Why I'm Looking Ahead to SAG

[flipp525]

How do you know what my idea of old age is?

From this thread. I think somewhere you mentioned that the average age of the Academy voter is 62 and that they'd line up to vote for Amour because they all have "death on their minds" or something like that. That's around the age of my parents and doesn't really describe them at all.

[Big Magilla]

Big Magilla, have you seen Amour?

Not yet, why?

It's light-years away from your idea of old age, I'm afraid. Haneke's universe quite simply isn't the one you are used to.

How do you know what my idea of old age is?

[ITALIANO]

Big Magilla, have you seen Amour?

Not yet, why?

It's light-years away from your idea of old age, I'm afraid. Haneke's universe quite simply isn't the one you are used to.

But it's true that Riva's nomination - if she is nominated, which is now more than possible - has no equals; even Gloria Stuart, if only because she belonged to American cinema, made a less unexpected Oscar "surprise". For those like me who first realized that cinema could be great when we saw Hiroshima Mon Amour (I was a teenager and still can't forget the impact that experience, and her unique performance, had on me) it will be very pleasant of course - the only downside being that now the paranoid split-vote theory will start again, and some will declare that just because they are both young and the front-runners Chastain and Lawrence can cancel each other out, etc... We have been there before, we know that it's irrational but there's nothing we - or at least I - can do.

As for the lack of Best Actress contenders, it happened in the 70s too, but back then this led sometimes to interesting nominees - Carol Kane in Hester Street comes to mind. Actresses from little-seen, independent movies, or foreign actresses which were actually more than just "fillers" - both Adjani and Ullman must have been close to a win in their respective years. Today they go with the safest - and yes, often dullest - possible options.

[Big Magilla]

This could be one of those years where DGA doesn't tell us anything.

Bigelow is probably the DGA favorite right now, but the Academy won't necessarily go along. A Lincoln/Zero Dark Thirty split is possible. A Les Miserables/Zero Dark Thirty split is possible. So is the one I laid out. It's not as though there isn't a predent for giving an Oscar to a foreign director for a foreign film - they did it last year for a director far less known than Haneke. And forget Harvey. None of his films are winning major Oscars this year.

[Sonic Youth]

Russell is not winning. I've seen SLP (review soon), and directors don't win for such movies.

If there's a Director/Picture split, I could see the Academy go for Bigelow/Lincoln. All the arguments currently being made for Les Miserables - "It'll be a huge crowd-pleaser", "The source is much beloved", "It doesn't matter what critics say because critics aren't AMPAS members" - can be applied to Lincoln instead... only replace "critics" with "critics groups". However tepid its showing with the groups so far, Lincoln looks to be a far more substantial critical hit than Les Miz. It's already a big box office hit. And its "source" happens to be the most beloved president of the U.S., American history, and the Constitution which combined swells the hearts of many Americans with reverence and awe nearly as much as the score to Les Miz does.

That this week's guess. In truth, I'm at a loss. I don't think we'll truly know until after the DGA awards.

[Mister Tee]

Best Actress is especially interesting I think - by now we all know that Chastain, Lawrence and Riva will be nominated, but the other two spots are really open...but then at the SAG it will probably be somehing like Helen Mirren in Hitchcock or even Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina. And unfortunately it may be so at the Oscars, too.

I think the world of Helen Mirren, but her last nomination and this (potential) one have all the zing of Joan Crawford's late career nods. It's so disappointing when there are interesting performances in the discussion for the unreserved slots and voters end up going for the dullest options. (And yes, Blanchett/Golden Age is probably the epitome of this)

[OscarGuy]

Haneke isn't winning Best Director. I just don't see any way that happens. The Academy's more likely to thumb its nose at tradition and give Bigelow or Hooper a second Oscar than they are Haneke. On top of that, the more likely result from a split between Bigelow and Hooper, I think, would be David O. Russell only because he has Harvey behind him. Of course, we could see yet another Spielberg win for director without a corresponding Best Picture. Spielberg is the closest thing Hollywood has to a god these days...at least in terms of directors. He's worked with god knows how many people and half of them were in Lincoln. That alone could help push him and/or his film to a victory.

[rudeboy]

The day may come when a foreign-language film wins best picture but - and I say this having not yet had the chance to see Amour - I highly doubt it will be a Haneke movie. Foreign-language film yes; screenplay, maybe. But surely the Oscars are not likely to reward this movie with anything more significant than that.

Anyway, my humble SAG predictions:

Actor

Bradley Cooper
Daniel Day-Lewis
John Hawkes
Joaquin Phoenix
Denzel Washington

Actress

Jessica Chastain
Jennifer Lawrence
Emmanuelle Riva
Meryl Streep
Naomi Watts

Supporting Actor

Bryan Cranston
Robert De Niro
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Tommy Lee Jones
Matthew McConaughey

Supporting Actress

Sally Field
Anne Hathaway
Helen Hunt
Frances McDormand
Maggie Smith

Ensemble Cast

Argo
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Moonrise Kingdom

[The Original BJ]

Haneke has never been nominated and some may consider him overdue.

I don't know how many of those people are members of the Academy, though.

[Big Magilla]

Big Magilla, have you seen Amour?

Not yet, why?

My predicitons are based on assumptions that may change after I've seen all the films, but here are my thoughts on why Amour is in a good position to win Best Director, Actress and Actor:

Director - I see Les Miserables as a popular winner for Best Picture, but don't see Tom Hooper necessarily as a repeat winner so quickl. Bigelow has two recent Oscars, one for directing, and Spielberg has his three (two for directing). Even Ben Affleck has an Oscar, albeit for writing. Hanke has never been nominated and some may consider him overdue.

Actress - Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence both fit the profile of traditional Oscar winners and could/will ? split votes between them, providing an outside option. Cottilard won't get a second Oscar so quickly for a film that is receiving mixed notices and Mirren is said to be the best thing about her film - not a very good bet for a second win. If the average age of Oscar voters is 62, Haneke's deathwatch drama is well within their wheelhouse. Riva's character will remind them of parents, friends, other acquantiances who have gone irrevocably downhill in a short period of time. It will strike home with enough force to break through the usual barriers for older actresses. She has the added cache of becoming the oldest lead acting nominee at 85 (she'll be 86 in Fenruary) and consequently the oldest acting winner - they like breaking/setting records. She's also in the time honored tradition of a surprising comeback a la Gloria Stuart. Known for Hiroshima Mon Amour and Leon Morin, Priest, U.S. audiences probably haven't noticed her since she played Juliette Binoche's mother in Three Colors: Blue if they noticed her at all in recent decades.

As for Trintignant, an even bigger international star, it's difficult to imagine actors nominating/awarding Riva without nominating/awarding him as well.

[flipp525]

Big Magilla, have you seen Amour?

[Big Magilla]

I think your Demian Bichir-type nominee this year will be Rachel Weisz. The key to Bichir's appearance in the SAG and Oscar nominations is that his film was the first sent out to voters, giving them more of an opportunity to watch it than all those films sent in the glut of the season. This year, Bernie beat everyone to the punch, but The Deep Blue Sea was one of the earlier ones as well. I don't see Jack Black making a showing, though I wouldn't be surprised to see a screenwriting nomination for it. Weisz is a possibility in Best Actress and Matthew McConaughey may get a nod in Supporting Actor either for Bernie or Magic Mike, the former being a beneficiary of the early distribution of Bernie.

If Weisz hadn't already won an Oscar she might be in better position to be nominated for a film that doesn't have as much support as the supposed front-runners.

I would love to see Jack Black nominated for Bernie but it's not going to happen. A Golden Globe nomination should be his, though.

I don't get the fuss about Matthew McConnaughey in anything.

Unlike last year, I really don't see any surprises coming unless it's Jean-Louis Trintignat who would a surprse only in that none of the bloggers or the early pre-cursors give him much of a chance, but to me he won;t be a surprise at all.

[Big Magilla]

I don't recall predicting Plowright for Mrs. Palfrey, though she was on my list of shouldabeens.

Honey, no. Plowright might've been on your list of shouldabeens later on, but you were pushing her for a nomination, if not an outright win, for a quite sometime before you saw the writing on the wall. Let's not rewrite history here!

And since when is 1999 considered a weak year for supporting actresses? I see that as one of the strongest lineups ever.

I don't recall predicting Plwright for the Oscar, but maybe I did. She did win the AARP Movies for Peopel over 50 Award, so there's that.

As for 1999, Chloe Sevigny was the only one of the nominees I was really expecting, though I did consider Catherine Keener and the non-nominated Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich as possibilities. I like Toni collette in The Sixth Sense but didn;t think her part was substantial enough for a nomination. Samantha Morton has latterly emerged as one of my favorite actresses but I coudn't stnad Sweet and Lowdown and as for Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted - ugh!

[OscarGuy]

I think your Demian Bichir-type nominee this year will be Rachel Weisz. The key to Bichir's appearance in the SAG and Oscar nominations is that his film was the first sent out to voters, giving them more of an opportunity to watch it than all those films sent in the glut of the season. This year, Bernie beat everyone to the punch, but The Deep Blue Sea was one of the earlier ones as well. I don't see Jack Black making a showing, though I wouldn't be surprised to see a screenwriting nomination for it. Weisz is a possibility in Best Actress and Matthew McConaughey may get a nod in Supporting Actor either for Bernie or Magic Mike, the former being a beneficiary of the early distribution of Bernie.

[flipp525]

I don't recall predicting Plowright for Mrs. Palfrey, though she was on my list of shouldabeens.

Honey, no. Plowright might've been on your list of shouldabeens later on, but you were pushing her for a nomination, if not an outright win, for a quite sometime before you saw the writing on the wall. Let's not rewrite history here!

And since when is 1999 considered a weak year for supporting actresses? I see that as one of the strongest lineups ever.