With this morning's announcement of the 15th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations, the “real" race for Oscar can now begin in earnest.
Critics awards are nice and we are getting a steady diet of them every day, but it's the guild awards that tend to be a real barometer of the temperature of the race. This is where peers vote for peers and much of the membership tends to overlap with the academy's. The SAG Awards nominations are a bit of an exception in that its list of nominees is created by the randomly chosen 2,150 member SAG Nominating Committee, which changes its makeup each year. There probably isn't much correlation with the academy's actors branch, which consists largely of “name" performers. Still, SAG has a very good record in being predictive of what the academy will probably do.
Overall, the nominees produced no major surprises and no major upsets, although Wednesday evening a consultant for Fox Searchlight told me that he was not expecting anything for “Slumdog Millionaire," because the cast is unknown and mostly Indian. However, SAG ignored prestige projects such as “Revolutionary Road" in its outstanding cast category and honored the “Slumdog" group instead. Dev Patel was nominated for supporting actor, joining names like Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan plus several younger actors in a rare SAG recognition of a completely foreign cast.
Interesting to note that the SAG nominating committee also overlooked big-ticket items from Warner Bros., such as the year's top-grossing film, “The Dark Knight," and Clint Eastwood's “Gran Torino," in favor of “Slumdog," a movie the studio virtually handed to Fox Searchlight after shutting down Warner Independent (where it was originally produced). Warners, which didn't seem to have a clue what to do with the flick (shot partially in the Hindi language), even ignored the offer by Bob Berney of Picturehouse (its other now-defunct specialty arm) to release it. The studio does retain 50% of the profit even though bragging rights clearly belong to Searchlight.
Warner Bros. does share in the three nominations for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (which it is releasing internationally), but Paramount is completely responsible for the U.S. release and the awards campaign.
Speaking of Eastwood, he was snubbed by SAG for his critically praised turn in “Gran Torino," a repeat of last week's snub at the Golden Globes. Still it's highly likely he will be recognized by the academy when its nominations are revealed Jan. 22. Eastwood didn't get a lead actor SAG nomination for “Million Dollar Baby" either, but he did go on to an Oscar nod. The academy actors branch has a demonstrated fondness for Clint's thesping qualities that other awards groups don't have, except perhaps the BFCA's Critics Choice crowd (which did nominate him, and often most closely mirrors Oscar thinking).
The big question is who on the SAG list he could replace. Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke would seem to be locks -- and “The Visitor's" Richard Jenkins is a working actor's actor, and his inclusion for a career-changing role would seem to be catnip for Oscar voters as well. That leaves Pitt, whose subtle and nuanced performance in “Benjamin Button" could be squeezed out by Eastwood, who has very publicly indicated that “Torino" may be his last on-camera acting gig.
Besides the Globes noms and Kate Winslet's best actress SAG nod, there seems to be little love for “Revolutionary Road." There was no nomination for the ensemble cast, nor were there individual nominations for Leonardo DiCaprio or, surprisingly, Michael Shannon. That doesn't bode well for Oscar, because “Revolutionary Road" is nothing if not an actors movie.
Although Winslet, Meryl Streep and Pitt's partner, Angelina Jolie, all made the best actress lineup as expected, there was some mild surprise that “Button's" Cate Blanchett was left off the list (she was nominated as part of the entire cast, though). Not too surprisingly, “Happy Go Lucky's" Sally Hawkins was also ignored, despite a gaggle of critics prizes. The film just didn't resonate with the SAG group, and its L.A. profile during awards season has been low.
Critics awards are nice and we are getting a steady diet of them every day, but it's the guild awards that tend to be a real barometer of the temperature of the race. This is where peers vote for peers and much of the membership tends to overlap with the academy's. The SAG Awards nominations are a bit of an exception in that its list of nominees is created by the randomly chosen 2,150 member SAG Nominating Committee, which changes its makeup each year. There probably isn't much correlation with the academy's actors branch, which consists largely of “name" performers. Still, SAG has a very good record in being predictive of what the academy will probably do.
Overall, the nominees produced no major surprises and no major upsets, although Wednesday evening a consultant for Fox Searchlight told me that he was not expecting anything for “Slumdog Millionaire," because the cast is unknown and mostly Indian. However, SAG ignored prestige projects such as “Revolutionary Road" in its outstanding cast category and honored the “Slumdog" group instead. Dev Patel was nominated for supporting actor, joining names like Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan plus several younger actors in a rare SAG recognition of a completely foreign cast.
Interesting to note that the SAG nominating committee also overlooked big-ticket items from Warner Bros., such as the year's top-grossing film, “The Dark Knight," and Clint Eastwood's “Gran Torino," in favor of “Slumdog," a movie the studio virtually handed to Fox Searchlight after shutting down Warner Independent (where it was originally produced). Warners, which didn't seem to have a clue what to do with the flick (shot partially in the Hindi language), even ignored the offer by Bob Berney of Picturehouse (its other now-defunct specialty arm) to release it. The studio does retain 50% of the profit even though bragging rights clearly belong to Searchlight.
Warner Bros. does share in the three nominations for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (which it is releasing internationally), but Paramount is completely responsible for the U.S. release and the awards campaign.
Speaking of Eastwood, he was snubbed by SAG for his critically praised turn in “Gran Torino," a repeat of last week's snub at the Golden Globes. Still it's highly likely he will be recognized by the academy when its nominations are revealed Jan. 22. Eastwood didn't get a lead actor SAG nomination for “Million Dollar Baby" either, but he did go on to an Oscar nod. The academy actors branch has a demonstrated fondness for Clint's thesping qualities that other awards groups don't have, except perhaps the BFCA's Critics Choice crowd (which did nominate him, and often most closely mirrors Oscar thinking).
The big question is who on the SAG list he could replace. Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke would seem to be locks -- and “The Visitor's" Richard Jenkins is a working actor's actor, and his inclusion for a career-changing role would seem to be catnip for Oscar voters as well. That leaves Pitt, whose subtle and nuanced performance in “Benjamin Button" could be squeezed out by Eastwood, who has very publicly indicated that “Torino" may be his last on-camera acting gig.
Besides the Globes noms and Kate Winslet's best actress SAG nod, there seems to be little love for “Revolutionary Road." There was no nomination for the ensemble cast, nor were there individual nominations for Leonardo DiCaprio or, surprisingly, Michael Shannon. That doesn't bode well for Oscar, because “Revolutionary Road" is nothing if not an actors movie.
Although Winslet, Meryl Streep and Pitt's partner, Angelina Jolie, all made the best actress lineup as expected, there was some mild surprise that “Button's" Cate Blanchett was left off the list (she was nominated as part of the entire cast, though). Not too surprisingly, “Happy Go Lucky's" Sally Hawkins was also ignored, despite a gaggle of critics prizes. The film just didn't resonate with the SAG group, and its L.A. profile during awards season has been low.
