Vampires rule People's Choice Awards

[February 04, 2010]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The people have chosen vampires.

"The Twilight Saga," "True Blood" and "The Vampire Diaries" all sucked up trophies Wednesday at the 36th annual People's Choice Awards.

"Twilight" won four trophies, including favorite movie, franchise and on-screen team for the dreamy trio of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, who also picked up the breakout male actor award.

The undead HBO fable "True Blood" and the soapy supernatural CW series "The Vampire Diaries" were respectively selected as favorite TV obsession and favorite new TV drama. Other winners in categories spanning movies, TV and music included "Inglourious Basterds" as favorite independent movie and Lady Gaga as favorite pop and breakout music artist.

Queen Latifah, who returned as host of the fan-favorite ceremony for the fourth consecutive year, kicked off the show at the Nokia Theatre with a jazzy name-dropping number.

Stars such as Hugh Jackman, Mariah Carey, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Ashton Kutcher, Taylor Swift and Ellen DeGeneres were on hand to accept their awards selected by Internet votes.

"One for each of Sandra Bullock's toes," joked 11-time People's Choice Awards champion DeGeneres.

Other TV winners included "American Idol" as favorite competition show, "Glee" as favorite new TV comedy, Steve Carell as favorite TV comedy actor, Alyson Hannigan as favorite TV comedy actress, "The Big Bang Theory" as favorite TV comedy, "House" as favorite TV drama, Hugh Laurie as favorite TV drama actor and "Supernatural" as favorite fantasy TV show.

Winners in the movie categories included Bullock as favorite movie actress, Jackman as favorite action star, "The Proposal" as favorite comedy movie and "Up" for favorite family movie. Sacha Baron Cohen, appearing as himself and not as his alter-egos Borat or Bruno, presented Johnny Depp with a special award as favorite movie actor of the decade.

"The only reason that any of us are up here is because of you," Depp told the audience.

Throughout the show, Latifah appeared in spoofs of "Twilight" and "Paranormal Activity," which featured a cameo by Cloris Leachman clad in a sexy leather ensemble. The show also featured performances by Mary J. Blige, Cobra Starship and Nicole Scherzinger, as well as debut footage from "Clash of the Titans," "Robin Hood" and "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains."

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On the Net:

http://www.peopleschoice.com/pca/

[Associated Press; By DERRIK J. LANG]

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