PRE AWARDS:
As usual, the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) are always the most key augur of to the way Oscar eventually turns in the acting categories. No we won’t be live blogging it. But we’re here, so we’ll probably add the winners as they happen.
For the movie categories that is, we’re not going to bother with all the TV awards. Of course there’s only five categories for movies which makes this easy for us. And yes, the acting awards are pretty sewn up this year. We don’t really expect any major surprises. We’ll see. That said, if Carey Mulligan doesn’t win we’ll be pissed.
POST AWARDS
As you can see “Inglourious Basterds” was the big winner taking Best Ensemble Cast (the kind-of Best Picture award) and Best Supporting Award for Christoph Waltz’s performance as Col. Hans Landa. Looks like we were pissed at Mulligan’s loss and it seems the Oscars will be fairly predictable since the Globes and SAGs were pretty much the same.
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
WINNER: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Matt Damon, “Invictus”
Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
WINNER: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Penelope Cruz, “Nine”
Vera Farmiga, “Up In The Air”
Anna Kendrick, “Up In The Air”
Diane Kruger, “Inglourious Basterds”
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
WINNER: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney, “Up In The Air”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”
Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
WINNER: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe,“Precious”
Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
OK, the night was fairly predictable, but a lot of us didn’t think Sandra Bullock would take this award again, like she did at the Globes. We guess the thinking now is that this is sort-of a lifetime achievement award, but not quite like Jeff Bridge’s award, he’s obviously been nominated four times before and never won. That’s a Scorsese-like lifetime nod. This one will probably be more of a mid-career, you’ve done solid work throughout, win. Either that or she’s actually outstanding, but dunno if we’ll see “Blindside” soon enough (or ever) to find out.
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A CAST IN A MOTION PICTURE
WINNER: “Inglourious Basterds”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker
“Nine”
“Precious”
Quentin’s ‘Inglourious’ was always our top choice here, but we were still hoping “The Hurt Locker” would sneak in, and lots of outlets, including Nikki Finke and Anne Thompson, were calling it an upset. What does this mean for Oscar? Mmm, it depends. Yes, in a way it’s SAG’s Best Picture award in lieu of that category, but it doesn’t always sync up with Oscar. This might be more of a way for the Guild to tip their cap to Quentin’s work. We’ll see. A lot of insiders have told us that “Inglourious Basterds” has a lot of support for Best Picture, but to us it’s probably “Avatar” unless “The Hurt Locker” can magically sneak in there. We still have some hope, but the populist voting system this year worries us.