Screen Actors Guild Award Nominations Released

The nominations for the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced this morning at Pacific Design Center's Silverscreen Theater in West Hollywood.  The actual show will broadcast live on TNT and TBS on Sunday January 30th, at 8PM EST from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center.

Without further ado here are your nominations for the 17th Annual SAG Awards:

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Bridges, Bullock Talk Screen Actors Guild Wins

Coming off their wins at the Screen Actors Guild Awards last night, Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock sat down to discuss the surreality that is the awards season with The Hollywood Reporter. Bridges has been the leading candidate for Best Actor for about a month, and prior to that, there was no talk about his work in Crazy Heart at all. Behold the power of Fox Searchlight.

These two performances are coming from different places. In a year without one or two stand-out lead actor performances, Bridges has taken over in part because of his distinguised career. Is he really better than Clooney or Jeremy Renner or Colin Firth? Maybe, maybe not, but he's never won and he has no Forest Whitaker or Daniel Day-Lewis sure bets in the category. For Bullock, her work in The Blind Side has charmed voters, although I'm far from convinced it's either the best work in her career (the sorely undervalued Infamous) or the best work of the year (take your pick from easily a half-dozen performances). And it's curious that she might be in a position to win Best Actress after spending 15 years mostly avoiding serious work, as opposed to Bridges, who has 35 years of it.

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Predict the Screen Actors Guild Award Winners

The Screen Actors Guild Awards are tonight on TBS and TNT, and the show should provide us everything we need to know going into the Academy Awards. Odds are, most of the winners here will go on to claim the top prizes at the Oscars, but it's not a 100% success rate.

For example, the past two years haven't held up in the Best Actress race. Now, last year, Kate Winslet's stronger performance and better film was The Reader, elevated to Best Actress status for the Oscars, but it was subjugated to the supporting category at the SAGs. So that one doesn't really count, I don't think. However, the year before, Julie Christie won for Away From Her, but Marion Cotillard picked up the Oscar. Also in 2008 (for 2007), Ruby Dee bested Tilda Swinton in the supporting race. But unlike the Golden Globes - which I'm tired of hearing referred to as a true predictor of something because it's roughly 100 writers that don't vote for anything else - the Screen Actors Guild members do have a say in the Academy Awards voting. So, even though they don't get into tech categories or Best Picture, this truly is the first litmus test of the season. The second comes tomorrow night with the very important Producers Guild ceremony. Our picks for this years Screen Actors Guild Awards are in bold, and they should be familiar selections to you by this point. Best Actress, for my money, is still in a state of flux. While it's not a guarantee Jeff Bridges will win Best Actor, he's the clear favorite. But Best Actress is completely split three ways, if not four. Would you be bowled over if Gabby Sidibe won? I wouldn't, even though nobody's picking her at this point. Feel free to leave your own picks in the comments section below.

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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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'Slumdog' Wins Producers Guild and SAG Awards

Two incredibly important awards presentations were made this weekend, and once again (or twice again), Slumdog Millionaire takes the top prize(s). On Saturday night, the film was the honoree for Best Picture at the Producers Guild Awards, which is a fair predictor of what could happen on Oscar night. Other PGA winners included Wall-E, Man on Wire, John Adams, 30 Rock, and Mad Men, in the categories you'd expect. Earlier tonight, Slumdog picked up a major win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, earning Best Ensemble Cast. I'd count this as an upset, with Milk, Doubt, Benjamin Button, and Frost/Nixon unable to break through. There was one other slight surprise, depending on your perspective: Sean Penn won Best Actor, curbing for the moment Mickey Rourke's momentum for The Wrestler. As Penn noted during his acceptance speech, there is no competition between actors, although that race is clearly going to be the one to watch. Best Actress is a toss-up, too, but somehow there's more drama in the Best Actor race. Best Ensemble Cast - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Lead Actress - Meryl Streep, Doubt
Best Lead Actor - Sean Penn, Milk
Best Supporting Actress - Kate Winslet, The Reader
Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Lifetime Achievement - James Earl Jones Awards Daily has the rundown of TV awards, as well.