SAG Awards
What a boring cavalcade of tedium the SAG Awards were tonight. No shockers, no mild surprises, the same people won who’ve won before…the same old heroin. The Best Ensemble Cast award went to Little Miss Sunshine…terrific, bolstering chances that LMS might actually take the Best Picture Oscar. The oppressiveness of Helen Mirren winning yet again for Best Actress makes her the Mao Zhedong of the ’06 Oscar race. Forest Whitaker, who won Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland, is Zhou Enlai (or Chou En-lai, if you prefer). Jennifer Hudson for Best Supporting Actress…I guess the Dreamgirls fall-off hasn’t hurt her. Eddie Murphy won for Best Supporting Actor…same deal. Down with Murphy. I say, and up with Mark Wahlberg or Alan Arkin.
*YAWN*
Why the comparison of talented actors to Chinese Communists?
Get a room.
Gee, do you think maybe the same people keep winning is because they deserve it? LMS is a good quirky movie. The Departed is just a typical shoot every main character dead until there is no one left. What is entertaining about that?
“The Departed is just a typical shoot every main character dead until there is no one left. What is entertaining about that?”
Acting, dialogue, pacing, energy, writing, music, casting,….
Little Miss Sunshine may not be as good as The Departed, but I am encouraged to see a film like it being nominated….
You never see comedies being honored (yes, I know LMS isn’t necessarily a straight-up comedy, but still).
And The Dreamgirls “fall-off” isn’t going to stop Jennifer Hudson at the Oscars. She’s everyone’s little darling right now.
I’ve heard it prounounced “Babble,” I’ve heard it pronounced “Ba-BELL,” and tonight Cate Blanchett pronounced it “BAY-bel.” Since she’s in it, I guess we’ll have to go with that one.
Maybe by the time Forest Whitaker wins the Oscar, he’ll have learned how to give a thank you speech. His “neurotic/humble” actor shit is getting old. He needs to stand up straight and make some fucking sense.
good post insidah. Tired of these actors acting during their speeches. It’s cloying.
My co-viewer made the same remark, insidah. Hey Forest, you’ve got a month until Oscar. Work on a friggin speech. BTW, anyone else find themselves always rooting for Hugh Laurie to win just to hear his speeches? He’s a crack-up. And I don’t even watch his show.
Since the Oscars are more about ratings than actually honoring film achievement, they have some work to do. Viewership will be horrible. And they know it.
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Viewership-wise: The Academy slipped not nominating “Dreamgirls” for some top awards. It was the most high profile movie going in (and still is because of the snub), the album sales are phenomenal, DVD sales will probably be great and it is going to do $100 million at the box office (which for some reason is great for every other movie on the planet, but “Dreamgirls” is a failure because of it? Note: Its box office is on par or better than over half of the past Best Picture WINNERS in the last 20 years. Off my soapbox
The producers are making sure, in press, to say that DG will definitely be a part of the show. But then you have the speech issues. Looking at the nominees, even if there was an upset, I don’t think you could muster a memorable moment out of any of them.
Forest Whitaker (God bless his soul) is working his shy man thing, which might make people vote for him, i.e. “He really transformed himself, because, in person, he is very unassuming.”
I think they need to just stop televising it. Maybe then the focus will be less on capitalist qualifiers, like box office and ratings and more about the films/performances themselves.
Call me crazy or actually watching the movies or something but was I the only one who noticed that Jennifer Hudson is possibly the weakest, most one note performance in the movie (to be fair the part doesn’t allow for much else)? I think Jamie Foxx, Murphy, and Danny Glover do much stronger, more interesting work in this film.
“Viewership-wise: The Academy slipped not nominating “Dreamgirls” for some top awards.”
Not necessarily. Popular movies don’t always result in more viewers.
2006 – 38M viewers (down the year Brokeback was expected to win)
2005 – 41M viewers (Million Dollar Baby won)
2004 – 43M viewers (Lord of the Rings won)
2003 – 33M viewers(Chicago won)
2002 – 41M Halle and Denzel’s historic wins
Chicago was more popular than Dreamgirls, yet the Oscars had a record low the year it was nominated and won. Some new people may have tuned in this year with Dreamgirls, simply because of the possibility that a black movie could have won; but, some people might have not watched for the same reason or the fact that they don’t like musicals.
I think Dreamgirls fans will still tune in to see Hudson win. On the other hand, this year is so predictable, many may tune out for that reason. Even Hudson has won so many awards that, at SAG’s, it seemed like she wasn’t all that excited.
I love how Oscar prognosticators like Jeff complain about the repetitiveness of all of these awards when they’re responsible for it. Not only do they start predicting wins nine months out, but they practically demand them: “If Helen Mirren doesn’t win Best actress for her performance in The Queen the Academy should just disband right now!” and such nonsense. And then they whine when the awards season doesn’t offer any surprises.
Granted, the proliferation of Oscar pundits doesn’t excuse the herd mentality of the Academy (or any of these other groups, like HFPA and SAG) but I find it pretty hypocritical of Jeff and others to lament a phenomenon that they created.
In other news, hasn’t Jeff or anybody at the Santa Barbara Film Festival noticed that Will Smith’s name is misspelled on the SBFF ad here on HE? ————————————>>>
I mean, how hard is it to spell “Will Smith”? “Chiwetel Ejiofor” I could understand, but “Will Smith”?
Oh, but “boring cavalcade of tedium” is awesome. That may be the name of my next album.
Voiceover gem of the night – “This is Jennifer Hudson’s first Screen Actors Guild win.”
and probably her last. sorry to say but let’s get real, what roles will she be able to get after this?
I think its sort of insulting that Jennifer Hudson should win an award ovver other real actors who will actually continue to contribute something to the medium. Not to beat the same drum over and over but she was mediocre in a mediocre movie. Sure the part was underwritten (and the movie in the second half can’t seem to decide who its protaganist is) but that doesn’t change the fact that the chick can sing, but can’t act.
I would much rather see an actor win for an unquestionably great performance (which THE QUEEN is, saw it Thursday) than have to sit through things like watching the more deserving Annette Benning lose to Hilary Swank -twice! Only a metaphorical “drama queen” would bitch about such a consistent consensus of opinion.
And this constant fucking bitching is getting really fucking boring. It’s not like Wells has some other performance he thinks is more deserving. Does anyone truly feel like Winslet or Cruz or the two Grand Dames are being robbed each time Mirren walks up to the podium? In other words, STFU already.
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To Lola – you do realize that your chart actually shows the opposite of what you intended. Oh, I understand the context you meant (winners vs the unlisted co-nominees).
However, your list the clear winners were those that had the most “juice” (box office and/or star appeal), ie RETURN OF THE KING and MILLION $ BABY.
The funny thing about Swank vs. Bening is that both of their performances in 1999 were significantly better than both of their performances in 2004. It was because of the head-to-head matchup that Bening lost.
look for the unexpected at the Oscars this year. The voting body doesn’t want to be treated as merely the victory lap for the usual winners. They moved the frickin’ ceremony up a month cause they were sick of all the other shows stealing their glory.
The big thing is that the Oscars will be the first of the “trio” that won’t feature mixing of TV/movies in awards and voting body. And a lot of the Academy members I’ve met have always been rather priggish in their voting ways. They don’t like the TV people. And they have their “favorite children.” How else do you explain Cate and Renee’s best supporting actress wins? Kate Winslet is going up for her fifth Oscar – she’s approaching Lucci land. Oscar voters might give it to her over Helen – why? Cause Helen is a TV actress. And the last time they gave an Oscar to a TV Helen was Helen Hunt. Look how that turned out….
Also Eddie Murphy’s Norbit ads are going to work against him. And since they’re making a big deal over O’Toole coming out for the ceremony (and Oscar lunch), they want to see the old man cry tears of joy as he walks up the stairs and not come from behind the curtain.
And Jennifer Hudson – she’s reality TV. The enemy of cinema.
The Academy knows that with all shows that will have clips on Monday, people will tune out quickly if they think it’s going to be the same people going up for the third time.
Helen Mirren is the most talented non-Oscared female actor still working today. She knows she will never have a year like last year. Please stop tediously begrudging her overdue recognition. It is “oppressive” only to you, Jeffrey. Most of us love it.
Hudson will join the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, actresses who won an Oscar they didn’t deserve and will never win again.