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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.

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