Matthew McConaughey wins SAG for Best Actor?

Two years ago, the world would be on the floor laughing had they heard that Matthew McConaughey was the HUGE front runner to win the Oscar for Best Actor.  Since a flurry of impressive films, Mr. McConaughey, with his film Dallas Buyers Club, has managed to capture the Golden Globe for Best Actor- Drama, and now, both the Critics Church Award and SAG award for Best Actor in a Feature Film.  We can now say, he's been winning everything, although he's not even nominated for a BAFTA award, we can still safely bet on him to win the Oscar.

A couple other interesting plot lines occurred Saturday night.  Lupita Nyong'o managed to follow up her Critics Choice Awards Supporting Actress win for 12 Years a Slave with a win at the SAG awards as well, making her also the likely candidate for the Oscar.  This is a surprise to some, probably the ones who haven't seen or liked the film, because Nyong'o is brilliant.

American Hustle took home Best Cast, which really doesn't increase it's chances at winning Best Picture at the Oscars.  The Oscars may opt to be like the Globes this year, spreading the love around as much as possible, meaning American Hustle could walk away with nothing BUT Best Picture (which hasn't happened since 1935).  It is interesting to note how close the Best Picture Oscar race really is, American Hustle, the "average's people's comedy film" and 12 Years a Slave, the "heavy-hitting historical drama" duke it out as the two films that are were up for both Best Cast at the SAGs and Best Picture at the Oscars (as was Dallas Buyers Club, but for left out for the reason that it has no shot of winning Best Picture).

Only once has a film won the Best Picture Oscar and has not even been nominated for the SAG award for Best Cast in the 20 year history of the SAGs (Braveheart in 1995).  So, we can probably discount Gravity's chances at winning Best Picture at the Oscars, but 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle have both won Best Picture at the Golden Globes, and each has been evenly matched as Best Picture Oscar contenders.  If Gravity's Alfonso Cuarôn wins the DGA Award, that will make things even more difficult...

At least the remaining acting categories will be easy, as Blue Jasmine's Cate Blanchett continued her sweep of all Best Actress awards with a SAG and Critics Choice award.  Ditto for Dallas Buyer's Club supporting actor Jared Leto.

And finally, the PGA claimed Best Picutre a tie between 12 Years a Slave and Gravity. so a wild weekend overall, as the PGA has never had a tie winner before.  Next up is the Directors Guild this Friday, the sole, biggest predictor of the Oscars, then it's all catching up until March 2nd, happy viewing!

86th Oscar nominees- no guts, no glory...and no shame

So does everyone believe me now that Dallas Buyers Club was NOT a surprise?  Another painfully obvious stat, the Oscars once again nominate nine films under the new rules (now in all three years the rule has been adopted), like we don't know full well that there's enough "cooperation" with the Academy voters to actually put up ten (but that would be waaaaaay too obvious).

So, if you're one of those people like me, we get to spend money going to watch all 9 movies, but hey, when else would I watch Philomena?

Speaking of Philomena, its nomination for Best Picture tops the surprise category from Thursday morning's announcements.  This will make a lot of viewers happy, and also cause a lot of good press for such a great film, despite not being the type of film the local homies would see.  Here's a couple of more surprises:

Inside Llewyn Davis was nearly shut out of everything, managing to score just two nods for Best Cinematography (ahem..over 12 Years a Slave) and Best Sound Mixing, despite having swept the National Society of Film Critics last week.  Ditto to Saving Mr. Banks, who only managed to get noticed for Original Score, despite a strong belief that Emma Thompson Was going to be up for Best Actress.  And zero, zilch, nada for The Butler.

Not much else really, although now we can say Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa is an Oscar nominated films, after scoring one for Best Makeup.  Clever, Jackass...clever.

Tops in Nominations were tied with 10 between Gravity, sweeping the technical side, and American Hustle, sweeping the artistic side, with nominations in all four acting categories.  This could be how Oscar night plays out, a tight race between the two films, and throw in some 12 Years a Slave as well.  Whichever film wins the DGA will certainly be a heavy favorite to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

Best Actor is another very tight race.  Both Tom Hanks and Robert Redford got bounced in favor of the new Hollywood's Leo Dicaprio and Christian Bale.  I still believe the race is between Bruce Dern for Nebraska, which scored six nominations, and Chiwetel Ejiofer for 12 Years a Slave.  The best predictor will be the SAG awards, announced this Saturday.

A complete list of all nominees is posted under the Oscars tab!  I'll hit you with the party details later.
Otherwise, just wake me up when it's March 2nd.

Last minute thoughts for Oscar Noms

Enjoy

Spreading Around the Love at the Golden Globes

Everyone’s favorite annual event dedicated to getting Hollywood stars drunk, then giving them awards they were never expecting to win, hence forcing them to improvise pathetically hilarious speeches.  It’s the Golden Globe$! 

I think the moment of the night was when Seth Myers and Julie Bowen claimed they were willing to “play ball” with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Anyway, The Globes have always been known to give love to big Hollywood pictures, so despite 12 Years a Slave having more nominations than any other film, many were still expecting Gravity to take home Best Picture- Drama.  Although they were wrong about Best Picture, Gravity’s director Alfonso Cuaron took home Best Director in an attempt to spread all of the love around.  On-point was the first surprise of the night, Spike Jonze winning Best Screenplay for Her.

As for Comedy/Musical? Don’t even start with me.  Julie Deply was nominated for Before Midnight.  Yeah, that movie was so funny I cried throughout the whole thing.  Especially the end. 

On that end, it was American Hustle’s night, Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams both taking home prizes.  Adams winning over SAG nominees Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson, is probably a precursor to a potential Oscar nomination.  However, it will not be the same with Leonardo Dicaprio, who took home Best Actor Comedy/Musical for The Wolf of Wall Street, over Bruce Dern…(wut…)

It pays to be popular if you want to win a Golden Globe.  Likewise for an unexpected Best Actor Drama winner Matthew McCounaghey, who actually is expected to be nominated for an Oscar.  My theory is, the HFPA felt sorry for those really bankable stars that Hollywood can count on, having to sit in the most crowded award ceremony ever.  Seriously, so much speech time lost due to winners having to sneak through tables to the stage.  And with so many people, you can bet they’ll all find a number of people to hug, kiss and thank on the way up.  If you want people to watch, please manage that a little better HFPA, thanks.

Finally, the biggest surprise of the night was All is Lost winning Best Score.  The biggest whoop was Cate Blanchett winning Best Actress Drama.  Now that it’s over we can finally move on to the Oscars, whose nominations will be announced Thursday, Check out the nomination predictions on the Oscars page, and the other pages will have all the info you need to know to make your own predictions!

BAFTA and DGA nominees

The BAFTA nominations were announced yesterday, and, quite pretentiously, snuck in a last second consideration of Gravity as a British film.  I smell quite a conspiracy I’m afraid, I mean, there were SIX nominations for British film, rather than the usual five.  Seems suspicious?  A last minute push to go along side another obviously British film, Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks produced with contribution from BBC Films, filmed almost entirely on the Disney lot in Southern California.  Gravity is, I guess, at least shot in a studio in the UK, although takes place in space, save one down-to-earth scene that was shot in Arizona.  The British Academy has their heads in the clouds.  The film was written, directed and produced by the Spanish Alfonso Cuaron, and was co-produced by David Heyman (who is a brit), and starred All-Americans.  And yes it was filmed in England, mostly in the same studio that another obviously British film, Star Wars was shot.  And the year that it’s nominated just so happen to randomly have SIX nominees.. just might mean conspiracy.

Because of that “exception,” Gravity was the most nominated film at the BAFTAs, nabbing eleven.  12 Years a Slave and American Hustle were both close behind with ten each.  Philomena, a British film, suspiciously snuck into a nomination for Best Film along with Gravity, 12 Years A Slave, Captain Phillips and American Hustle.

And for those of you who love to predict the Oscars, a much more relevant story is the DGA nominations were released on Tuesday.  The five nominees for feature film direction are identical to the BAFTA’s choices.  They are:

Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity

Paul Greengrass for Captain Phillips

Steve Mcqueen for 12 Years a Slave

David O. Russell for American Hustle

Martin Socrsese for The Wolf of Wall Street

These are also close to the Golden Globe nominees, with an actual surprise-Martin Scorsese nomination.  The DGA has always been the biggest precursor to what will win the Oscar for Best Director, which directly influences the Best Picture Oscar.  I still believe Steve Mcqueen will and should win this one, will Russell and Cuaron close behind.

One thing we learned from last year. the names nominated do NOT mean they will be nominated for the Oscar.  Their films probably will score a Best Picture nomination (since the Oscars have so damn many), but last year the Oscars came up with some pretty creative stuff for Best Director, probably to make for more competition in the Best Picture category (to no avail, Argo still won).  We may still see a few different names on the Oscar shortlist for Best Director.

Updates on the Oscar page with my nomination predictions, and  some extra pages so you can take a look at the films that have been gaining attention so far this season.  Also new updates to The Movies page.

Golden Globes are THIS Sunday, January 12^th, check back then!