DGA & ASC Winners: La La Land and Lion

Last night was a huge night in Hollywood with three award events: The Directors Guild of America, American Society of Cinematographers, and the Annie Awards (which we'll get to later today). Which would you have attended if you had to choose?  La La Land continued its seasonal dominance but Lion unexpectedly roared, too.  

Some of the winners last night are names you'll recognize from different contexts. The list and comments are after the jump...

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10 Takeaways from the SAG Awards

Two handfuls of moments from last night's SAG Awards have stuck with me. How about you?

All Politics Are Personal
Julia Louis-Dreyfus early win and a speech that got political, her father being an immigrant, set the tone and politics never went away. It was there in every speech, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes poignantly. People who scream "no more politics" are always forgetting that all politics are personal. The laws that are made, the character of the country we live in, the rights we enjoy or can't, the laws that goven our workplaces, the type of healthcare we get, the size of the paycheck. All of these things affect every single person personally whether they see that it connects to D.C. or not. If there was any doubt that Mahershala Ali was going to win the Oscar next month for his terrific work in Moonlight (and also, yes, as a symbolic win for the film itself which often happens in the supporting categories) it surely vanished last night. Ali was deeply touched at the prize, humble, but also upset given T***'s unconstitutional Muslim ban. He brought up his own conversion to Islam and the initial conflict it raised with his mother. Touchingly he revealed that they're both long since over the conflict since. A bonus of Ali winning is we got to see shots of the Moonlight table and they unfortunately didn't get another chance to shine. 

Lily Tomlin, Denzel Washington, Winona Ryder and more after the jump...

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Personal Ballots: Best Actor and Best Actress

And so it's come to this, the finale of the traditional Oscar-like categories in our own annual Film Bitch Awards. All the nominations have been announced in the first round ("special" non-Oscar related categories still to come). It's years like this when I wish YOU wish 5 were a much larger number in so many fields. There were seven leading ladies I really wanted to honor and six leading men but five does not equal six or seven. Alas. It's also strange when films you really love are denied any nominations in your own prizes. Such was the fate of one film from my top ten list (Embrace of the Serpent). Fences and Lion, two Oscar hopefuls I'm quite fond of, also look deceptively unloved with only two nominations each though with both Best Actor and Best Actress citations, Fences can't complain. 

tfw when you realize you're nominated for a Film Bitch Award. (Huppert plays it cool)

In the final nomination tally, 35 movies received at least one nomination, with Arrival and La La Land leading the pack with 8 nominations each (will they also lead the Oscar nods?). The Handmaiden, Moonlight, 20th Century Women, and Jackie trailed not so far behind. The rest of the films weren't as lucky but perhaps they'll rise in the "special" categories to come. 

Page 1 Picture, Director, Screenplay, Animation
Page 2 Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress
Page 3 Visual Categories: Cinematography, Costume Design, etcetera...
Page 4 Aural Categories: Song, Score, etcetera

The Final Predictions Begin!

I've updated the Picture, Director, Screenplays, Actor and Supporting Actress charts with final predictions. Though many questions remain we must make the hard calls with nominations only a week away!

Best Picture & Best Director
The Best Picture race will literally never be "locked up" again so long as Oscar sticks with its "5 to 10" balloting math. That shifting number of Best Pictures means that you just never know. I want to say 8 again this year but what if its 5,6,7,9, or gulp 10. The big question mark, at least for this pundit, is Nocturnal Animals. Given that it's the movie that won't go away in precursor season with great showings at the Globes and BAFTA and significant buzz in Los Angeles despite its polarizing nature and its relatively low box office take (lower than ALL the other still buzzing pictures with the exception of Loving). The thing is you can't vote AGAINST something. You can only vote for it, so we're predicting Tom Ford in Best Director. 

Leading Actor
Arguable the most settled of the Oscar acting races with Casey Affleck, Denzel Washington, Andrew Garfield, Viggo Mortensen, and Ryan Gosling all steady players for months. At this point it would be a minor surprise to see one of the ousted. Support for their rivals seems to be far too diffuse.

Supporting Actress
The other "settled" acting race though you can definitely make arguments about one of two women spoiling the party:  Greta Gerwig who is brilliant in 20th Century Women and who has definitely earned her place at Hollywood's most prestigious tables after years of fine work, or Janelle Monae, who proves herself a total natural in Hidden Figures with a bright film career ahead of her. Supporting Actress is a friendly category to double nominees which means if there's a major shake-up it could be both Octavia and Janelle in the mix.

With Captain Fantastic holding strong for Viggo and with its SAG nomination, we're betting the Screenplay shows up, too.

Original Screenplay & Adapted Screenplay
The big question in Adapted might be whether Fences has enough goodwill to earn August Wilson a posthumous nomination, or if naysayers who believe its too "stagey" have made it a Viola & Denzel only party. My guess is that if Tom Ford doesn't show up in Director he shows up here instead and steals that slot away from the late theatrical giant.

In Original Screenplay with three films looking unstoppable for nominations (Manchester, Hell or, La La), one looking like a very typical "of course it nabbed #1 votes!" critical darling style nominee (The Lobster), there's presumably only one spot left and SO many strong screenplays fighting for it: Captain Fantastic, 20th Century Women, Zootopia, Toni Erdmann, Jackie. 

Oscar Dark Horse Watch: Joel Edgerton for Best Actor

by Lynn Lee

As we approach the start of Oscar voting, the race for Best Actor remains comparatively quiet, especially when compared with the super-tight margins in the Best Actress category.  Currently the smart money has the Academy tracking the SAG lineup, with Casey Affleck and Denzel Washington as virtual locks (notwithstanding the continued rumbling about those 2010 sexual harassment suits against Affleck) and Ryan Gosling, Viggo Mortensen, and Andrew Garfield filling the remaining slots...

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