‘The King’s Speech’ leads Golden Globe nomination list

LOS ANGELES - British royal drama “The King’s Speech” earned seven Golden Globe nominations Tuesday, to lead the race for Hollywood’s second most prestigious annual movie prize.

Starring Colin Firth in the lead, the film shows how the Duke of York, a shy man afflicted with a dreadful stammer, goes through unorthodox treatment and finally gives a significant speech on BBC radio when he succeeds his father King George V, as King George VI, before World War II. Directed by Tom Hooper, it also stars Geoffery Rush, Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter.

Giving a neck-to-neck run to the movie are David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and Mark Wahlberg starrer “The Fighter” with six nominations apiece.

The nominations kicked off the traditional Hollywood award season and also included best drama nods for “Black Swan” and Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending thriller “Inception”.

The nominees for the best comedy or musical were Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”, Christina Aguilera’s debut movie “Burlesque”, “The Kids Are All Right”, Bruce Willis starrer “Red” and Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie starrer “The Tourist”.

The race for best TV comedy is between “30 Rock”, “The Big Bang Theory”, “The Big C”, “Glee”, “Modern Family” and “Nurse Jackie”. The best TV drama nominees are “Mad Men”, “Dexter”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “The Good Wife” and “The Walking Dead”.

Nominations in the best foreign language film category are “Beautiful (Mexico, Spain), “The Concert” (France), “The Edge” (Russia), “I Am Love” (Italy), and “In a Better World” (Denmark).

The nominees for best animated feature film are “Despicable Me”, “How to Train Your Dragon”, “The Illusionist”, “Tangled” and “Toy Story 3″.

The contenders in the 25 categories were announced by actor Josh Duhamel, Katie Holmes and Blair Underwood together with Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Philip Berk at The Beverly Hilton Hotel here.

The 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards will be presented Jan 16, hosted by Ricky Gervais and will be seen in more than 160 countries.