Team Awesome Oscar Blog: 2015

What did we learn from the SAG Awards?

Well… for starters, Turner Broadcasting apparently loves Emma Stone. Seriously. Turner Broadcasting simulcasted the Guild Awards on both TNT and TBS...

And prior to the awards on TNT they aired, The Help, which started SAG nominee Emma Stone and SAG winner Viola Davis. TNT is also airing The Help at midnight, after they rebroadcast the awards.

On TBS, before the awards they aired Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which stars SAG nominees Emma Stone and Matthew McConaughey. And AFTER the awards they are airing Crazy, Stupid, Love. A movie I absolutely adore… and it stars… you guessed it, SAG nominee Emma Stone and Steve Carrell, and SAG winner Julianne Moore.

Technically, Emma Stone did win a SAG award as part of the most outstanding ensemble in a motion picture for Birdman. And… it is an Emma Stone fiesta over at Turner Broadcasting today.

But… I digress… let’s get down to business.

The SAG awards directly influence the Oscars. And this needs to be said before I continue… the Academy loves actors who play characters with physical handicaps, mental handicaps, musicians, addicts, and characters dying of diseases. No, I am not trying to be crass… so let’s test the theory:

Best Actor:

1945 – Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend – Alcoholic

1951 – Humphrey Bogart – The African Queen – Alcoholic

1965 – Lee Marvin – Cat Ballou – Alcoholic

And now is when it gets good and my theory becomes more frequent.

1975 – Jack Nicholson – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Mentally Ill

1976 – Peter Finch – Network – Nervous Breakdown

1977 – Richard Dreyfuss – The Goodbye Girl – Musician

1978 – Jon Voight - Coming Home – Cripple

1983 – Robert Duvall – Tender Mercies – Musician

1984 – F. Murray Abraham – Amadeus - Musician

1988 – Dustin Hoffman – Rain Man – Autistic

1989 – Daniel Day-Lewis – My Left Foot – Physically Handicapped.

1991 – Anthony Hopkins – The Silence of the Lambs – Psychotic

1992 – Al Pacino – Sent of a Woman – Blind

1993 – Tom Hanks – Philadelphia – Dying of AIDS

1994 – Tom Hanks – Forrest Gump – Slow

1995 – Nicolas Cage – Leaving Las Vegas – Alcoholic

1996 – Geoffrey Rush – Shine – Mentally-Ill Musician

1997 – Jack Nicholson – As Good as It Gets – OCD

2002 – Adrien Brody – The Pianist – Musician

2004 – Jamie Fox – Ray – Musician

2009 – Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart – Alcoholic Musician

2010 – Colin Firth – The King’s Speech – Stuttering

2013 – Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club – Dying of AIDS.

Now… I could continue and do this for the other three acting categories… but I trust that you get my point.

And so now, after the SAG awards, I am pretty sure the four Oscar acting categories are a lock; three of which I already predicted:

Best Supporting Actor: J. K. Simmons – Whiplash (Musician)

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette – Boyhood (Mother of two who had been divorced three times… only to find out that her first husband was the best of the lot… mental illness?)

Best Actress: Julianne Moore – Still Alice (Alzheimer’s disease)

Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything (ALS). Going into the SAG awards I thought Michael Keaton, for Birdman, had a chance, but when Eddie won, that pretty much locked him in as the Oscar winner. Eddie did a fantastic job portraying Stephen Hawking’s’ affliction with ALS. And with the Ice Bucket Challenge trending this year, it is a hot topic. I did not particularly like this movie, mainly because I did not think it was a very good biography of Stephen Hawking, but it did do a good job showing how ALS affects a family… at least from the little knowledge I have on the subject, having an aunt who passed from the disease.

Best Picture: With Birdman winning best ensemble at the SAG awards it is now in contention for Best Picture. Statistically Boyhood is still the favorite… but anything can happen. It is between these two films…

Boyhood is an interesting experiment. For those who do not know. Richard Linklater, the director of Dazed and Confused, SubUrbia, The Newton Boys, and the amazing Before Sunset trilogy, filmed Boyhood over the course of 12 years using the same cast so they would age naturally, while telling the story of a boy, starting at age 6, balancing his divorced parents and his own life, until he goes off to college.

This film could have been a total mess, especially since mathematically, based on the films runtime, each year of the story could only encompass about 15 minutes, on average. That said, there is a coherent narrative and the performances by Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke are quite good. Arquette is the front runner for the Supporting Actress Oscar.

Boyhood won the Golden Globe for best Drama… and I am glad that it is nominated for the Oscar… but I don’t really think it is best picture material. As I said before, it is a successful experiment, just like Birdman (directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu). Birdman is also a successful experiment; for completely different reasons. And, these two movies are the front runners for Best Picture. Frankly, I’m not over the moon for either of these films winning best picture, my favorite is still Whiplash (which isn’t going to win).

Additionally, I think the directors of these two films, Richard and Alejandro, are the front runners for Best Director; mainly because their experiments were successful. And these two are also, in my opinion, the front runners in the Original Screenplay category as well. Whichever ends up with best Picture doesn’t really matter… because I think these two movies will at least walk away with 3 Oscars apiece.

EARLY OSCAR PREDICTIONS

Boyhood: Best Director, Supporting Actress, Film Editing,

Birdman: Best Actor, Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Cinematography. I also wouldn’t be surprised of ‘Birdman’ walks away with the Oscars for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS

Tonight is the Screen Actors Guild Awards and what happens tonight will be very telling as we move towards the Oscars.

Supporting Actress: (Patricia Arquette), In the 20 years SAG has given out awards, 65% of the Supporting Actresses honored by SAG win the Oscar. However, in more recent years, this number is much higher; just looking at the last 10 years that percentage jumps to 80%. Patricia already has the Golden Globe, so a win tonight will pretty much lock her in for the Oscar.

Best Actor: (Michael Keaton), Again, looking at the last 20 years of SAG, 80% of the winners in this category go on to win the Oscar. But, historically, the Oscar favors the actor who wins Golden Globe for Drama, which would make Eddie Redmayne the statistical front runner. HOWEVER, there are a number of statistical anomalies that makes tonight’s SAG Awards very important.

First: 90% of the Golden Globe for Drama winners, who also win the SAG Award, win the Oscar. Out of 11 occurrences, Russell Crowe is the only actor to fall short, losing the Oscar to Denzel Washington (Training Day), which is an anomaly unto itself. But still… if Redmayne wins, he will be statistical front runner.

Second: 100% of the Golden Globe for Comedy/Musical winners, who also win the SAG Award, win the Oscar. This has happened three times in the last 20 years: Jack Nicholson for As Good As It Gets, Jamie Foxx for Ray, and Jean Dujardin for The Artist. So a win for Keaton tonight makes him a lock for the Oscar. Statistically speaking.

Third: What happens if neither Redmayne nor Keaton wins tonight at the SAG Awards and a third actor emerges? Well, good question… and this has happened six times in the last 20 years. And when this happens, the Oscar has favored the winner of the SAG Award 4 out of 6 times: Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful), Kevin Spacey (American Beauty), Sean Penn (Milk), and Benicio del Toro (Traffic). However… Benicio won the Oscar for Supporting Actor, not Lead Actor (which went to Russell Crowe for Gladiator).

The following scenarios are rare and probably will not happen, but I think they are interesting:

On one occasion, the winner of the Golden Globe for Drama (only) won the Oscar: Sean Penn (Mystic River)… for some strange reason that year SAG gave Johnny Depp their award for Pirates of the Caribbean… and there was just no way he was going to win the Oscar for that.

Finally, in the last 20 years, these four awards have gone to four different actors only once: Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt – Golden Globe Drama), Richard Gere (Chicago - Golden Globe Comedy/Musical), Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of New York – SAG), and Adrien Brody (The Pianist – Oscar). Please note… the Oscars LOVE an actor who plays the piano: Geoffrey Rush, Holly Hunter, and Jamie Foxx; just to name the ones off the top of my head. That said, the Oscars love actors who play someone physically handicapped or mentally ill… and that list is very long… and favors Eddie Redmayne.

Best Cast in a Motion Picture: SAG only gives out awards for acting, so this is the closest you can get to ‘Best Picture’. 57% of the time, the SAG Awards goes to a film that did not win a Golden Globe. And I think that will happen tonight. My pick is Birdman. Here is a quick break down of the Oscar odds based on the Golden Globe/SAG correlation, depending on who might win tonight:

Boyhood: 100%

The Grand Budapest Hotel: 50%

Boyhood: 25%

Birdman: 25%

Birdman: 27%

Boyhood: 45%

Grand Budapest: 9%

The Imitation Game: 18%

When a third party wins the SAG, there is a possibility that a fourth film will come out of nowhere to win the Oscar. When this happens it is always a film that was nominated for (and lost) both the Golden Globe for Drama and the SAG Award. Which only leaves The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything. The former is a more likely bet. However, even though the odds are in favor of Boyhood… my Oscar pick will be Birdman if it wins the SAG Award.

Well… enjoy the Screen Actors Guild Awards my friends!