Just when The Awards Circuit thought Argo would put the brakes on its steamrolling of the competition, it shocks us again with key victories at SAG and DGA. It’s now abundantly clear that Ben Affleck’s third directorial outing is the frontrunner heading into the Oscar ceremony. Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 2/3)…
In the wake of Argo cleaning up at PGA and SAG last weekend, Jon Weisman of Variety warns us against counting Lincoln out of the Oscar race, regardless of how good the chances look for Affleck’s film to bring home the big prize.
The Screen Actors Guild made things a little clearer tonight. The actors came together and made some very interesting choices. As expected, Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Tom Hooper’sLes Miserables. Steven Spielberg’sLincoln won two awards for Daniel Day-Lewis and not in attendance, Tommy Lee Jones. In what can only be described as a hot girl deathmatch for the gold, Jennifer Lawrence beat out Jessica Chastain and won Best Actress for her portrayal in David O. Russell’sSilver Linings Playbook.
I was speaking with some of my writers recently about who and what could be winning Best Picture and the subject came up about Argo. With Argo winning Best Picture and Director at the Critics Choice Movie Awards and Golden Globes, Ben Affleck’s film is in a position to make unprecedented history and I’m not just talking about being the first film to win without a Director nomination since Driving Miss Daisy (1989).
When it comes to the Producers Guild of America, this is when you can really start talking up the Daisy example. Critics and Oscar-lovers love to cite the missing Director fact but not many remember that Driving Miss Daisy was the first film to win the Producers Guild of America award in 1990. The group didn’t choose nominees for the first three years of its inception but the light-hearted comedy managed to best Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society, and Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot. Granted, the film was announced as the winner after the actual Oscar ceremony, three days to be exact, so this is a unique circumstance to say the least.
Sasha Stone of Awards Daily examines the Best Picture race through her PGA predictions, and hopes (like me) that a win here for Lincoln will finally lead to super-producer Kathleen Kennedy winning her first Oscar for Best Picture. She looks ahead to the SAG awards as well.
The Screen Actors Guild will unveil their winners this Sunday night simultaneously on TBS and TNT. As a very good indicator for what can happen at the Oscars, all eyes will be on the actors to see what and who they crown. As a group, the SAG mania can be overtly misleading. In 2003, the Best Actor race was down to then three-time nominee Sean Penn for Mystic River and first-time nominee Bill Murray for Lost in Translation. Both gentlemen had won their Golden Globe categories respectively before being trumped over at the Screen Actors Guild Awards by pop culture tornado of Johnny Depp who had just received his first Oscar and SAG nominations for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. If anything Depp winning just proved that Murray would surely lose because any votes going to a comedy performance will be split between the two. Penn emerged victorious on Oscar night.
Last year, Oscar-winner George Clooney had started building momentum and seemed nearly assured to win his second Oscar for Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. Clooney had won the Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards but on the night of the SAG awards, he lost to Jean Dujardin in the eventual Best Picture winner, The Artist. Those last three weeks of the season catapulted Dujardin to the forefront and the little-known French actor beat out megastars Clooney and Brad Pitt. I can’t help but think Daniel Day-Lewis could suffer the same fate on Sunday. Read more on Screen Actors Guild Awards Preview…
SAG loves to trickle its announcements in slowly, and who can blame them? It keeps them in the discussion after all. So after announcing the first wave of presenters yesterday, they have announced a few more names today. Nicole Kidman, Jeff Daniels, Neil Patrick Harris, Julianna Margulies, and Busy Phillips, along with SAG-AFTRA Co-Presidents Ken Howard and Roberta Reardon have been chosen to present at the ceremony. I’m sure we’ll have some more names tomorrow, and then Oscar will do the same thing and make us bloggers work overtime keeping up. See the official release after the jump.
The 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will take place on January 27th, but today the guild has announced several of their presenters. The list includes a few nominees (Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Hugh Jackman, and Anne Hathaway) along with other stars like Viola Davis, Justin Timberlake, and Sigourney Weaver. Have a look at the press release after the jump, and yes, I took this post as an opportunity to post that picture.
The SAG’s 49th Life Achievement Award will be presented to Dick Van Dyke at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Legendary producer, director, and writer Carl Reiner and actor Alec Baldwin have been tapped to present the award to Van Dyke. Read the complete press release after the jump.
Exactly two hours before I began writing up this article, the Producers Guild of America had just announced its complete list of nominees. In the “Theatrical Motion Picture” category, one film appeared that virtually no pundit had thought to anticipate: Sam Mendes’ British-produced Skyfall. But after recently crossing the $1 billion mark worldwide, not to mention its widespread critical acclaim and seven BFCA nominations, does this really comes as that much of a surprise? Oh yes, I forgot…Skyfall is a “genre” film, which means its “Best Picture” chances would usually be at the bottom of the barrel when stacked against baitier competitors that seem destined for Oscar® upon announcement. However, it has two things going for it that critically-beloved moneymakers like The Avengers and The Dark KnightRises do not: a late release closer to the pivotal Oscar® date and, most importantly, a huge chunk of support behind it in the form of the Academy’s hefty British voting bloc, who are no doubt beyond astounded by its record-breaking success, and not just for the James Bond franchise either.
Skyfall is currently the 14th highest grossing movie of all-time and the United Kingdom’s top movie earner in history, barely surpassing James Cameron’s Avatar. Not including the Harry Potter movie franchise, Skyfall is also the most successful British film (Eon Productions) ever released. With these figures and the aforementioned accolades and overall success, it may be time to not just realistically consider Skyfall for “Best Picture,” but also come to the realization that we’ve been underestimating the influential power of the Academy’s British voting bloc throughout this entire race. In addition to Skyfall, I’ll now turn your attention towards award hopefuls who have been under-the-radar all season long like Judi Dench as “M” in Skyfall, Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and even John Madden’s British ensemble dramedy itself. I strongly believe these four British category contenders will receive their major boost from the crucial British voting bloc in the form of Academy Award™ nominations come the morning of January 10th. After the jump, you will see the ‘Skyfall’ category contenders in this first of a two-part article series… Read more on Are We Underestimating the British Voting Bloc? (‘Skyfall’ Edition)…
It’s all about the critics’ awards this week as we dive into the choices by the Critics Choice Movie Awards, Golden Globe Nominations, Screen Actors Guild Nominations and a slew of other groups that announced last week.
Best Ensemble in a Motion Picture “Argo”
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln”
“Silver Linings Playbook”
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
John Hawkes, “The Sessions”
Denzel Washington, “Flight”
Hugh Jackman, “Les Miserables”
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Helen Mirren, “Hitchcock”
Naomi Watts, “The Impossible”
Marion Cotillard, “Rust and Bone”
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Alan Arkin, “Argo”
Robert De Niro, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master”
Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”
Javier Bardem, “Skyfall”
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Sally Field, “Lincoln”
Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”
Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”
Nicole Kidman, “The Paperboy”
Maggie Smith, “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
“The Dark Knight Rises”
“Skyfall”
“The Bourne Legacy”
“The Amazing Spider-Man”
“Les Miserables”
Final SAG Predictions have been updated. Go to the page under the menu bar, OTHER AWARD SHOWS.
Here are general thoughts before you go and check them out.
As tomorrow brings a lot of clarity, it can also shake things up considerably. I am PRAYING for a tie in Best Actor so the top six contenders can all have their moments. I suspect Hugh Jackman might miss in favor of NBR winner Bradley Cooper. I feel John Hawkes can also be in serious danger of missing but I remember SAG coming to his rescue for Winter’s Bone and he wasn’t even a “name” yet.
We’re starting to get a sense of what the key dates are for the upcoming precursor season here at The Awards Circuit. It may be a ways away, but these things do sneak up on you. For those who just want the nitty gritty, well…the show is going to be on January 27th, but for everyone else, here’s the full Press Release:
Tonight, the Screen Actors Guild will present their winners for the very best in film and television. The SAG awards have presented themselves as the most telling precursor of them all. Last year, they matched up with Oscar 100% in their choices. This year will be even more telling as the race seems wide open in several categories. How will the most popular branch fair tomorrow night?
Below are the reactions for this year’s Screen Actors Guild Award Nominations. It was quite interesting with surprises coming from Janet McTeer nominated for Best Supporting Actress and the great Demian Bichir receiving a Best Actor nomination for his work in “A Better Life.” This will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Demian Bichir – A Better Life
George Clooney – The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin – The Artist
Brad Pitt – Moneyball Read more on Screen Actors Guild Nominations Reactions…
Mary Tyler Moore, Oscar nominated for her outstanding work in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People (1980) will be the receipent of the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild. The 74-year-old star of such works as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show” has had a career some can only wish for.
Moore has been nominated for an impressive fifteen Emmy Awards, most notably for her work on the hits “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Of the fifteen mentions, Moore has six awards on her mantle, most recently for her work in the 1993 TV Mini-Movie “Stolen Babies” from Lifetime.
It’s all about the critics’ awards this week as we dive into the choices by the Critics Choice Movie Awards, Golden Globe Nominations, Screen Actors Guild Nominations and a slew of other groups that announced last week.
Final 
