Pre-Oscar Thoughts and Predix

The Oscar noms are tomorrow and I've seen a lot of the potential nominees. The only nom I really care about is Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths. I have a bad feeling she will be overlooked despite winning the triple crown of critics' award from NY, LA and the National Society of Film Critics. But she was bypassed by the Golden Globes and the SAGs. I don't understand why, maybe because she's in a small-scale British film which has had a limited release. She also plays most of the film as a nasty, unlikable character who shows little sign of growth. Perhaps the GG and SAG nominators saw her performance as one-note. I will be happy if she gets a nom, but I think the probable winner in a very crowded Best Actress field is Demi Moore for The Substance. Her comeback story and GG win are very compelling. I'm afraid Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis of The Last Showgirl will not make the final cut though they deserve recognition. I also would love it if Danielle Deadwyler got a Supporting Actress nod for The Piano Lesson, but I don't have much hope for that. She was robbed of a nom for Till and will be probably not get one now either. Anyway, here are my predictions:

Snubs and Shocks with SAG and DGA Noms

This award season is getting more volatile. With the announcement for the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations on Jan. 8, Wicked is gaining ground with the most noms (five) after having won only one award (for Box Office Achievement, meaning making the most money) at Sunday night's Golden Globes. There were also major snubs in several categories with previous front-runners such as Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Angelina Jolie (Maria), and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths) not being mentioned. Golden Globe winners Fernanda Torres (I'm Still Here) and Sebastian Stan (A Different Man) also failed to make the cut. Comeback kids Demi Moore (GG winner for The Substance) and Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl) earned noms. 

Demi Moore in The Substance.

The SAG announcement was to have been made live by actors Cooper Koch and Joey King, but the information was disseminated by press release instead due to dangers posed by the Los Angeles wild fires. The Awards will be presented on Netflix on Feb. 23 and Kristin Bell will host for the second year in a row. F/X's Shogun which did well at the GGs with four awards, led the SAG TV pack with five nods. I'm most upset that Jean-Baptiste is not nominated because it's not good news for her Oscar prospects even though she has won the three top critics awards (NY, LA and National Society of Film Critics). She will most probably get a BAFTA nom and even the award itself since she is a Brit, but she could miss making the Oscar list since Hollywood loves a comeback story and Moore and Anderson could knock her off. 

The Directors Guild of America also announced their nominations today, and had their share of snubs. While Wicked triumphed at the SAGs, its auteur John M. Chu was left out of the DGAs as was Denis Villenueve for Dune Part 2. (Winners will be announced on Feb. 8.) The five motion picture nominees for the DGA (all first-time nominees) are 

• Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez”
• Sean Baker for “Anora”
• Edward Berger for “Conclave”
• Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist”
• James Mangold for “A Complete Unknown”

A complete list of SAG nominees follows:

Golden Globes Full of Surprises

Seth Rogen and Catherine O'Hara
were the funniest presenters at
the Golden Globes.
Credit: CBS

It was a night of surprises at the Golden Globes with its precursor-to-the-Oscars status turning the competition for Hollywood's top honor into a real horse race. Netflix's transgendered-druglord musical Emilia Perez took the most awards with four including Best Picture--Comedy or Musical, Supporting Actress (Zoe Saldana), non-English-Language Film and Best Song. Leading actress Sofía Gascón, the first transgender performer to receive a GG nom, made an emotional plea for acceptance: 

"I chose these colors tonight, the Buddhist colors, because I have a message for you: The light always wins over darkness, You can maybe put us in jail. You can beat us up, but you can never take away our soul, our existence, our identity. And I want to say to you: Raise your voice for freedom. I am who I am, not who you want."

The Brutalist was next with three awards including Best Picture--Drama, Best Actor in a Drama (Adrian Brody), and Best Director. Brutalist and Emilia Perez move to the front of the pack for the Oscar noms which will be announced on Jan. 17.

Surprise winners were Leading Actresses Demi Moore in The Substance and Fernanda Torres in I'm Still Here, for comedy/musical and drama respectively. Sebastian Stan won for Best Actor in a Comedy for A Different Man. He was also nominated in the Drama category for playing a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. These wins for Moore and Torres skew the predictions for the Oscars since Nicole Kidman of Babygirl and Mikey Madison of Anora won most of the critics' awards. Marianne Jean-Bapiste of Hard Truths, winner of the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics Awards, was not even nominated for the GGs.

Nikki Glaser hosted the ceremony telecast on CBS and did much better than last year's lambasted emcee Jo Koy. Presenters Seth Rogen and Catherine O'Hara were the funniest, satirizing their Canadian roots by saying they had won various Golden Antler Awards for their work north of the border including Logrider and the Mooseknuckles trilogy. O'Hara then remarked she suffered nipple damage while breast-feeding an otter. (Well, I thought it was funny.) Melissa McCarthy and Awkafina were also amusing as they parodied noble causes while announcing the nominees for Best Comedy TV series. An unscripted highlight were provided by Sofía Vergara (Griselda) who jokingly heckled winner Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country) to whom she lost Actress in a Limited Series, or Made-for-TV Movie, after also losing to her at the Emmys.

Even with cutting the presentations to Viola Davis (the Cecile B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement) and Ted Danson (the Carol Burnett Award for TV Achievement) down to pre-taped clips, the evening still ran over its three-hour allotted network time by 15 minutes.