MANILA, Philippines?The Oscars are still the most popular film awards in the world. For the past five show biz seasons, however, the Golden Globes have been challenging their lead in terms of popularity and significance, so their recent awards night for outstanding film and TV work for 2009 was given great weight by many.

It helped, of course, that the Globes are the first of the ?major? awards to announce their winners for the year, quite a number of which are affirmed by the Oscars a couple of months later. So, viewers have come to regard the Globes as a ?preview? of what the Academy Awards will have in store.

Based on that presumption, ?Avatar? should do well in the Oscars, perhaps with writer-director James Cameron reprising his 1997 win for ?Titanic.?

Parenthetically, Cameron has turned out to be such a great movie storyteller and hitmaker that he?s become his own ?worst? competition! This week, ?Avatar? finally beat ?Titanic? to become the highest grossing movie of all time, with $1.859 billion worldwide sales.

Also a big winner at the Globes is the animated feature, ?Up,? which trounced its daunting competition to romp off with the award for Best Animation.

We?re particularly happy about ?Up?s? victory, because the film proves that an animated feature doesn?t have to be slap-happy and silly to succeed. The film about a sour, old man?s fanciful flight of fancy on his literally flying house is more substantial and deeply felt than most ?cartoon? features, and helps elevate animated movies to a higher and more significant level.

Also most welcome was the Globes? celebration of relatively new talent: Comedienne Mo?Nique won the Best Supporting Actress trophy for her first dramatic outing as a mother from hell in ?Precious??and, in another ?villain? role, Christoph Waltz was her male counterpart for his sleekly evil portrayal in ?Inglorious Basterds.?

At the other end of the equation, veteran star Jeff Bridges, who?s usually ignored by film awards groups, finally won a Best Dramatic Actor trophy for his performance in ?Crazy Heart.?

We trust that Bridges? belated victory will prompt other producers to offer him even bigger and better roles in their new projects this year.

Meryl Streep?s win for ?Julie & Julia? was no surprise, but it was impressive that Streep was also nominated for ?It?s Complicated.?

Even more interestingly, the versatile actress, who?s already in her 50s, played, not some old fuddy-duddy, but a mature woman who?s still so desirable that she?s fought over by two men, her current beau (Steve Martin) and her ex-husband (!), Alec Baldwin.

Well, Streep was also yummily appealing in ?Mamma Mia? a couple of years ago, so her success in her new starrer isn?t complicated at all, she?s just doing what comes naturally, both as actress and woman, proving that genuine talent is ever fresh, ever new.