More Movies: Black Panther and Green Book – Update

This Sunday, the 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards will be handed out, and while the show has more awards for the TV side of things, the film awards may finally determine the four winners in the acting categories at the Oscars, and it may help us in the minefield that is Best Picture. There are six film categories, so let’s get crackin’.

 

Best Stunt Ensemble

And the winner will be…Black Panther

I feel like Black Panther is easily out front for this award. Sure, you’ve got some other action favorites this year, like Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Avengers: Infinity War, but with Black Panther also being up for Best Ensemble, I feel like it can’t lose.

 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

And the winner will be…Rachel Weisz for The Favourite

I am taking a bit of a risk here in this category. This seems to me as the hardest category to predict right now, especially since the Oscar favorite, Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk, is not nominated here or at BAFTA. As I’ve mentioned a few times this year, this same thing happened to Sylvester Stallone three years ago in Creed, and most Oscar predictors, including myself, were very dismissive of his lack of nominations at SAG and BAFTA. However, it came back to bite us all in the ass when Mark Rylance won at the Oscars. The difference was that he was in a Best Picture nominee, and he also was nominated everywhere. So if you look at the other contenders in this category, Rachel Weisz and Amy Adams are the two I’m looking at. Sure, Emma Stone and at the Oscars Marina de Tavira in Roma, all have the same argument, but I feel like Weisz is ahead of Stone since Stone just won two years ago. So why am I picking Wiesz over the heavily-favored Adams? Well, Adams has a solid chance to win on the TV side for Sharp Objects, and when comparing the performances and the roles, Adams is on screen far less than Weisz, and arguably she leaves less of an impact than Weisz’s devilish performance. And I also have Vice winning another award later in the night, and while I think the actors do like the movie, they’ll want to give The Favourite something.

 

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

And the winner will be…Mahershala Ali for Green Book

I really think this is our one locked category for the rest of the year. Sure, Richard E. Grant winning for Can You Ever Forgive Me? could switch up the race significantly, but I feel like this is the one place to award Green Book, especially since it’s won PGA and the Globe for Comedy, and it’s not up for Ensemble. On top of that, Mahershala has won everything so far in the major televised precursors, as well as a handful of critics prizes, so everything seems to be in his corner.

 

Best Actress in a Leading Role

And the winner will be…Glenn Close for The Wife

This is one of the tougher categories for Sunday. It’s a legitimate three way race between Close, Lady Gaga, and Olivia Colman. All three have their separate arguments for why they would win. Gaga’s performance has wowed almost everyone in the industry, and the SAG-AFTRA voters stem not just from actors, but also from TV and radio personalities, so she could get a big leg-up from those voters. Olivia Colman got her name from her past TV work, and again the TV voters might be eager to see her win, and she also won the Globe for Comedy/Musical, and if Rachel Weisz loses for Supporting Actress, this would be the last place to award The Favourite. But then there’s Glenn Close, a film legend who’s also spent a lot of her career on television as well. On top of all that, her Globe win for Drama and tying for Best Actress at the Critics Choice (with Gaga) shows that she has support from the industry already. I just feel like this is the direction the wind is blowing. But make no mistake, whoever wins here Sunday will likely take the Oscar, especially with the overlap between SAG and Oscar voters.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

And the winner will be…Christian Bale for Vice

This is the spot where Vice makes it. I must say, though, that this will not be an easy win for Christian. He has a lot of competition here. The other two competitors to have an eye-out for are Rami Malek for Bohemian Rhapsody and Bradley Cooper for A Star is Born. Now here’s the arguments for and against those other two. Both of them are in a film that’s up for Ensemble, which are both pros, but I feel like Bohemian Rhapsody will not have the same stinger ending that it did at the Globes, and Bradley would have a win if A Star is Born wins Ensemble. That leaves Christian Bale, who has a transformative role, a great performance, and is in a film that just went over really well with the Oscar voters.

Now there is an argument that Bradley Cooper could win here off sympathy votes for not landing a nomination for directing, but since SAG votes are already in, and to my knowledge were in before Oscar nominations were announced, that would not be the reason for his winning. That would depend on whether or not the voters like him better than the others or not. One last point I will make, and this would favor Rami Malek, is that Christian Bale is in the same spot right now that Michael Keaton was four years ago for Birdman. He had won the Globe for Comedy/Musical, then won both the Comedy Actor and Best Actor awards at the Critics Choice. However, his Oscar chances were dashed by a surprise win by Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything at SAG. He was a younger competitor, who played a real person, and was in a film that had a lot of support as well. So Rami does indeed stand a chance, but with so much bad word of mouth circulating around Bohemian Rhapsody, especially after that recent expose about director Bryan Singer’s past, the voters might not feel comfortable going for him or the film. Again, this most recent hit was done after the voting had concluded, but still, the word on Bryan Singer has been out for a while. Overall, I’m going with Bale because of his past wins thus far this season, and also because I feel Vice is not quite as controversial as some make it out to be.

 

Best Ensemble

And the winner will be…A Star is Born

This is, hands down, the toughest category for Sunday night. There is a legitimate argument for all five contenders here: A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, Black Panther, and BlacKkKlansman. Four of the five films have nominations in other categories, and four of the five are Best Picture nominees. Still, Crazy Rich Asians is a film that honors its Asian and Asian-American cast, which is something that SAG might like to do, especially since the film didn’t land any Oscar support. Again, that argument is moot since the voting was closed after nominations were announced, but the film was a big hit at the box office as well. Speaking of box office hits, A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Black Panther all have a checkmark in that column, especially the last two. The films making money is not the sole reason why you win at SAG, but being a populous film sure don’t hurt.

There are also a few rumblings now that BlacKkKlansman, one of few films at the Oscars to land nominations in Editing, Directing, and Screenplay (the others were The Favourite and Vice) shows that it has a legitimate shot to surprise us all the night of the Oscars and win the top prize, and a win here at SAG would definitely help support that argument. But once again, the voters didn’t know this before the Oscar noms were announced, so it would rely on overall popularity of the film, and it did land two other nominations, so that’s worth mentioning. And there is also a history of SAG awarding films with diverse casts, or at least casts that aren’t lead entirely with white actors. Some recent winners in the ensemble category include Hidden Figures, The Help, and Slumdog Millionaire. This definitely boosts the chances for Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman. However, I’m going with A Star is Born for another reason: it’s the most nominated film at SAG this year. Crazy Rich Asians only managed the ensemble nod, Bohemian has two, Black Panther has two, and BlacKkKlansman has three. As we saw last year with Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, the most nominated film won. That film had three wins out of four nominations, though, and A Star is Born is not exactly favored to win two acting categories at the Oscars, like Billboards was, so keep that in mind as well. And sure, A Star is Born has been nothing short of disappointing thus far with the precursors, but I feel like this time will be the one. And if I’m right in the individual acting races, and Star is Born goes 0/3 there, the only place to reward them would be here. Now if it does lose those and the ensemble prize and goes home empty-handed, that completely dashes it’s chances, slim as they are right now, for it to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

So there you have it. A lot of mystery still surrounds these races, and there’s a lot that can happen on Sunday to show us where the races are headed, so, to quote one of the best, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”