The Screen Actors Guild Award Nominees

We've seen critics groups and the Hollywood Foreign Press pick their favorites at precursors to the Academy Awards, which, like it or not, are the standard for honoring great work in the movies. However, with almost excusive exception, there are no HFPA voters or movie critics who vote for the Oscars, so what they think is really no accurate reflection of the year's biggest prize.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards, like those for the DGA, the PGA, and a host of technical guilds, is a good predictor. Many SAG members are Oscar voters, so if you're looking for potential Oscar nominees in the acting categories, it should look a lot like this. Now, the fact that it very closely mirrors the Golden Globes and the critics lists shouldn't be ignored, either. As usual, certain films will steamroll their way to big wins, and we won't be completely in the dark about them. The biggest surprise is the inclusion of Diane Kruger for Inglourious Basterds in the Supporting Actress field. Otherwise, this is pretty much what we expected. I would have preferred Marion Cotillard over Penelope Cruz in Nine, if you're nominating someone from that cast, but the cast as a whole was nominated in the big SAG category, Ensemble Acting.

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'Up in the Air' Leads Golden Globe Nominees

There is one glaring omission committed by he Hollywood Foreign Press Association in this year's Golden Globe nominations, and we'll discuss that in a moment. First, here are the film nominees, and remember, the Globes are split into dramatic and musical/comedy awards for Best Picture and the two lead acting awards, but not at all for director, screenplay, or the supporting acting honors, because apparently those are less significant to the success of each type of film. (Maybe that's more than one glaring omission, then.)

Motion Picture, Drama
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Up in the Air Motion Picture, Comedy/Musical
(500) Days of Summer
The Hangover
It’s Complicated
Julie & Julia
Nine

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Critics' Choice Awards Nominees

The Broadcast Film Critics Association is the group behind The Critics' Choice Awards, which will be televised on January 8th. It's always fascinating to see who shows up at this show, because it's usually the same bunch of people who say they never read reviews and don't make movies for critics.

Be that as it may, we've got the comprehensive list of nominees, which includes a none-too-surprising field of Best Picture nominees: Avatar, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Nine, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air. As the critics' lists roll in between now and the end of the year, we'll get a pretty good indication as to what film has the most momentum for The Golden Shalits. I would speculate - and no, they don't call them The Golden Shalits - that it's The Hurt Locker. In the past 24 hours or so, Kathryn Bigelow's film has taken top honors in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles, and that will be a tough trio to overcome. It also has the pull of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists behind it in this young awards season. The Hurt Locker is not done winning those local/regional awards, by the way, so this could be a foregone conclusion by January 8th. The Oscars are a different kettle of fish, and I would venture to guess Up in the Air has the most voters swooning for the biggest prize of all. Here's the list of Critics' Choice nominees:

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Box Office - A Bad Start for 'Invictus'

Before we discuss the weekend's box office winner, let's talk about its biggest loser: Invictus. The Clint Eastwood-directed inspirational sports biopic did come in third, which you might look at and think that's OK. But that per-screen average - around $4,300 - is less than The Blind Side, an inspirational sports biopic that's in its fourth week of release.

Per-screen numbers are crucial, especially for new movies. And that's not a very good average to have. So I think Invictus, while it may not show a big drop next weekend, is probably not going to do much more than $50 million, even if it's nominated for and wins a bunch of Oscars. As for the movie that took the prize, Disney's The Princess and the Frog earned $25 million, which is a fine start, but it's nothing special. What remains to be seen is how well the film holds over the holidays, and whether or not that gives a restructured Disney hope to remain committed to hand-drawn animation. It's cheaper than the Pixar movies (by about half), so does that mean it only has to do half as well?

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Box Office - 'Princess and Frog' Leads Weak Friday

The Friday performance for The Princess and the Frog is pretty much right on target for our weekend prediction in the low- to mid-$20 millions. It led the charge on Friday with $7 million, although that's a pretty low number for December. I wonder if distributors not named Disney are second-guessing their releases and expansions on films like The Lovely Bones, Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, and Up in the Air after seeing that this weekend would have been up for grabs.

For Disney, Princess and the Frog will probably play the way most of the studio's animated product does, with a healthier than average life expectancy that should reach into January. But $7 million - the number Variety reports this morning - is not a huge figure by any stretch of the imagination for a family film in over 3,400 theaters. The Blind Side continues to be the non-Twilight storyline of the fall, holding strong in second place, and on page for another $12 or $13 million. Being Heisman weekend in college football probably helps the movie, which has earned $140 million now.

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