SAG Ensemble -- Everyone's Nominated... Except for You!

Happy SAG NOMINATION DAY! It's time for our glorious depressing tradition of trying to convince a UNION that they ought to look into slightly different rules that are less likely to devalue their dues paying members. Each year when the SAG ensemble nominees are announced the list of actual nominees from the films reveal that non-big name actors are routinely excluded. The problem is that the size of your fame doesn't always correlate with your role and the bulk of SAG's membership is non-famous actors.  If you're curious about why this happens it's due to the rules that you have to have your own title card to be considered part of the official ensemble. In other words you need to a) be famous or b) have a really good agent or c) have the leading role. The only exception to this rule is when the credits don't follow the normal rules. For example Woody Allen movies always list the cast alphabetically on a shared title card. In those cases, you have to be on the first title card to make it in which is why Corey Stoll, who gave the best performance in Midnight in Paris, was left out that year. He wasn't famous enough yet to be on the first page of credits. Now he tends to get his own title card. 

So let's look at who was honored and who was mistreated this morning by the group nominations.

BEASTS OF NO NATION
Nominated Cast: Abraham Attah, Idris Elba, Kurt Egyiawan (as "2nd I-C")

Who was left out: Just about everyone which makes it the strangest nomination of the group. Does three make an ensemble?  I have not yet seen the film -- child soldier dramas are a subgenre I avoid like the plague since they're mentally scarring -- but I hear that Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye who plays "Strika" is quite good in the movie. 

more after the jump...

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SAG Ensemble. Which films get the honor of losing to Spotlight?

The Screen Actors Guild nominations are just one week away. Who do you think will be nominated for Best Ensemble? Spotlight is the only sure things since it screams "ENSEMBLE!" Or at least it whispers "Ensemble" with grave concern and sobriety standing with arms akimbo with rolled up sleeves and khakis. The Martian is probably in since it's well liked, hard to avoid, has a big cast, and it's long been speculated that actors sometimes vote for movies that they wish they could have been in (i.e. movies wherein a bunch of people look to be having fun making it)

But that's only two slots. So where do the other three go? More after the jump...

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Black Mass and Acting Beats

If there's a surprise SAG Best Ensemble nominee this year on December 9th, you should fully expect it to be Black Mass. Not that something can be a surprise when you fully expect it but let's not split hairs. Especially not hairs carefully threaded through bald caps.

More...

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TIFF: Journalists at War. "Truth" vs "Spotlight"

On the first day of TIFF last Thursday I saw four consecutive movies from different countries and of different tones entirely that all had a surprise pregnancy reveal scene/shot during their stories. Festivals are funny like that providing you with unexpected throughlines. But sometimes you fully expect the comparisons, if not a schedule that has you watching two similar movies back-to-back. That happened to me with James Vanderbilt's Truth and Thomas McCarthy's Spotlight. Both are journalism pictures with A list casts and both will be gunning for awards honors at year's end. Spotlight is better positioned already with stronger reviews but Truth definitely has its pleasures. While watching them Truth felt more popcorn entertaining but Spotlight is stickier, staying with you afterwards.

Truth vs. Spotlight in 8 categories after the jump...

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Murder on the Orient Express: Ingrid Bergman steals the show - or does she?

We're near the end of Ingrid Bergman's career so here's the penultimate episode in our retrospective. Happy 100th to the superstar on August 29th. Here's Lynn Lee...

By 1974, Ingrid Bergman was a grande dame of film in the twilight of her career, with two Best Actress Oscar wins under her belt, and nothing left to prove.  Perhaps that’s why she deliberately opted for such a small part in the star-studded Murder on the Orient Express, despite director Sidney Lumet’s attempts to coax her into taking a bigger one.  And yet, despite her own efforts to stay out of the spotlight, it found her anyway, with her tiny role as a mousy, middle-aged Swedish missionary netting her an unlikely third Oscar.

We don’t see too many movies like Orient Express these days – A-list extravaganzas where most of the stars end up with little more than glorified cameos but just seem to be in it for fun.  And to be fair, the movie is fun and directed with flair, even as it plays up the absurd theatricality of the whodunit setup – something that doesn’t register as strongly when you’re reading Agatha Christie’s plummy prose.  It’s a bit much at times...

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