SAG Winners

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Big Magilla
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

SAG awards for Best Picture and Director seem very much up in the air to me. At the moment I'm thinking Spotlight for Best Film, Brooklyn for Best British Film with both Spotlight and Brooklyn taking screenplay awards and Ex Machina taking Best Debut for Writer-Director Alex Garland. Spielberg is the only one I'd bet against for Direction.

DiCaprio is a given for Best Actor and Supporting Actress is Vikander's to lose. The big question marks are Best Actress and Supporting Actor. There's a good chance that Larson will win the Rising Star award voted on by the public, which will ease their consciences in voting for someone else for Best Actress. With Brooklyn in the bag for two other major awards I think Ronan has the edge here anyway.

Best Supporting Actor is strictly between hometown boys Rylance and Elba. Rylance had the momentum going into the nominations but with SAG going for Elba in such a big way he would seem to have the momentum now. All the same, I think it's really too close to call.
Mister Tee
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Mister Tee »

BAFTA lead actress could go to pretty much anyone but Maggie Smith: Brie Larson if they just want to be Oscar tag-alongs (despite the film's minor status in their overall race); Saoirse Ronan if they want to support semi-local talent; Vikander if they want to acknowledge her breakout year; or the forgotten woman, Blanchett, for the film that actually dominated BAFTA nominations.

In fact, I think BAFTA will be hugely interesting all around this year. I presume they're going with DiCaprio (if they don't, we should salute them throwing a curve where no one else has), but beyond that, they have a chance this year to advocate, rather than their more common action of ratifying, in pretty much every category.

They can make any number of films stronger by choosing them for best picture or director.

In supporting actress, they can give Vikander huge momentum (wrong film/shmong film: a Vikander win here says she's on her way); they can tack onto the Globe and declare Winslet a true contender; they can give either Mara or Leigh their first televised awards of the season. All but Vikander would make supporting actress even murkier.

And in supporting actor, with no Stallone aboard, they can select Elba and make him the year's winner-in-absentia (2015's LEGO Movie?); they can go with hometown talent Rylance and put him back on the Oscar track; or they can give Bale (who wasn't their winner in 2010) or Ruffalo a leg up at a key moment. (I agree with BJ, that Ruffalo -- on his third nomination in six years, attached to a best film contender -- is being given far less attention that he deserves.) Or they can pick del Toro, and essentially say they're throwing all the cards up in the air.

BAFTA has often been a late-in-the-game ruiner of whatever suspense remained, but I think this year is different.

One more thing about SAG/AFTRA that someone pointed out at another site: AFTRA members include on-air journalists -- Mark Harris said he has a vote, and so do, for example, Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly. So maybe the movie about journalists winning wasn't such a big surprise.
Sabin
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Sabin »

Sabin wrote
Although Alicia Vikander has to be considering something of a favorite for the award, how can it be a foregone conclusion at this point? Her Ex Machina performance is nominated for a Bafta so unless she very unlikely takes Best Lead Actress for The Danish Girl, this will be another year where the Globes, the Baftas, and the SAG all honor different performers.

Last time that happened was in 2007 where the Globes went for Cate Blanchett, SAG went for Ruby Dee, and the Brits went for Tilda Swinton.
Is she really that unlikely for lead at BAFTA though?
Maybe not that unlikely. I could see this being one of the few races that Brie Larson doesn't win but Saoirse Ronan seems a bit likelier to me than Vikander.
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Big Magilla
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

I've seen SAG make a lot a head-scratching choices over the years, but all their wins this year made sense. The winners were all the best or one of the two best in Supporting Actor, and three best in Lead Actress.

The only one of the film winners that I didn't predict was Idris Elba over Jacob Tremblay, although he was my runner-up prediction. It really is the Netflix thing, not a reaction to the oh-so-white Oscar hashtag. Kevin Spacey over Jon Ham, et. al, my only TV prediction that didn't come true, is proof of that.

The one thing that purging the Academy membership of older, no longer working members will certainly do is decrease the number of members whose principal screening is via TV, DVD and screeners. The streaming generation of Netflix and its competitors is a younger crowd.
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Okri »

Sabin wrote:Although Alicia Vikander has to be considering something of a favorite for the award, how can it be a foregone conclusion at this point? Her Ex Machina performance is nominated for a Bafta so unless she very unlikely takes Best Lead Actress for The Danish Girl, this will be another year where the Globes, the Baftas, and the SAG all honor different performers.

Last time that happened was in 2007 where the Globes went for Cate Blanchett, SAG went for Ruby Dee, and the Brits went for Tilda Swinton.
Is she really that unlikely for lead at BAFTA though?
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Sabin »

Although Alicia Vikander has to be considering something of a favorite for the award, how can it be a foregone conclusion at this point? Her Ex Machina performance is nominated for a Bafta so unless she very unlikely takes Best Lead Actress for The Danish Girl, this will be another year where the Globes, the Baftas, and the SAG all honor different performers.

Last time that happened was in 2007 where the Globes went for Cate Blanchett, SAG went for Ruby Dee, and the Brits went for Tilda Swinton.
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Mister Tee »

Wait: I thought it was a rule that the Guilds all had to rally behind the same film -- the Argo/Birdman rule.

Delighted Spotlight won here, because, though I'd prefer The Big Short to win best picture, I want a race most of all. Now I'm genuinely rooting for Ridley Scott to win DGA, so people have no choice but to make their own guesses for the Oscar pool for once, rather than xeroxing Guild consensus.

DiCaprio has seemed a done deal to me for some time -- certainly since Fassbender/Cranston both saw their films under-perform on nominations day -- so his win was just a tick on the odometer. Larson, on the other hand, still has live competition, so this win strengthened her hand. I'll still have Christie/Cotillard qualms re: Ronan till the final envelope is opened -- Brooklyn has been a MUCH more popular film -- but I'm feeling a bit more relaxed. (Maybe the way BJ did after Hurt Locker won both PGA & DGA.)

The folks at the other sites are proclaiming Stallone/Vikander locked-for-Oscar now, which tells us either that it's become impossible to have a spirited contest, or that these people are as always jumping the gun. I tend to see things more the way BJ does: supporting actress is a competition among weaklings where no one's advantage can be thought sufficient (I've only just seen Jennifer Jason Leigh this afternoon, so I'll weigh in on that thread shortly), and supporting actor has had such varied results this season, even in terms of nominations, that it seems silly to make broad pronouncements. I'm happy for Elba that he got something notable for that fine performance, though I will wonder if his win got something of a boost from either the loud discussion of the past two weeks or from the omnipresence of Netflix (which pretty much kicked ass throughout these awards tonight).

It's also worth remembering this is SAG/AFTRA, no longer just SAG, and they gave us the weirdest bunch of nominees of an this season, so maybe their final choices are equally less representative of consensus.
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Re: SAG Winners

Post by Sabin »

It looks like we're setting the stage for another race where the PGA, DGA, and SAG go to different films. In 2004, the producers went for The Aviator, the directors went for Million Dollar Baby, and the actors went for Sideways. In 2001, the producers went for Moulin Rouge!, the directors went for A Beautiful Mind, and the actors went for Gosford Park. In 2000, the producers went for Gladiator, the directors went for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the actors went for Traffic. This year, the producers went for The Big Short, the actors went for Spotlight...let's see if the directors (as I believe) go for The Revenant.
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SAG Winners

Post by The Original BJ »

Well, tonight's awards were a pretty clear example of Okri's point that other entertainment awards shows aren't having the same diversity problem as the Oscars -- Viola Davis, Queen Latifah, Uzo Aduba, Idris Elba, Idris Elba AGAIN, and the cast of Orange is the New Black all went to the podium. Of course, it has to be noted that all but one of those wins came on the TV side (and even the one movie prize went to a Netflix film barely screened in actual theaters).

I was perfectly thrilled with the Ensemble win for Spotlight both because I thought it was overall the strongest choice, but also because it prevented The Big Short from storming through the Guilds unopposed. This was, in fact, a win that Spotlight really NEEDED to stay in the Best Picture race, given that, for a movie widely talked about as a frontrunner, it hasn't actually won much. I still very much think there's a potential for the DGA to go in the direction of The Revenant, Mad Max, or The Martian, which would complicate things even further, to a pleasing degree.

At this point, I think we have to acknowledge that both lead actor races are pretty much done deals -- I know some have been hanging on to Saoirse Ronan as an upset candidate in Best Actress, but Brie Larson just doesn't seem to be showing any weakness. (And while the "we nearly died making The Revenant" campaign has been annoying, DiCaprio's speeches this season have all been very gracious -- he clearly wants the Oscar, but he doesn't seem to be acting like he's entitled to it.)

But I'm not sure I'm ready to call either Supporting race the way some have. Alicia Vikander certainly gets a big boost by her win here -- and already had a lot of the pluses many of us have discussed in the Supporting Actress thread -- but she isn't attached to a widely popular film, and an upset from someone else still seems very possible.

I'm even less inclined to think that Elba's win here somehow automatically leads to Stallone winning the Oscar. Elba's win -- the first film winner in over two decades of these movie prizes who wasn't Oscar nominated -- is just the latest bizarre occurrence in a category that has been all over the place all season long. I agree that a win for Rylance would have strengthened his case as a win possibility...but who knows where BAFTA will go, and the slate at the Oscars is wildly different from the lineup here (or at BAFTA, for that matter). I still think virtually anything could happen in that category, including a late surge from Hardy or Ruffalo -- one of the well-liked workhorses in well-liked Best Picture nominees. (We should discuss this more in the Supporting Actor thread, but Ruffalo's overall career and past nominations make him a lot stronger candidate in a confused category than I think many are admitting.)
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