Hope you had lots of Red Bull and strong coffee tonight, if you were staying up to follow the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The tape-delayed results trickled in via satellite and online, each one inducing greater yawns than the other – with the exception of the ensemble acting award, which may indicate an upset brewing for Oscar night.
Four of the five film winners weren’t the least bit surprising, and they serve to improve the chances of an Oscar “me too” on Feb. 25, since actors dominate the Academy. But don’t expect an exact match, since the memberships of SAG and the Academy intersect but aren’t mirror images of each other.
Helen Mirren won Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role for The Queen. In a replay of her Golden Globes twofer, she also won the prize for Outstanding Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries for Elizabeth I.
Forest Whitaker won Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role for The Last King of Scotland.
Eddie Murphy won Outstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Dreamgirls.
Jennifer Hudson won Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Dreamgirls.
No surprises for these four choices, which were all widely predicted. But there might be sign of a tide turning in the fifth film category, the award for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture. It went to Little Miss Sunshine, an indication that Hollywood’s infatuation with “The Little Sundance Comedy That Could” is no fluke and continues to build. There is no Oscar equivalent for ensemble acting, but people really love this movie, more so than the perceived Oscar front-runners Babel and The Departed, it seems. Could an upset be brewing to crown a comedy Best Picture?
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