There wasn’t much in the way of a surprise with this year’s Screen Actors Guild announcement. The nods that are least likely to translate to Oscar, if I were a betting man, are Diane Kruger’s supporting actress bid for “Inglourious Basterds” and (I guess I just have a feeling) Matt Damon, supporting for “Invictus.” The rest seem like safe bets on down the line.
I wouldn’t read too much into the ensemble snub of “Up in the Air,” though it’s curious to nominate three actors from the film and then ignore it in that field. The ensemble category is also where “Nine” got its expected attention, though Penelope Cruz also showed up in supporting for the film. The BFCA, you’ll recall, went for Marion Cotillard instead.
“Precious,” “Inglourious Basterds” and “Up in the Air” had the most nominations, with three apiece. I would have expected “An Education” to have that designation, too, but somehow Alfred Molina was ignored. Maybe that won’t be the case with Oscar, maybe it will.
On to the next thing. Check the full list of nominees after the jump.
Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney, “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”
Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, “Invictus”
Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, “Nine”
Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
Diane Kruger, “Inglourious Basterds”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Best Ensemble
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Nine”
“Precious”
Best Stunt Ensemble
“Public Enemies”
“Star Trek”
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
Comments
161 responses to “‘Air,’ ‘Basterds,’ ‘Precious’ lead the way with SAG”
”IMHO the Ensemble is more talking about many good performances, Up In the Air has just three memorable ones, right? The other movies have a really crowded group of good performances.”
Sorry, DOUBT had 4 great performances and was nominated in a much stronger year over films like The Reader and The Dark Knight.
Guy: Thanks for the information. That maybe means that Up in the Air is still strong for the best picture prize. And the movie has three acting nominations, so isn’t that bad, but is a little weird that a movie with 3 acting nominations ( like no other this year ), doesn’t get the ensemble nomitation.
McGuff:
I thought Star Trek had a strong chance of scoring a Best Cast nom because it was a big ensemble piece.
JP: 2008 was a “much stronger year”? That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say that. I respectfully disagree.
Up in the Air is not in a critical condition at all. It just shows that it wasn’t an ensemble piece.
I`m hoping Bastereds win Ensemble. Everyone was fantastic, from Waltz to King Kong Nazi, even Eli Roth served a purpose. Great, great job!
However, even though I didn`t think Saldana would get in, I`m very disappointed that mo-cap actors are still considered, I dunno, a special effect? Sad and biased thinking if that`s what it is.
Michael Clayton had 3 SAG noms & missed Ensemble, then failed to win BP. I think that’s the historical precedent here, if anything.
Michael Clayton was never GOING to win Best Pic. If ever there was a predictable season…
No precedent.
“Sorry, DOUBT had 4 great performances and was nominated in a much stronger year over films like The Reader and The Dark Knight.”
The Reader was just Winslet, and TDK was just Ledger that year. And DOUBT had the amazing Streep on it. I dont understand the examples you give.
UITA might`ve missed the nom on star-struck babsis. Remember that SAG screening of Nine was a huge success thanks to star power. UITA only has Clooney. I guess that`s where snub might`ve come from. They decided that UITA will get all acting noms it can and then gave Nine ensemble to honor star voltage.
@Andrew: “I don’t think Up in the Air is going to win Best Picture. This race is between The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds and Precious.”
I think that’s a bit premature. Yes, it’s a curious snub; on the other hand, if they were truly voting for ensembles, it’s a 3-character film at heart, with a slew of cameos (glorified, a la Bateman/Morton). They could have simply just been thinking along those lines.
On the other hand, only Braveheart has ever won without a SAG ensemble nod. Hm….Still, trends like this are made to be broken.
If The Hurt Locker magically wins here (as I dream)….Gah, *knocks on wood*. Must not go there yet.
OK, I ‘think’ there could be 9 locks for BP now.
I think the last spot is btwn. A Single Man, A Serious Man, Last Station, Star Trek, & Julie & Julia.
(given precursors, other nominations, and all the cast/filmmakers involved in each movie).
@JP: “Sorry, DOUBT had 4 great performances and was nominated in a much stronger year over films like The Reader and The Dark Knight.”
HAHA.
“Sorry, DOUBT had 3 great performances…”
Fixed. PSH? Psh.
I guess that stops the Emily Blunt train a bit.
There are SO many other things that factor into winning Best Picture, and all these rules that we dig out of history are constantly broken year after year.
If we’re always going to go by all these strict rules we set up for ourselves we might also say that there’s no way in hell The Hurt Locker can win Best Picture because no film in modern times has won Best Picture with such a low box-office gross.
We could also say there’s no way Precious can win because no film with a predominantly African-American cast has ever won Best Picture before and as history tells us then there’s no way you can win Best Picture if you have an African-America cast. Right?
No film has won Best Picture where the lead characters are created digitally, which rules out Avatar as a Best Picture winner by all historic logic.
I’m sure if we make an effort we can come up with some historic precedent on why no Best Picture contender this year can win Best Picture.
Kruger earned it. She delivered the best performance by an actress in that film.
I think IB has a real shot at Best Pic.. I mean, it’s hit everything this season so far.
I love you Guido, sorry, Penelope. hahahahaha!!!
Good job Penelope
Of course, UITA *could* still win BP despite this SAG snub, but to deny that it’s a setback is to be myopic. It’s almost impossible to win Oscars without first getting SAG noms… Marcia Gay Harden and Braveheart are the only examples that I can think of off the top of my head.
Kristopher, two days ago you didnt even predict IB for Best Picture… now it seems like a mortal lock, and a frontunner. I don’t know that you’re more an authority in these matters than anyone else.
It’s not a setback because, as others have pointed out, it’s just not a big ensemble. The only modest ensembles I can recall getting nods here in the recent past were Station Agent, Million Dollar Baby and Doubt.
Hauling out the IB thing is pointless, but if you want to go there, fine. I’d be happy to put my record in these matters up against yours or anyone’s. I do alright, Jeremy. I do alright.
Again, aspect ratio gets it. I stopped dragging stats out to make this or that case years ago because it’s so very silly. When you understand the season as one of nuance, you tend not to make such drastic, off base declarations.
@ The Other James D. – Now I am ill but Molina was the most real of the characters in that movie. He was how a 1960s Middle Class, Brit Dad would behave, the awkwardness was sublime!!
I think may have spread my germs to you as no one, who was well (Don’t worry its not your fault) could not say that PSH was bad in Doubt and trust me I have seen a bad PSH – The boat that rocked?
Also rather gutted that In the Loop made no showing here.
Molina might get in with the British vote. They are already talking about the lack of Britishness in the current nominations. You know how the British are!
Worth noting:
“While it might be tempting to look at the results and make Oscar predictions, since the actors branch is by far the largest branch of the Academy, the voting bodies are dramatically different. The SAG nominating committee, after all, is randomly chosen from among the 100,000 SAG members, as committee member Howard Stern reminded everybody when he riffed on his show a couple of weeks ago about how he planned to vote for people who’d appeared on his show.”
Thank you, Steve.
And that membership changes drastically each year. No one can ever get a handle on it from season to season, so to draw ANY threads or to look for ANY precedent would be foolish because it’s such a different group year in and year out.
Nuance.
Here’s another one:
No film directed by a woman has ever won Best Picture, so say goodbye to The Hurt Locker and An Education, their chances are nil now (as are Kathryn Bigelow’s chances for Best Director, because she has a vagina).
Reversing the logic, Robert Wise won Best Picture twice with musicals in one decade (West Side Story, 1961 and The Sound of Music, 1965), so apparently Oscar history is telling us that Nine is going to win Best Picture because it happened before!
Is everyone forgetting that just two years ago, 4 of SAG’s ensemble cast nominees weren’t nominated for Best Picture? It was the year of INTO THE WILD, 310 TO YUMA, DREAMGIRLS, HAIRSPRAY…. I mean, really, to say that the SAG Awards cast ensemble award means that UP IN THE AIR is showing weakness, is just plain dumb. The movie got three acting nominations, one of them for a practically unknown actress so she certainly didn’t get in on name value alone. Bottom line, the various guilds and groups distribute their love for the contenders in different ways – maybe the group didn’t see the film as a straight up ensemble but they clearly loved the performances and obviously the movie. There is very little crossover between sag nom comm and academy membership.
@ everyone – Don’t worry I can take it but should I banish my Cornish dreams of swiping an Oscar nomination for Best Actress ?
I think it would be stupid to deny that Bigelow is the front-runner right now. Yes, she has a vagina, but there’s always a first time and it will be her.
Nine winning best picture is just pure fanboyism. It won’t.
Andrew: I think you’re missing some irony in Aspect Ratio’s comment.
I didn’t read it fully, bollocks!
I still think if there’s a weak link in that Best Actress line up it’s Helen Mirren, and not Sandra Bullock.
Also, I think Best Actress category is totally wide open in terms of winners. You can make compelling arguments for Streep, Mulligan, Sidibe or even Bullock.
We’ll see how the campaigns roll out I guess.
If this were a 5-BP year, I think Avatar would give Nine the boot, most likely.
I think Mirren is hardly a lead in The Last Station. She’s supporting. Same with Plummer.
RE: Kruger
Quentin and the cast & crew of IB have been campaigning like nobody’s business since late October, and Kruger has always been front and center (see Golden Globe announcements). And trivial as it seems, people are always extremely impressed at how accent-free her English is. Not really criteria for nominating her over, say, Julianne Moore, Mariah Carey or Maria Bello, but that’s how the cookie crumbles.
RE: UITA “snub”
I’d love to say it means something about its Best Picture chances, but sadly it doesn’t (especially in a year of ten). What I think it means is:
a) the five nominated films are looking better than ever;
b) Christoph Waltz and Monique are sitting pretty;
c) unless big things happen, Colin Firth = “just happy to be nominated”;
d) Precious impressed on the strength of its performances, Nine on its star wallop;
e) Renner, Sidibe and Mulligan are real threats to the frontrunners (assuming you believe that Clooney and Streep are already locks for the wins).
@Nel: Oh, don’t get me started. Hoffman was histrionic and atrocious. It was overacting 101. There was no nuance or subtlety–I don’t even think he fully realized his character. It was just shouting.
Like Wadsworth, in Clue!
I’m shouting! I’M SHOUTING! I’M SH–*candlestick bonks his head*.
Everytime Meryl both outacted him and shut him up by talking was a happy moment in time for me.
“The only modest ensembles I can recall getting nods here in the recent past were Station Agent, Million Dollar Baby and Doubt.”
what about Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine? they were pretty small and they ended up winners…
Geez, who peed in everyone’s Cheerios this morning?
Personally, I thought the only worthy performance in UITA was Anna Kendrick. If Clooney wins an Oscar for playing himself, I’ll eat my hat (archaic threats ftw). This year belongs to either Bridges or Firth.
Though the only race I’m really following this year is Best Actress, with hopes that Sidibe will pull an unexpected win a la Adrien Brody. She was phenomenal…one of the most natural screen performances I’ve ever seen.
JP: 2008 was a “much stronger year”? That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say that. I respectfully disagree.
A LOT STRONGER. NO COMPARISON. If there was a TOP 10 last year, Slumdog, Milk, The Dark Knight, WALL-E and The Wrestler would be in. These five films are much better than the whole Top 10 of 2009 (SEE THE IN CONTENTION CHART). The Dark Knight, WALL-E and Slumdog are among this decade’s most important films. How many films of 2009 are there? Probably none, ore in maximum, 1 or 2.
Babel, Billy Elliot and Hotel Rwanda all had relatively small ensembles.
When i wrote most important, read: the most significant cinematic achievements.
I agree that Clooney does not deserve to win the Oscar. His range is too limited to give him another undeserved Oscar.
Damon has been good in so many movies, I hate that he is now getting the make up nomination, he is better than that. sigh.
”Is everyone forgetting that just two years ago, 4 of SAG’s ensemble cast nominees weren’t nominated for Best Picture?”
But, remember what was that only film nominated for Best Picture that got the SAG nomination (and win)?
The Dark Knight was mediocre as fuck.
Bullock!!!!! Noooooooooooooo!!!!
I respect this opinion, but The Dark Knight mediocre?
If there was the top 10 in 2008, the 5 nominees would join the eventual five would be The Dark Knight, WALL-E, The Wrestler and Doubt surely and the last spot would go to either Gran Torino (80% in RT) or most likely Revoulutionary Road (68%). Assuming this top 10, 6 films would be above the 90%, although The Reader was 62%. This year, 4 films would have 90% or more.
LMFAO to the Up in the Air snub. It´s really surprising to say the least. It´s a lock for a nomination though.
I think Morton has a better shot than Cruz, Cotillard and Moore.