One Category at a Time: Best Supporting Actor

Strangely enough, before the critics started announcing their winners back in December, this seemed like the most nebulous category. Now it's one of the most galvanized, with one name dominating the conversation (give or take an odd Golden Globes loss).

SAG Winners

The SAG Awards added their say to the season last night, as I'm sure you saw.
I didn't so much watch the show as listen to it from the discomfort of my bathroom, while an underdone chicken & rice dish from Korean Grill House pulled a U-turn in my digestive tract.

Most of the guild's decisions require little commentary, more or less confirming front-runner status for Mahershala Ali, Viola Davis and Emma Stone.

It wasn't until the final two film categories of the night we got some fat to chew. While I wouldn't have called the wins for Denzel Washington and the cast of Hidden Figures full shockers, they do add enough of a wrinkle to keep things interesting, or at least raise some questions:

My Award Nominations: Supporting Actor

While the ranks of leading men were a bit thin this year (though not really as bad as some are declaring), there were many supporting players to choose from, and that's not even including lead performers who were campaigned in this category. These five true Supporting Actors were tops for me, and on any given day the list could change.

SAG Nominees

The Screen Actors Guild is the first industry group out of the gate. As usual, their lists are heavy on Oscar favourites, but the nominating committee is small and random enough to throw in a surprise or two (Welcome to the Oscar race, Emily Blunt and Captain Fantastic?).

Conspicuously missing from their coveted Best Ensemble category is presumed Best Picture frontrunner La La Land. No film has won the Academy's top honour without a SAG Ensemble nod since Braveheart in the SAG Awards' inaugural year. Worth keeping an eye on.

Anyway, here are the nominees their six movie categories:

BEST ENSEMBLE
Captain Fantastic
Fences
Hidden Figures
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Captain Fantastic's inclusion hearkens back to the days when we would regularly get left field inclusions (like Bobby and The Station Agent) with no chance at Best Picture recognition. Now the real question: Does this actually sink La La Land's Best Picture aspirations, or it simply seen as a duet as opposed to an ensemble achievement?

Top Five Pet Peeves of the 2015-16 Oscar Season

The Oscar derby has been dead and buried for over a week now, but as usual I still have a few nuggets to get off my chest before calling it a year. Read on, if you dare, and behold my final purge of negativity, after which I can say "Okay, I'm over it" (hopefully).

5. The Big Short's Adapted Screenplay sweep

I know I've been harping on Adam McKay and Charles Randolph's well-meaning housing crisis comedy for months, but I just don't see what made this such a unanimous choice for writing awards. Especially when the competition hasn't been this stacked in years. I mean, good God: Carol, Room, Brooklyn, The Martian, inexplicable snubbee Steve Jobs, and even the long shots from 45 Years to Mr. Holmes write circles around The Big Short's misguided gimmickry, which gets by on sounding a lot smarter than it truly is. The lone bone tossed to Aaron Sorkin by the Golden Globes is going to look very good ten years from now (Heck, it looked good the moment it happened). At least other season sweepers like Inside Out and Son of Saul can be justified on quality, but I'm not drinking the Koolaid on this one.

One Category at a Time: Supporting Actor

In most instances, the foundation of support behind Best Picture nominated films is a considerable factor in predicting Oscar winners in other categories. And in some instances, a completely different narrative takes hold that makes such things irrelevant. We may be seeing that this year in Best Supporting Actor, which houses four performances from Best Picture nominees, yet the frontrunner represents his movie's sole nomination.

My Award Nominations: Supporting Actor

There was a lot more to choose from in the supporting ranks than among the leading men this year. I could list my top twenty picks and still not have mentioned everyone worth mentioning. My picks for Best Supporting Actor:

SAG nominations scattered amongst the pretenders

The first big guild announcement of the season dropped this morning, but when all is said and done, it may not have been such an impactful announcement.

SAG's attention was splintered all over the place, and seems especially out of sync with pundit logic this season. Aggressively campaigned films like Trumbo and The Big Short performed well, but could both conceivably be shut out the Oscars. Some categories could even have as little as an 0/5 overlap with the eventual Oscar slate (especially that Supporting Actor category). For the time being, it keeps any frontrunners a happy mystery. Check out the nominees and my brief knee-jerks after the jump.

Is nomination leader Trumbo really an Oscar threat? Perhaps for Crantson...

Early Oscar Predictions: The Actors

With a shooting script in hand and the stage set, principle photography begins. Directors work closely with their performers and cinematographers to bring the writer's words to life and capture it all on camera.

There's never a dearth of prospective performances that look like they could certainly turn some heads at this early stage of the game, especially in the perennially competitive Best Actor category.

SAG Awards bolster 'Birdman' for Best Picture, but not Best Actor...

Well, if you don't count Best Stunt Ensemble (which went to the solid work in Unbroken where I had guessed The Hobbit), I aced my SAG predictions...

... and I'm not entirely happy about that.

First of all, let's not dwell on the supporting races or on Best Actress. Those categories are all but sealed up with Patricia Arquette, J.K. Simmons, and Julianne Moore all coming out on top in their respective categories.

Let's also not dwell on Birdman's well deserved victory in Best Ensemble. It may not have been my absolute first choice but its cast was excellent and makes a fine winner. If you want to theorize about how "easy" it is for a movie about ACTING to win with the Screen Actors Guild, go ahead, but this is a merited honour for an outstanding collective performance.

What I think we do need to talk about is Best Actor. I had an unsettling feeling that tonight would be the night when frontrunner Michael Keaton would finally be unseated by Eddie Redmayne for his much more awards-typical performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. I don't want to give the impression that I begrudge Redmayne any accolades he receives for his impressive physical transformation, but this is not the outcome I wanted to see.

One Category at a Time: Supporting Actor

I've already opined on how boring the Best Supporting Actor Oscar race is this year. The exact same five names have been almost unanimously nominated across the board, and fringe contenders didn't even bother to campaign. Perhaps they figured that it wasn't even worth gunning for a nomination when the eventual winner has been cut and dry for months.

My Award Nominations: Supporting Actor

Onward we march in my drawn-out unveiling of 2014's best cinematic achievements. Today the focus is on Best Supporting Actor.

Unlike in my recently unveiled Best Original Screenplay ballot, I find there is a dearth of quality in this category. I'm sure you'll immediately notice that my top five are nearly identical to the SAG, Globes, BAFTA, and Oscar slate (save for one obvious non-contender who should've received more consideration anyway). It's not that I particularly enjoy lining up with the everybody else, but I couldn't find a whole lot of alternatives that I felt okay nominating myself. When different groups are in this much agreement at the nomination stage, it's often an indicator of a weak year.

But enough griping, because these five performances are still excellent -- whether or not they had any competition:

Only a handful of surprises in SAG nominations

The SAG awards always present something of an enigma to awards watchers. Their nominating committee is significantly smaller than the full membership who votes on the winners, which often results in one or two out-of-left-field contenders. They also decide their nominees so early, that a few late-breaking juggernauts always miss the cut.

Evidence of both these intriguing qualities were present in this morning's nomination announcement, which otherwise stuck to the script most prognosticators imagine will be unfolding this season.

The biggest surprises came from the ladies' acting categories, which saw Jennifer Aniston break into the Best Actress race for her acclaimed work in the micro-indie Cake. Screeners for that one obviously landed in the right hands at the right time. An even more curious nomination is the one Naomi Watts garnered for St. Vincent, which played well at TIFF (on the inaugural 'Bill Murray Day') but has since been all but forgotten.

'Boyhood' dominates busy day of critical kudos

There were three critics groups announcing their awards today (props to all those folks who sat at there computer for 12 hours watching the drip feed of winners on Twitter): Boston Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Online, and the LA Film Critics Association. All three of them echoed the New York Film Critics Circle's decision to name Richard Linklater's Boyhood the best film of 2014.

Linklater himself also took all three Best Director prizes, but wasn't even in a timezone where he could hear all the good news! Instead he was overseas at the British Independent Film Awards, where his critical darling won Best International Film. Talk about an eventful day!

Beyond those top two categories, the only other race which saw a unanimous winner from all three organizations was Best Documentary, which predictably went to Citizenfour. I've only seen a couple of docs this year (the other being the enjoyable if unremarkable Life Itself), so I'll have to catch up with a lot of the other contenders before deciding if all this praise for this one is justified.

After the jump I'll list the winners and runner-ups of the LAFCA with some thoughts:

One Category at a Time: Supporting Actor

Plenty of variety for Oscar voters to choose from in this category, which didn't deviate too far from my own preferences. The only actor who could claim to be snubbed is Daniel Bruhl, who was excellent in Rush. I must admit I'm saddened by it. I thought he was good enough to be nominated back in 2005 for the wonderful German comedy Goodbye, Lenin, and a nomination looked like it was in the cards this time, especially after being up for the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and SAG Award. That said, there is a certain justice to this cruelty, as a nomination for him here would've been blatant category fraud, so let's be happy we skirted that controversy.

Anyway, of the actual nominees, a clear frontrunner has asserted himself:

My Award nominations: Supporting Actor

The story of the year seemed to be more about the leading men (and that's fair), but there was still some excellent work from the supporting ranks. Read about my five picks for the Best Supporting Actors of 2013 after the cut.

SAG winners

So the Screen Actors Guild has had their say, and for the most part, they were in lock step with the beat the season has set so far.

All the expected actors followed up on their BFCA wins two days ago, with the only category of some dispute being supporting actress. Lupita Nyongo's win tonight over chief competition Jennifer Lawrence (who won just last year) seems to have effectively settled that question though.

SAG, PGA Preview

The first of the industry's top guilds to announce their winners for 2013 will be the Screen Actors Guild (broadcast live tonight) and the Producers Guild of America (tomorrow).

All eyes are on American Hustle to snatch SAG's coveted Best Ensemble award, but nothing's ever set in stone. Remember just last year that another starry David O. Russell ensemble piece, Silver Linings Playbook, was also pegged to take this category, only to be trumped by eventual Best Picture juggernaut Argo, despite it not winning any individual acting honours. So it is possible that 12 Years a Slave could still pull the same trick it did at the Globes and the Critics Choice; keeping a lower profile all night before popping up in the final envelope.

SAG nominations

The Screen Actors Guild is the first major trade group out of the gate this year, and even though their nominees are always somewhat predictable, there's always a surprise or two to stir the pot.

Nominees and individual commentaries on the film categories after the jump.

Early Oscar predictions - Part 2

My early predictions continue with Best Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Adapted Screenplay. Next week I'll start looking at some of the visual craft categories.

Best Supporting Actor

Always hard to get a read on the supporting categories because a lot of contenders stem from large ensembles out of which it's hard to detect the standout without seeing the film. The Monuments Men, for instance, boasts a starry cast, but who (if any) will get the most attention. I'm taking a chance on John Goodman (also starring in Inside Llewyn Davis this year) given his career trajectory of late; featured in the last two Best Picture winners, among several other awards films... how long can it be before his first career nomination? And for which film will it be?

You could make a similar case for Michael Fassbender, who probably came close to his first nomination for Steve McQueen's Shame. He's teaming again with McQueen for Twelve Years a Salve. Perhaps an American period drama is more to the Academy's liking?