In Contention
By Josh Spiegel
January 26, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
First, let's talk about the Screen Actors Guild awards. We're not going to talk much about the TV end here, but both the TV and film awards can be boiled down to this phrase: What a surprise. Make sure, by the way, to read that phrase in the most sarcastic sense possible, because the two-hour ceremony on Saturday night was as boring as boring gets, in terms of any suspense over who would win what category. For the TV fans, the typical shows and performers won. Like at the Globes, Glee and Mad Men were awarded the top prize for their ensembles. Like at the Globes, Alec Baldwin and Michael C. Hall won. I'm not saying that these actors don't deserve their honors (though I must comfort myself in being the only person on the planet who is not charmed to death by the people starring in Glee), but the awards themselves were not surprising.
The case was the same with the honors given for acting in film. As at the Golden Globes and every award ceremony under the sun, the prizes for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress went to - say it with me out loud, kids - Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds and Mo'Nique for Precious. As I have been saying (and in this case, I am only one of many, many people saying so), Waltz and Mo'Nique should prepare Oscar speeches. They will be nominated, and only due to some major shock will either of them lose. In a few paragraphs down, I will discuss how accurate the Screen Actors Guild have been regarding its various awards when matched with the Oscars, and though their supporting categories haven't always matched up, this year, they will or whoever steals the category will be the talk of the town the night after the Oscars happen.
For Best Actor and Best Actress, the accolades keep coming for Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart and Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side. Bridges is easily going to get an Oscar nod for his role as the beaten-down country singer, and after winning here, at the Golden Globes, and at the Critics' Choice Awards, it seems more and more apparent that the voting community in Hollywood is ready to finally honor the Dude. Though George Clooney and Jeremy Renner, stars of Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker, respectively, are still likely candidates to be a spoiler winner, Bridges has a heavy amount of momentum. This may be a case where, unlike Mickey Rourke in last year's The Wrestler, the older actor making something of a comeback is going to take home the golden statuette come March 7th.
What of Sandra Bullock's win here? Well, it's hard to ignore that Bullock has plenty of buzz going forward. 2009 was a good year for her, as long as we all just forget All About Steve (which, I would imagine, a lot of people want to do). The Proposal and The Blind Side were both wildly successful at the box office, even if the majority of critics weren't won over. I still think it's a bit too early to crown her the Oscar champion; while actors make up the largest majority of any voter in the Academy, they're only a representation of one of every five Oscar voters. Bullock should pick up her first Academy Award nomination in just over a week, and my guess is that the race will be between her and Meryl Streep, for her work in Julie & Julia. And, yes, that was my guess last time we all talked about awards, and it'll be the same in a few days. In short, the awards season this year is mostly a little bit boring.
Ah, but then we get to the award for Best Ensemble, the Screen Actors Guild's version of Best Picture. This year, the winner is Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino, and starring an all-star, all-world cast, including Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Michael Fassbender, Waltz, Eli Roth, B.J. Novak, and many more. Though a few people on the Internet seem to think this win is a big surprise, this film winning doesn't surprise me at all. The category wasn't exactly a perfect match with what will likely be the five frontrunners for the Best Picture Oscar. Avatar and Up in the Air didn't show up here; Nine and An Education took their places. While the latter SAG nominee is likely to get a Best Picture nomination, it's probably not going to be the case for Nine. Avatar, of course, going into the weekend, was the movie with the most buzz. Does Inglourious Basterds winning mean anything for the other nominees?
Not really. The Hurt Locker and Precious, while both featuring strong acting ensembles, weren't as easy a sell as a big, splashy war movie with well-known movie stars and unknown veteran actors, especially when all of those actors are working with dialogue from one of the most-loved writers in the medium in the last decade, Quentin Tarantino. Still, a win from SAG doesn't guarantee a win at the Oscars. As I mentioned earlier, the SAGs do not always match up with the Oscars. In fact, the last time their major categories of acting matched up with the Oscars completely was when they awarded the films of 2004, and even then, they didn't get the match between Best Ensemble and Best Picture. For that...well, you wouldn't be able to find a year when that happened.
Yes, the SAGs have never matched up fully with the Oscars. Still, the SAGs have matched on a couple of notable surprise wins: they picked both Crash and Shakespeare in Love to win. Still, Inglourious Basterds, while one of the five Best Picture Oscar frontrunners, will likely not win the Oscar, in place of Avatar, or possibly The Hurt Locker (hey, a man can still dream). So, the SAGs, while important, are not always the best predictor of Oscar gold. The Producers Guild, despite not being as powerful at the Oscars when voting, is slightly better, having picked six of the past ten Best Picture winners at the Oscars, despite missing movies such as Million Dollar Baby and A Beautiful Mind. So, what movie struck the PGA's fancy just right this year?
Well, in a bit of a charming and happy surprise, The Hurt Locker won the big prize at the Producers Guild, getting the equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar. I say it's a surprise because the members of the PGA are more often willing to honor movies that are not only well-produced, but are financially successful, along with being critically acclaimed. In other words, I expected that Avatar would win here, as it's pretty much the most successful movie ever. The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, is not, having made under $20 million in its theatrical run. Still, this confirms that the Best Picture race is the one to watch for, if you're looking for any kind of potential suspense at the Oscar ceremony. Avatar is still the frontrunner of frontrunners, but The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds have reasserted themselves as serious contenders. Up in the Air, of course, is still very much in the mix, but its lack of big-name awards isn't promising.
As mentioned, in the past ten years, the Producers Guild has zeroed in on the Best Picture Oscar winner six times. A recent notable miss was for the year in film in 2006; the PGA honored Little Miss Sunshine, while the Oscars honored The Departed. The two years prior, they also missed; in 2005, they went with conventional wisdom and gave its top prize to Brokeback Mountain, not Crash. In 2004, they gave The Aviator the award, not Million Dollar Baby. One thing to note here is that, like the Oscars, the PGA Awards have expanded this year to ten nominations. Does this mean The Hurt Locker's chances improve drastically? Well, it's expected to get a nice amount of nods, including one for Best Picture; I still think Avatar is the film to beat, but The Hurt Locker, more than any other nominee, has the potential to surprise at the end of the night. Keep an eye out for the movie and, as I keep telling you, see it if you haven't already.