into joint projects with the Duchess. She has a plethora of great ideas. We hope this will be the first of many times to the Globes.? With a report from Associated Press