They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
Spotlight's SAGing Bid Revived
By J. Don Birnam
February 1, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Analyzing the Screen Actors’ Guild.
As you may have seen on twitter and Instagram, the story of the SAG awards developed as a story of diversity in their choices. A clear message to the Academy in the wake of #OscarSoWhite, many of the TV prizes went to racial minorities. Then, as many predicted, Idris Elba won in the supporting actor race. And, as I expected last week, Alicia Vikander, Brie Larson, and Leonardo DiCaprio sailed to wins in their respective categories. The latter two also have Globes, so an Oscar victory is almost a mortal lock at this point. Given this, here are updated Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress power rankings.
And what to make of Supporting Actor? This race will remain hard throughout the rest of the year. Sylvester Stallone was not nominated for SAG or BAFTA. His speech at the Globes was terrible. Is he really going to win? It’s possible, but I don’t see it. People though Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Mickey Rourke all were headed to “career comeback awards.” If Stallone won, he’d overtake Halle Barry for most Razzie wins by an Oscar winning actor. I just don’t think that the goodwill that he has from some in the media or blogosphere will necessarily translate into goodwill with snotty Academy voters. I think they will be urged to look a bit more serious than that, and may even actively avoid rewarding the white nominee from the black movie, after the controversy.
When in doubt, I always go for the best performance of the bunch. Mark Rylance gives that performance by miles. Bale is good, and could win, particularly if they want to shore up The Big Short’s Oscar tally. Right now I’m putting him ahead in the Best Supporting Actor power rankings, but this will change as the Best Picture race changes over the last four weeks of the season.
And then, given how the night was going, some were thinking that Beasts of No Nation could pull off a huge upset at SAG. But it was always going to be Spotlight or The Big Short - only The Birdcage, when SAG was in its infancy, won at SAG without a corresponding Best Picture nomination.
So, in the end, Spotlight prevailed and obtained a much needed win in its sinking candidacy. A win by The Big Short would have effectively ended the race. Perhaps The Big Short struggled to be understood by the broader audience of SAG, or seemed less serious, whereas Spotlight seems serious, prestigious, and is easier to follow.
What’s Next For Best Picture?
Despite SAG, The Big Short has that ever important PGA win in its pocket - the only one with a preferential ballot. SAG, meanwhile, is only 10/20 in predicting Best Picture in its existence. So take that for what you will. On the other hand, trends are meant to be broken. It’s unlikely that PGA will always predict Best Picture.
And quietly, over the weekend, The Big Short also won the Best Comedy Film prize from the American Cinema Editors (ACE) guild. That ever important guild has nominated the eventual Best Picture winner every year going back to 1980, and this year Spotlight was not even nominated. Mad Max took the Best Drama Film prize from ACE, and it will be a hard call between those two for the Best Editing Oscar. The bottom line is that the strong guild support for The Big Short means that the SAG win is a bump but not really a barrier along its road. It also means that Mad Max is most likely this year’s Gravity; it will sweep the technical races but will be unlikely to come out on top.
Given the results of the SAG, here are our updated Best Picture power rankings. I’ve moved Spotlight back to the top but this will shift constantly over the next four weeks.
Predicting the Directors’ Guild.
In a close race like this, the DGA may have the final say. Or not. Many think that the clear directorial movie here, Mad Max, will net a win for George Miller. I suppose Alejandro González Iñárritu could win for the epic The Revenant, but he just won last year, so it doesn’t seem right. Alternatively, the guild could seek to lay a claim in the Spotlight/The Big Short divide and award one of the two directors. The fact that both are normally “for hire” directors and not auteurs hurts them less with the guild, which has a lot of TV and commercial directors, than it could with the stuffy directors’ branch of the Academy. If either of those two win, then you probably have your Best Picture winner. If Mad Max wins, we are in mostly uncharted territory.
I'll go with the consensus and predict George Miller for Mad Max. And also because every time I've predicted The Big Short for a prize, Spotlight takes it, and vice versa. It's that kind of (frustrating) season for a prognosticator. So let's see what happens if I pick a third choice.
In the chart below I trace back the last few years. Bold years indicate the beginning of the preferential ballot, so those matter more. There hasn't been a three way split between SAG/PGA/DGA in a long while. In 2006, PGA and SAG went to Little Miss Sunshine, the irrelevant Globes for Babel, and DGA for The Departed. But in that year, the “Martin Scorsese is Due” narrative overwhelmed everything else, and Marty won handily. No such thing is going on this year.
But you will notice from the below chart that in every year when PGA and SAG have disagreed, the PGA winner has come out on top. That is key. Indeed, PGA and SAG seem to split every other year - 2009, 2011, and 2013 below. 2015 too, of course.