"Wicked" and "A Complete Unknown" are hits with SAG

by Cláudio Alves

The Screen Actors Guild couldn't resist Jonathan Bailey in WICKED. Could you?

The "guilds week" continues with SAG revealing their nominations and shaking up the Oscar race. Wicked is today's biggest champion, scoring in five categories, including a surprise Best Supporting Actor nomination for Jonathan Bailey. A Complete Unknown also got a major boost, as did The Last Showgirl, while The Brutalist and Sing Sing underperformed. The Screen Actors Guild has a more populist taste than almost any of the major awards-giving organizations, including AMPAS, so expect some discrepancies between these and the Oscar lineups. Still, when it comes to winning, it's difficult, though not impossible, to take home Hollywood's most coveted trophy without a SAG nod to match.

Find the complete nomination lists for both film and TV after the jump…

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The 'Guild Week' starts with the Cinema Audio Society

by Cláudio Alves

The Cinema Audio Society sure loves themselves some Timothée Chalamet.

This week will be all about the Hollywood guilds having their say, giving us awards obsessives a better picture of the industry's reaction to the season's top contenders. Today, the Cinema Audio Society shared their film and TV nominations, with various of the Academy's shortlisted picks making the cut. But pundits beware, for the CAS can fail to be in perfect synchronicity with AMPAS. The TV nominees are much of the same as we've seen so far in the season, Emmy and Golden Globe favorites on repeat. That being said, there's a sense of individuality to the organization's taste. The voters love music-heavy projects, war, and racing cars…

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Oscar Volleys: Best Picture is all about Narratives

Here’s Cláudio Alves and Ben Miller on the Best Picture race...

THE BRUTALIST, Brady Corbet | © A24

CLÁUDIO: Hello Ben, it's time to discuss the biggest category of them all - Best Picture.

This year, I'm sad to say I'm not especially passionate about the top contenders. Indeed, taking a glance at my rankings, it's likely that not a single nominee even cracks my top 25. Then again, miracles do happen once in a while, even when all seems said and done. Even so, imagining an AMPAS lineup without Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, or Wicked seems increasingly difficult. In those times before the category's re-expansion to ten nominees, these would be the five I figure most folks would be predicting. Do you concur? 

BEN: I am really enjoying the variance in this year's race…

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Oscar Volleys: Best Adapted Screenplay is a confusing mess!

Lynn Lee and Christopher James discuss the race for the Adapted Screenplay Oscar...

EMILIA PÉREZ, Jacques Audiard | © Netflix

LYNN: Another year, another head-scratcher over what counts as “adapted” for Oscar purposes.  To be sure, this season there doesn’t seem to be any classification controversy on the level of last year’s Barbie kerfuffle. But, as ever, there’s some pretty transparent strategic positioning – such as the decision to campaign Emilia Pérez in adapted instead of original, which was likely driven by an assessment that adapted is the less competitive of the two this year.

Does that calculation seem right to you, and will it pay off? And does this mean we might have two musicals nominated for adapted screenplay this year, if Wicked also gets in (as I think it will)? Has that ever happened before?

CHRISTOPHER: I love the ever changing definition of “adapted,” which just seems to be “can you point to any written source that kinda relates to your film.” This year is such a strange year, as all of the frontrunners would be considered odd picks in past years...

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BAFTA Longlists: "Emilia Pérez" rises, Jolie falls

by Cláudio Alves

Jacques Audiard's EMILIA PÉREZ scored 15 mentions in the BAFTA longlists.

Just when you think you're starting to get a grip on the season, here come the BAFTAs to throw a wrench into the proceedings. Well, in some cases, they just confirm what most already suspected. Consider the way Emilia Pérez dominates their longlists - an expected outcome if I've ever seen one - as well as the love for Conclave, Anora, The Brutalist, and a few others. The snubs are more glaring, like Angelina Jolie missing in the Best Actress final ten, or the complete shut-out of September 5 which, until now, seemed like a solid contender for at least three Oscar nominations – Picture, Original Screenplay, Editing. Truth be told, it might still get them all, but this is a stumble in their race for gold, nevertheless.

More commentary and the complete BAFTA longlists after the jump…

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