SAG Award Nominations
Wednesday, December 9, 2015 at 10:05AM
NATHANIEL R in Beasts of No Nation, Helen Mirren, SAG, Spotlight, TV, Trumbo

Early this morning while waiting for the Screen Actors Guild Nominations to come i wondered out loud "what will be the insane 'Naomi Watts in St Vincent' nomination today?". No one could have expected that the answer would be "all of them".

Ladies and gentlemen the weirdest bunch of nominations ever for the SAG AWARDS which will be broadcast on Saturday January 30th on TBS/TNT. Many people will be rethinking their Oscar predictions this morning but it's important to remember that there is extremely little overlap between nominating committee members of SAG (chosen at random each year from their huge membership) and Oscar's acting branch (a few thousand elite people). 

In fact, Melodipopvision is correct when she suggests "Isn't SAG basically now an annual list of "prestige actors I've liked in some other stuff"?"

Normally we love surprises during awards season but when they're as unfortunate as so many of these surprises this morning, the terror begins to set in. What kind of Oscars are we going to get this year?

Nominations with commentary & statistics after the jump...


Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture 
Beasts of No Nation
The Big Short
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton
Trumbo

Or, as John Guerin said on Twitter "basically the male species". A pity when the female centric movies like Carol and Brooklyn and even Joy had such strong casts. 

MORE ON THIS CATEGORY IN ITS OWN POST.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role 

Bryan Cranston, the mild surprise here, is a favorite of the guild who already has 4 SAG Awards. But given that Matt Damon (The Martian), Sir Ian McKellen (Mr Holmes), and Michael B Jordan (Creed) are strong contenders and that Michael Caine (a longtime Oscar favorite) were left out this lineup, I don't think it's entirely likely that we'll see the same lineup come Oscar nomination morning. Best Actor Oscar Chart will be updated tomorrow night

Though this category tends to have a strong correlation to the eventual lineup occassionally they think quite differently as in 2013 when they nominated Tom Hanks and Forrest Whitaker. Oscar jettisoned both.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role 

Of all the categories for SAG to vote on drunk this was not the one this year. I haven't made it a secret that I think Woman in Gold is a terrible movie but worse than that Helen Mirren is wildly overshadowed in her own film by Tatiana Maslany. Mirren phones it in. Maslany totally works hard to sell the same character in her youth. But Mirren is a SAG favorite with 5 wins already. Best Actress Oscar chart will be updated tomorrow night. Feeling bad for Blythe Danner, Carey Mulligan, and Lily Tomlin who could've used this boost and who seemed at least somewhat likely for SAG.

Don't ask me to explain Sarah Silverman. Who could? Even people who like her performance don't seem to love the film at all and that's usually a hurdle.

"hold up with those Oscar prediction changes, y'all"

Oscar thought: This category is nearly always a 4/5 or 5/5 match with Oscar. Though that's difficult to imagine with these five, Mirren could be the variable that makes a 3/5 year happen. The last time Oscar thought much differently, SAG also went for Mirren (Hitchcock, 2012) 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Michael Shannon has had a very good week or two

Here we have a weird mix of the voters paying attention -- you'd have to be paying attention to nominate the underseen Michael Shannon in 99 Homes, and also playing hero worship -- Christian Bale isn't even remotely the best performance in The Big Short! But perhaps Bale is a threat to Oscar we hadn't really considered. He does play someone with a glass eye (!) and they did nominate him for American Hustle after all in a surprise against stronger competition. Oscar chart updates coming but... I don't think SAG nominations mean as much this year given the odd results.

Oscar note: This category recently has had a 4/5 and 5/5 correlation to Oscar but back in the 90s they sometimes went 2/5. This could be a non-matchey match year since it'd be silly to count out the Spotlight men or Sylvester Stallone.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role 

"This sucks. Why am I competing against leading ladies!?"

SAG rules are such that voters MUST abide by studio mandated category placement. Which is why Vikander and Mara are supporting despite leading their films. SAG really really really loves Helen Mirren, don't they? She already has 5 SAG statuettes. Meanwhile Rachel McAdams joins the looooong lazy tradition of easy road to noms/wins(?) by being the only woman in a man's film. Supporting Actress chart updates coming.

Oscar Thought: Of the Acting categories this is the one that has the least correlation to Oscar statistically. It's been as low as 1/5 (2001) and 2/5 in some years (94/96). That said they've been becoming more Oscar-like over the years and have matched perfectly a few times.

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series 

Just like the Emmys

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries

So 1990s !

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble

(TV)

If Daredevil doesn't win this...

(MOVIES)

If Mad Max doesn't win this...

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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