"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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Drag Race RuCap: “Squirrel Games”

Like in the last couple of years, Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are following and recapping the new RuPaul’s Drag Race season…

Are you ready for this new crop of queens?

NICK TAYLOR: How do you measure a year? Do you base it on a fixed temporal quantity, like daylights or sunsets? Or do you go by something more nebulous, more personal, like cups of coffee? Hugs given? Lives lived? How about a secret third option: basing all existence on the schedule of an increasingly productive, internationally-minded media franchise like RuPaul’s Drag Race? 2025 has barely begun and here we are, Cláudio, ready to once again offer our unprecedented and unrequested takes on the latest US season of Drag Race. It’s season 17, baybeee!! With a new twist on the split-premiere structure of seasons past and an opening mini-challenge arguably more culturally relevant than the show it’s spoofing, I say this season gets off on the right foot.

I certainly had a lot of fun with it. Did you, diva?

CLÁUDIO ALVES: I did, Mr. Larson, I really did…

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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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A Few Thoughts on the Golden Globes

by Nathaniel R

Screenshot from the Golden Globes 

Did you watch the Golden Globes Sunday night? The show was (mostly) bereft of the kind of shocks we got in the pre-reform era but in a year where crystal Oscar balls are still foggy with possibility -- seriously, which film is going to win Best Picture? -- there was still inherent drama in the opening of envelopes. At least on the film side; the TV prizes were a complete snooze fest, merely rubber-stamping September's Emmy wins! Spreading the wealth should not be such a difficult concept for awards voters but we live in an age of monopolies and oligarchs so maybe abundance it's just not a vibe for the entertainment industry these days. 

Emilia Perez (4 wins) and The Brutalist (3 wins) were all the rage with Globes voters. But did anyone else get a boost heading toward Oscar nominations?

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Weekend Awards Wrap-Up: New Year, New Winners

by Cláudio Alves

Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin are keeping HARD TRUTHS in the awards conversation.

It's been a while since our last Weekend Awards Wrap-Up. So long that the year changed, as we all bid adieu to 2024 and welcome 2025 with open arms. Mayhap inspired by a sense of annual renewal, critics groups varied up their game a tad. Colman Domingo is now leading in the number of wins, trumping Adrien Brody in Best Actor, while Margaret Qualley is pulling ahead of her other co-leads masquerading as supporting actresses. Yet, the week's biggest story is Marianne Jean-Baptiste securing the critical trifecta of the NYFCC, LAFCA, and NSFC. This feat has never before been achieved by a woman of color and has only once been given to an actress who AMPAS didn't then herald with an Oscar nomination of their own…

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