SAG Open Thread
Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 10:01PM I wish I had the energy and window of time to live-blog the SAG Awards but I'm not really catching the full thing, peeking at them inbetween Sundance stuff. I apologize for not planning properly to get you live blogged coverage in my absence but did you enjoy the show?
Feature Films
Lifetime Achievement The Unsinkable Debbie Reynolds
Supporting Actress Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Supporting Actor J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Lead Actress Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Lead Actor Eddie Redmayne, Theory of Everything
Ensemble Birdman
Television
Actress in a Movie or Miniseries Frances McDormand, Olive Kitteridge
Actress in a Drama Series Viola Davis, How To Get Away With Murder
Actor in a Drama Series Kevin Spacey, House of Cards
Ensemble in a Drama Series Downton Abbey
Actor in a Comedy Series William H Macy, Shameless
Actress in a Comedy Series Uzo Aduba, Orange Is the New Black
Ensemble in a Comedy Series Orange is the New Black
Birdman, SAG, precursor awards
Reader Comments (59)
Very happy for Patricia Arquette, Julianne Moore, Uzo Aduba, Viola Davis, the cast of OINTB, and Frances McDormand.
A bit bummed by Birdman's ensemble win, but what can you do.
Love the Macy win, since Tambor wasn't there. SAG creates the blueprint whereby Oscar can give the award to Redmayne for carrying his movie and reward Keaton for Birdman with a BP. But I'd still bet on Boyhood and give Keaten even odds at best actor.
wasn't expecting the Redmayne surprise; so who's obtaining Best Actor?
Actress, and the supporting categories are officially sewn up.
I can't wait for Julianne Moore to win the Oscar so that people can officially shut up and stop feeling sorry for her.
After the ceremony she'll have won every acting award that matters.
Dont forget Ruffalo - Male Actor in Miniseries/Movie (Normal Heart)
YAY for Birdman!
by the way, wasn't it great that Ruffalo didn't attend?
I love it how Blanchett and Streep only attend when they're nominated and rarely feel obliged to present the year after they've won. I'm curious to see if Cate turns up at the Oscars to present Best Actor. She skipped the year after she won Supporting Actress.
Maggie Smith wins the non-cock-sucking competition though.
Surprised by how happy I am for Redmayne. He is a classy guy.
Yavor -- did you mean that sarcastically? I think it's so tacky when actors don't return to present after winning.
I don't want to jinx this but: "Julie Baby the Oscar is yours" your a classy, funny, fearless Goddess & I LOVE YOU!...
I really hope Cate Blanchett returns to the Oscars and presents best actor. Hell, even Daniel Day-Lewis bit the bullet and came last year and he's about 1000x more reclusive.
To be quite honest, I don't think Uzo is a standout OR the best representation of what women on her show are doing, so the consensus around her winning streak really bugs me. I love Orange is the New Black but she's who groups choose to single out among the cast, I can't help but think they're missing the best parts.
I think this win sealed Redmayne's Oscar, no? I think only Bradley Cooper can spoil and I can't see Keaton winning the Oscar after tonight's loss. If Redmayne win BAFTA, I will put him as heavy favorite.
I was most excited to see Debbie accept her Lifetime Achievement Award - so it was very upsetting to me to see how disoriented, incoherent and out-of-it she was. I'm genuinely upset about this!
As usual, I predicted the winners more often than I voted for winners. Eight of my 15 predictions were correct, but only four of my favorites got a statue. This year (for a change) I'm not disgusted with the winners, with one exception.
Can Keaton and The Imitation game recover from this weekend?
Does this mean I should watch Theory of Everything? Looks rough.
I wish I could be more mad at Eddie Redmaybe for winning, but he's such a sweetheart and a talented actor.
Super happy for the OITNB wins. For me the standout is Yael Stone, though.
Hayden W. -- I agree that Uzo isn't necessarily the MVP of Orange is the New Black (especially in the second season), but she's talented and such an unlikely star that I enjoy seeing her get rewarded. Plus, the alternative was probably Julie Bowen.
I thought Lorraine Toussaint was the MVP of the second season, though it would have been rather bizarre to see that performance recognized in the Comedy category...
SAG likes repeat winners for Best Female Actor in a Comedy Series. Tina Fey won it four times, Megan Mullally three times. I was expecting Julia Louis-Dreyfus to pick up her fourth statue tonight.
I did even worse that Paul. 8 prediction, but only 3 votes. We suck. LOL
I'm not upset about any of the winners as long as Arquette won. She was the only one I felt had no peer in her category and while I am sad for Maslany, Viola has earned her space.
But Spacey?!?!?
I love me some Uzo but count me as one of the people that do not understand at all how she is getting these awards when she is not even in the top ten performers on her own show. Danielle Brooks, Samira Wiley, Yael Stone, Taryn Manning, Kate Mulgrew, Vicky Jeudy, Constance Shulman, Beth Fowler, Lourainne Toussaint, Natasha Lyonne, and Taylor Schilling are all better than her IMO. Laverne Cox is great when they give her something to do, but that is rare.
I love Debbie Reynolds. I worked with her on In and Out. She drove the production team crazy. Between takes she would start telling stories to entertain everyone, including herself and they always had trouble getting her to stop. She was Magnificent. I"m glad she was honored.
Best Actor just got really interesting. Cooper, Redmayne and Keaton. Gonna be a lot of smiling and kissing of babies............
( I don't think BAFTA will mean much in this context. A Brit almost always wins this if they are a serious candidate.)
While the entire cast of Orange is the New Black is stellar, Uzo took a one-joke caricature (crazy prison dyke) and made her into a living, breathing person. Sure, she had some help from the writers, but I get why the performance is award-worthy.
I think Uzo won the other awards because she chose her submission episode wisely; she won the SAG because actors often behave like sheep.
Spacey...........
They should just give the award to "those OITNB ladies." One of the best large casts in history for sure.
Blanchett is co-hosting the AACTA Awards in a couple of days. Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush have done previous years. Lots of planning, lots of rehearsal. Flying 15 hours each way to LA was never going to happen.
Most actors present if they're available, especially at the Oscars. However, there are just so many award ceremonies nowadays ... it's a bit nuts.
Ugh, and Patricia Arquette yet AGAIN with the written sheet and the librarian glasses.
Love LOVE L-O-V-E that Orange is the New Black was properly rewarded for that wonderful ensemble. No other television cast has compared these last couple years. Especially working together as a group with emotionally and tonally tricky material. Can't be said enough.
Frances McDormand's speech was priceless.
We shouldn't be surprised Redmayne won here as they tend to surprise with one of the acting nominees (plus the role is pure bait) but I don't expect him to repeat at the Oscar, that's Keaton's or Cooper's game. And it must be stressed: Best Actor only rarely goes young and only in the weirdest of circumstances - which this is not.
Also really love that Birdman won, totally deserved - there was not a weak link among those actors.
I'm pleased with the Redmayne win, because now at least one category is still a race. And I'm just as fond of Redmayne's work as Keaton's, so either choice works. (Sometimes these things are very good v evil, but with this one I can mostly relax.)
I really hope someone gives Frances McDormand something to do on screen,a big meaty Olive role.
I totally bought the narrative that Michael Keaton would win as the veteran who gives hope to all his peers in the dark, waiting for the big role that would change everything.
I love Ruffalo in all his Ruffalosity, but it should have been Richard Jenkins.
I don't get the love for Uzo Aduba. I can pick five better performances on that show in a minute.
Frances McDormand, you're the best.
I think they rewarded Uzo from the previous season; she had very little to do in Season 2. I'm with Bruno--the entire cast is fantastic. This award should have gone to Amy Poehler. And Spacey over McConaghey or Harrelson? Ugh.
Didn't see the live broadcast, but saw some pix this morning. How great did Emma Stone look? Wow.
Who cares if Patricia reads her speech from a piece of paper? It is still more heartfelt than those who rehearse it like Redmayne.
I will never understand the Arquette sweep this awards season.
I was amazed at how together and witty Carrie Fisher still is, even after all the shock treatments.
RE: Blanchett, If you live in Australia and have a family, you probably don't want to spend an entire awards season that you aren't promoting a film for, in LA
She will prob be back for the Oscars I assume
Regardless of how you would "rank" individual Orange is the New Black performers, you can't deny that Crazy Eyes was the one that most broke out into popular culture. Series watchers know that Samira Wiley had maybe the most emotionally resonant storyline this most recent season, but no one is dressing as Poussey for Halloween. My guess is that, with this particular group, Laverne Cox probably was the next OITNB lady in line for a nomination; again, not necessarily because she's "better" than her castmates (there can honestly be no objective ranking on that criteria), but because of her and her character's wider-reaching presence on the general cultural landscape.
If you don't show to present after winning (or when you are a nominee, at the big awards anyways), you better have a good excuse. Being on location for a project, illness....those work. Being in prep to present a different awards show is right at the limit though. It looks ungrateful to put another awards show ahead of the one that honored you.
I will tell it, in this way...
Ensemble: "Birdman"... the forced showyness of the artificial and forced sucession of Oscar clips, allowing the actors to shout, er... yell, er... scream... er... engage in "acting duels". I think it pales in comparison to the ensembles in "Grand Budapest Hotel" (which should have won), "Boyhood" or "Snowpiercer" just to mention three... even to "Guardians of the Galaxy" in which everyone fleshed out the ultra-engaging and likeable set of exotic and alien characters, to perfection. So, a bad choice, to my taste.
Actor: Eddie Redmayne in "The Theory of Everything". He's quite good, yes, but again, an Oscar-defined role that left me wondering if Hawking had some ticks before his illness was diagnosed. I liked Michael Keaton better, but over both, I'd have loved to see Ralph Fiennes (Great Budapest Hotel), Chris Evans (Snowpiercer) or David Oyelowo (Selma) to take home the award. I thought those three were better and more challenging performances, for a number of reasons. Evans did ground the empathy to the sci-fi allegory that "Snowpiercer" is, specially through his visceral and moving confession/monologue at the end of the film.
Actress: Haven't seen "Still Alice" yet and I love Julianne Moore, so I am happy with her. Still, I think Arquette was a co-lead in "Boyhood", and they both should have faced off in this cathegory, at every award.
Supporting Actress: as I previously said, I don't think Arquette is supporting, so I would actually have giving it to Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer. She does a wonderfully histrionic creation that adds an extra value and flavor to the amazing mix of talent that Snowpiercer is... is there a weak performance in the film? Does any of the actors, create a forgettable character? Every single one of them, needs only 30 seconds in screen, to define a three-dimensional character. And Swinton even stands out in a perfect ensemble.
Supporting Actor: I love JK Simmons since I first saw him play JJ Jameson in Sam Raimi's "Spiderman". Again, he seems to be possesed by Ronald Lee Ermey when playing his character in the much richly overrated "Whiplash",, an horrendously over the top and simplistic screenplay that is saved by two great performances and an amazing film editing that hides what is a quite unimaginative direction and a story that we've seen already one times too many, in just another not really believable iteration. The film is a sucession of Oscar clips, nothing really beyond that, and without a real sense of how much can audience stand a drum solo (not always longer and faster, is better, specially since film editing can "create" the performance). To my taste, Simmons is really good - as he usually is - but over the top, and can't really hold a candle to Patrick d'Assumçao's quiet and honest performance in "Stranger by the Lake", which probably is THE performance of the year. Or how to peel a character's soul, hope, weaknesses, story, without ever getting to easy resources and just create a 100% believable, relatable, and interesting human being, making a character in a thriller, almost to seem shot with candid camera.
Jamie, if you're going on performance alone, I feel you. (I thought she was good, but not Mo'Nique good.) But there's such a great awards narrative in Arquette's career and the role she's playing in Boyhood that I won't be upset with her win. It fits 2014 anyway, which was a mediocre year for film with a couple of stellar exceptions.
I agree Paul... Just going on performance alone and leaving the narrative out of it. Just feel that when we look back it will be a "curious" sweep... So many other deserving actresses in the category with performances that give them more to do. I think any capable actress could have pulled off what Arquette does....
Eddie Redmayne. ¬¬
I currently live in a world where JK Simmons is the only Oscar-bound performance that kind of thrills me. It's a pretty bleak world to live in.
Unless something insane happens on Oscar night, this will be the least exciting awards season ever.
Keaton is the Mickey Rourke to Redmayne's Sean Penn.
To be honest, I have been baffled by people expecting Keaton to win. It's like they don't follow award shows.
"Also really love that Birdman won, totally deserved - there was not a weak link among those actors."
I would argue that Emma Stone was pretty weak, though it's not entirely her fault. Her Big Dramatic Monologue felt out of place in the film and she failed to make it sound like verbalized thought. She's also not given much to do otherwise. It's weird that if it weren't for Patricia Arquette, she would probably be winning all these prizes. Thank you, Patty!
And I feel like anyone who says 2014 was a mediocre year for films probably hasn't seen many films. It may not have been a great year for mainstream Hollywood flicks, but what about A Most Violent Year, Ida, Snowpiercer, The Immigrant, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (in its original version), Under the Skin, The Babadook, and Boyhood, to name a few great smaller films? I try no to let awards groups' often mediocre choices inspire my perception of a given year.
Glenn, I follow awards shows religiously and I am still expecting Keaton to win.
Okay, I am aware that it's madness to bet against the British + SAG winner + playing a + still-living historical figure + who is a genius + with a rare disease + that led to a deformity. Redmayne is playing the real "imitation game" this season.
And I know that Simmons, Arquette and Moore (the other three American presumed winners) are already hogging the "career honors" vote that would benefit Keaton.
And Birdman will be honored in other categories (like Best Picture).
Yes, it's insane. But I can't shake it.
@Mike: I've probably seen as movies as you this year (small and large, mainstream and arthouse). There are a number of films I liked, respected and appreciated, but only a handful that I was passionate about and/or considered masterworks. And that's why I would call 2014 a mediocre year for cinema.
@Yavor and Nathaniel
Streep WAS there... she generally shows up for awards she also did one in NY Friday
Nathaniel
your turn against Streep is very tacky
"I think any capable actress could have pulled off what Arquette does...."
I disagree. I think she has such a home-grown, naturalistic, grounded, down-to-Earth presence that she really played the mom in Boyhood that no one else could've done that way. And I don't think her big ending monologue would've been as affecting without such a real presence. But maybe that's me.
And Mike, I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way about Emma Stone in Birdman. Her big monologue didn't work for me, like you said with it being a verbalized thought. I didn't buy it. I didn't see her processing the thought from tirade to remorse for what she said, it was immediate as soon as she finished uttering the last word. I still think she was strong, but Naomi Watts was the strongest female in that movie in my opinion.
Rick I was responding to another comment about her not presenting at the Oscars. I was not talking about SAGs. I saw her and she looked lovely