Confessions of a SAG Voter: The 2017 Edition

[NUguy514]

After binging the nominees over the last ten days or so, I submitted my votes last night. What an odd year. Of the film categories, I'd say the strongest category was a tie between Lead Actor (what a refreshing change from recent years) and Actress and the weakest was Supporting Actor. In the TV categories, my choices were exceptionally easy because two shows I love, one drama and one comedy, got all my votes over a bunch of stuff I either don't watch or just don't like as much.

OUTSTANDING CAST: Minari. This was an easy, easy choice. I thought the entire cast of Minari was just stellar, not a false performance in the bunch. I thought the cast of Da 5 Bloods was pretty great as well, although Spike Lee's style often obfuscates the performances for me, and that was very true of this film. I liked most of the cast of One Night in Miami, but I thought Kingsley Ben-Adir and Eli Goree were bad and really bad, respectively. The cast of The Trial of the Chicago 7 was generally good, but I just disliked the movie. The cast of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was struggling mightily against the staginess of the film and the overly operatic dialogue (more glaring here than it was in Fences four years ago); even though Wilson is just transcendent onstage, his work is just tough onscreen. I actually thought the supporting actors did a better job with the dialogue than either Davis or Boseman. There really wasn't a glaringly bad choice here; I just would've nominated a few other casts instead.

Rankings:
1. Minari
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2. Da 5 Bloods
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3. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
4. One Night in Miami
5. The Trial of the Chicago 7
(3-5 are interchangeable, honestly.)

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR: Anthony Hopkins. I haven't thought this much about a vote in I don't know how long. It took me fifteen minutes of deliberation to decide to vote for Hopkins over Riz Ahmed. Both are absolutely phenomenal, and there was no wrong choice between the two. Hopkins' final scene is just devastating, and Ahmed's final scene is just quietly stunning. Everything before in both performances is also incredible, so how did I decide? Neither has a SAG Award (my go-to when I'm deadlocked is to go with the actor who doesn't have a SAG Award), but Hopkins is 83 and Ahmed 38; this may be the last chance to reward the former, so that's what I did. I doubt either will win, though. Steven Yeun was also fabulous; had Minari been a 2019 release, he would've been my easy choice. I thought Chadwick Boseman, as I said above, struggled with the operatic dialogue his character had; he was good, but not even close to my top three. And Gary Oldman was fucking awful.

Rankings:
1. Anthony Hopkins
2. Riz Ahmed (interchangeable order, really)
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3. Steven Yeun
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.
.
4. Chadwick Boseman
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.
(infinity)
.
.
5. Gary Oldman

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS: Carey Mulligan. I had to think about this vote since Mulligan and Frances McDormand were both so sensational. As I said in another thread, Mulligan just impacted me a bit more. I also might make a tiny argument that Nomadland is really more of a directorial achievement than an acting achievement, but that's splitting hairs. Also, not for nothing, I'm still pissed about McDormand's sweep three years ago, and she already has four SAG Awards to Mulligan's zero. As with Actor, though, there is no wrong choice here. I thought Vanessa Kirby was so much better than her movie deserved; she brought a lot of focus and nuance to a really trite, messy script. I love Viola Davis, but she seemed supporting in her film and seemed to be ACTING the entire movie – just not a very lived-in, believable performance to me. And Amy Adams just did not deserve the abuse Ron Howard inflicted on her.

Rankings:
1. Carey Mulligan
2. Frances McDormand (pretty interchangeable)
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3. Vanessa Kirby
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4. Viola Davis
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.

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5. Amy Adams

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR: Leslie Odom, Jr. As I said, this category was the weakest. I went back and forth between Odom and Daniel Kaluuya, and I think the end of One Night in Miami tipped me enough toward Odom. Both of them were great, though – very magnetic performances by both. Unfortunately, Paul Raci really should be winning this award, so I'm not that enthused by the choices here. Chadwick Boseman was good in Da 5 Bloods, but he was in the movie for about ten minutes and didn't really leave much of an impression. Sacha Baron Cohen really wasn't very good, if for no other reason than his terrible, inconsistent accent. It felt like his discomfort with Abbie Hoffman's accent affected his entire performance, and it all felt artificial. It is...offensive on a cellular level that Jared Leto was nominated for an acting award for one of the worst performances I've seen in recent years over Paul Raci. If I ever come across Leto in life, I will kill him with my bare hands. Ugh, I just hate him. This really is a pretty terrible category this year.

Rankings:
1. Leslie Odom, Jr.
2. Daniel Kaluuya
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3. Chadwick Boseman
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4. Sacha Baron Cohen
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(everything evil in the entire world)
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5. Dickhead

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Yuh-jung Youn. This was a tough choice between Youn and Olivia Colman. I haven't really seen a character/performance quite like Youn's, though, so I ended up going with her. All I can say is that Youn made such unexpected choices, and those ended up making what happens at the end of the film pretty shattering. Colman, though, was typically exquisite in a really great film, and she'd make a fabulous winner as well. Helena Zengel was good enough, especially in her penultimate scene, but I'm not sure why she (or the other two nominees) is here over Amanda Seyfried (the only really great part of Mank). I don't view the performances in movies like Borat as examples of good acting. I find the acting to be rather amateurish, actually, because the point is to create a cartoon of a character in order to make fun of real people (just because I think those people deserve to be ridiculed doesn't mean it's not malicious and wouldn't bother me if the people ridiculed were on the left). Yes, they have to stay in character no matter what the real people they're pranking do, but that's not an acting achievement. Thus, I don't really think much of Maria Bakalova's performance here; neither she nor Cohen felt authentic at all, and that's a real issue for me when I'm judging acting. And Glenn Close: no, ma'am. Hell no.

Rankings:
1. Yuh-jung Youn
2. Olivia Colman
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3. Helena Zengel
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4. Maria Bakalova
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(diffuse yellow filter to signify past decrepitude with a discordant wistfulness)
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5. Glenn Close

OUTSTANDING FILM STUNT ENSEMBLE: Da 5 Bloods

OUTSTANDING TV MOVIE/MINISERIES ACTOR AND ACTRESS: Daveed Diggs and Anya Taylor-Joy. Diggs is probably cheating, but he was nominated, I'm a Hamilton fanatic, and I don't give a shit if it's cheating. Taylor-Joy was absolutely phenomenal throughout The Queen's Gambit.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ENSEMBLE: Ozark. It's the only nominated show I watch, and I think the acting is uniformly fantastic.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTOR: Jason Bateman. I finally gave up on This Is Us and don't watch the other three (although I've heard René-Jean Page is a glaring weak link in Bridgerton), but I do think Bateman is wonderful.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTRESS: Laura Linney. Linney gets my vote over Julia Garner, who is amazing, for "Fire Pink" alone. I have no doubt the ladies of The Crown are really good, but Linney is an absolute beast.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ENSEMBLE: Schitt's Creek. This was the single easiest vote of all as this is probably my favorite comedy series of all time.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTOR: Dan Levy. Between the two Levys, I went with Junior because I thought David had more of an arc during the final season than Johnny did. I don't care which of them wins, though; I love both tremendously.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTRESS: Annie Murphy. As with Comedy Actor, I went with Murphy over universal treasure Catherine O'Hara because I thought Alexis had a more dynamic arc the final season than Moira did. Also, Murphy is really my series MVP, so she gets my vote. I expect O'Hara will win, but even if someone else wins over both, I do think the ensemble will win, PLEASE GOD PLEASE.

OUTSTANDING TV STUNT ENSEMBLE: Cobra Kai.

[emmygrammyoscartony]

Great read and great picks, NUguy. I also love reading your choices every year. Your supporting actor commentary had me ROLLING. I hope Leto never runs into you. LOL!

[NUguy514]

I voted several days ago (finally). I thought this was a pretty terrible year for film, and the film nominees here reflect that, so I haven't been too inspired to vote or do a writeup. Anyway, here are my votes:

OUTSTANDING CAST: CODA. I debated a bit between CODA and Belfast, but I do think CODA's cast was more affecting overall. Both Don't Look Up and King Richard had some really good performances, some fine performances, and at least one weak performance. House of Gucci was one of the most horribly acted films I've ever sat through. I think I still would've voted for CODA, but why wasn't The Power of the Dog nominated here? These nominations are so confusing.

1. CODA
2. Belfast
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3. King Richard
4. Don't Look Up
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Every movie ever made
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Googolplex. House of Gucci

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR: Andrew Garfield. Easy, easy, easy choice. Garfield was so commanding, so incredibly magnetic, and so phenomenal. I really wasn't expecting him to be as good as he was, but he really was. I was also surprised at how great a voice he has. Benedict Cumberbatch was very good, but I found him pretty one-note; it was a great note, but still. I put most of the blame on the script, though, since I found the movie's tension to be occurring at the same level for the entire film, which made the whole film feel pretty one-dimensional. Denzel Washington had issues with the language and made some overly casual choices that worked against Macbeth; he did find some great moments, though, especially toward the end. Will Smith just isn't an interesting actor. He's very focused on being liked by the audience, so his acting is always really self-conscious. His acting choices as Richard Williams always reinforced that I was watching a PERFORMANCE, and in his need to be liked, he very intentionally shied away from anything that might make his performance more complex and the depiction of Williams, frankly, more honest (that was true of the film as a whole, though, where Williams was concerned). Javier Bardem was just completely and totally and terribly miscast.

1. Andrew Garfield
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2. Benedict Cumberbatch
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3. Denzel Washington
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4. Will Smith
5. Javier Bardem

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain. I went back and forth a bit between Chastain and Olivia Colman and went with the former because I really am so surprised at how much depth Chastain was able to give Tammy Faye. Tammy Faye Bakker is a caricature in real life, yet Chastain managed to make her an interesting human being with specific wants and some surprising dignity. Colman was great in The Lost Daughter, even when the film itself was working against her. She actually had an exceptionally clear understanding of her character, which made the movie better than it was. Jennifer Hudson has definitely improved as an actor during dialogue scenes, although I find that she still struggles to make normal, conversational dialogue feel natural; she's better when the dialogue is emotional, and she's always fabulous when singing. As Lucille Ball, Nicole Kidman couldn't move her face, was too old, couldn't lose her Aussie accent, and was entirely unbelievable. However, she is a talented actor (although often overrated), which is not what anyone in his/her/their right mind could ever say about Lady Gaga. She. was. AWFUL. And the worst part of it is that she thinks she was amazing and revelatory because she did the method bullshit. I would pity her if I didn't hate her so much. Just atrociously shitty. I will say, this category is really terrible this year, and I would 100% have voted for Emma Stone (or Emma Thompson, if she was put in Lead) in Cruella, which I unabashedly loved, or certainly Emilia Jones in CODA over any of these women.

1. Jessica Chastain
2. Olivia Colman
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.
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3. Jennifer Hudson
4. Nicole Kidman
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You already have an Oscar, go the fuck away, you delusional imbecile. Lady Gaga

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR: Troy Kotsur. I came close to voting for Kodi Smit-McPhee, but Kotsur's performance just seemed so effortless. Everything with him just seemed seamless, and he was so affecting in these little ways. Smit-McPhee was really great, though, at giving us little glimpses at the wolf lurking under the placid and seemingly weak exterior; in a film of great performances, his was my favorite. Ben Affleck was good in his role, although nothing about his performance really stuck with me. I don't know what Bradley Cooper was doing in Licorice Pizza, a movie I hated, but whatever it was was horrendous and embarrassing. For the second year in a row, Jared Leto is nominated for a SAG Award for Supporting Actor for giving the worst performance I saw in the year in question. Fuck him and fuck SAG.

1. Troy Kotsur
2. Kodi Smit-McPhee
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3. Ben Affleck
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Proof that the Master's program at the New School doesn't know how to train actors. Bradley Cooper
I have an actual fucking degree in Theatre from Northwestern fucking University, and this fucking guy has a fucking Oscar. Jared Leto

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Kirsten Dunst. This was easily the most impressive category. The only one I didn't think about voting for was Cate Blanchett, and that's more because she's won plenty. She was great, though, in Nightmare Alley, a wonderful femme fatale. I thought Ariana DeBose was wonderful while I was watching West Side Story and right after, but I've thought less of her performance with more distance from the film. I still think she's very good, but she does have a tendency to force things at certain moments. Caitríona Balfe was wonderfully natural in Belfast and managed to find a lot of wonderful little moments to let her emotions out. I really came close to voting for her. Ruth Negga's performance has stayed with me, and while I think the arch nature of the dialogue worked a bit against the actors in Passing, she really did a wonderful job of making Clare's motivations clear and interesting. In the end, though, I went with Dunst because her performance is, in some ways, the most essential in her film; had Dunst not been able to make Rose's shift from strong, caring mother to gaslit, defeated alcoholic so compelling and sad, the movie just would not have worked. At all. Had Aunjanue Ellis been nominated here, like she should've been, I very likely would've voted for her.

1. Kirsten Dunst
2. Caitríona Balfe/Ruth Negga (tie)
4. Cate Blanchett
5. Ariana DeBose

OUTSTANDING FILM STUNT ENSEMBLE: No Time to Die

OUTSTANDING TV MOVIE/MINISERIES ACTOR & ACTRESS: Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge. I only saw Bartlett and Evan Peters; I thought Bartlett was magnetic and Peters forgettable, so that was an easy vote. I actually would've preferred to vote for Alexandra Daddario, but she wasn't nominated, and Coolidge was great.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ENSEMBLE: Succession. I intended to watch Squid Game, but I just didn't have time. I still probably would've gone with Succession, which has superlative performance after magnificent performance.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTOR: Kieran Culkin. I LOATHE Roman, but goddamn, Culkin makes him so incredibly compelling and, somehow, sympathetic. Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong would be terrific winners, too, but Culkin interested me just a bit more this season.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTRESS: Sarah Snook. Snook was phenomenal all season (all series, really), but for the last scene of the season (and, really, the last shot of the season), she gets my vote.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ENSEMBLE: Ted Lasso. No contest. I love this show, and even if I had quibbles with the second season, the acting by everyone was stellar. Hacks would be a great winner, too, if not for the singularly terrible performance of Megan Stalter.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTOR: Brett Goldstein. Jason Sudeikis won last year, Goldstein was funnier this season, and it's Roy Fucking Kent! How could I not vote for him??

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTRESS: Jean Smart. I love my Ted Lasso ladies, but Smart is a national treasure.

OUTSTANDING TV STUNT ENSEMBLE: Squid Game

[eurocheese]

Thanks for sharing. Always love reading these.

[NUguy514]

'Tis the season, my dears! I voted last night, and here are my choices:

OUTSTANDING CAST: Everything Everywhere All at Once. This was really a decision between EEAaO and The Banshees of Inisherin, which were both incredibly acted films. In the end, I think the fact that the actors in the former were able to make the absolute insanity of that film's plot feel real and grounded was the bigger accomplishment and is really why the film is so spectacular. The stakes were huge, but the actors made those stakes feel very intimate and personal; they all played off each other so wonderfully. The four actors of The Banshees of Inisherin were fabulous and played off each other incredibly, too. I didn't think I'd enjoy the film as much as I did, and that is really a testament to the actors: they're why I loved it. The cast of Women Talking was good – very good, in some instances – however, the dialogue and direction were incredibly stagy, and every actor had at least one line that was just impossible to deliver naturally. I admired the movie more than I liked it, but I'm not upset at its nomination. Babylon is...a trip. I don't think it's spoiling anything to say that within the first five minutes of the film, you see characters literally shit and peed on. I was like...


I actually ended up...kind of liking it? It was over three hours, which was ridiculous, but I was never bored because the film had such manic energy. The cast was actually really pretty great on the whole, with Margot Robbie matching the film's energy perfectly. She, Pitt, Calva, Adepo, and Li were all great; a few of the more supporting actors weren't as good or were nonentities, but it was a strongly acted film on the whole. The one true stinker here is The Fabelmans, an overlong, boring mess of a film with an obnoxiously on-the-nose title. Aside from Gabriel LaBelle as the teenage Spielberg avatar, I thought the acting was pretty dreadful by all.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
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3. Women Talking
4. Babylon
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Reality. The Fabelmans

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR: Colin Farrell. There was zero hesitation here. Farrell is the class of this list, and he is funny and heartbreaking in equal measure and effortlessly moves all over the spectrum. I've always liked him, but I haven't seen him this good maybe ever; he really made this performance feel easy and unforced, which it wasn't and which is always what I respond really enthusiastically to. I unexpectedly loved Hustle, although maybe I should've expected it since I'm a complete sucker for a heartwarming sports movie. What I didn't expect was to love Adam Sandler so much. I've never loved him in anything before: I don't find him funny; I find him caustic. However, he was such a delight in this; he had his edge, but he also had a warmth and this lived-in heaviness that worked really well. Bill Nighy tried his best to give his veddy, veddy British character an inner life, and he actually was able to succeed in places; the film's script, however, really hampered the actors' ability to create anything interesting since everyone was so reserved and unwilling to have actual conversations and just so...goddamn British. Brendan Fraser does what he can, but The Whale is just so incredibly offensive that I can't. I just can't. His performance is overwhelmed by the fat suit and by the script's extremely cruel treatment of Charlie (not for nothing, the script is also homophobic, but probably thinks it's not). The dialogue feels stagy in places, although I will say Fraser is the best in the cast at making those stagy lines work. Austin Butler, god bless him, thinks he's an incredible actor, but he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. As Elvis, he's constantly trying to find the most optimal angle for the lighting to catch his pout. Luhrmann's execrable style doesn't help anything, but Butler's Elvis impersonation is just that. He has no sex appeal whatsoever (which Elvis had in spades), and everything is superficial; there's no inner life he can convey about Elvis and nothing that's connected to anything internal and real. I will say that he's better than Tom Hanks, who is shockingly bad, but, boy, is that damning with faint praise.

1. Colin Farrell
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2. Adam Sandler
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3. Bill Nighy
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4. Brendan Fraser
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(Every Elvis impersonator alive or dead)
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5. Austin Butler

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS: Michelle Yeoh. This was the easiest vote of all. I don't really care too much for the other performances in this category, and I unabashedly LOVE Yeoh's. While Evelyn's journey throughout the movie is bonkers, Yeoh has absolute command over her. Evelyn's evolution from a beatdown, downbeat sad sack to a kinder, more accepting, more forthright woman is completely organic because Yeoh synthesizes what she learns from all the other Evelyns so seamlessly, and it makes the rather quiet climax of the film so moving. Plus, the glimpses we get of all the other Evelyns are so distinct but also very clearly different versions of the same woman. It's a fabulous performance, and I'm overjoyed to see her finally get these nominations and awards she's deserved for so long. Cate Blanchett has reached that level of critical praise at which she farts on camera and critics call it the most amazing fart ever emitted onscreen, and maybe it's just a goddamn fart, you know? She's good in Tár, but wildly overpraised. I did like that she didn't shy away from how gigantic of an asshole Lydia is; however, I was never not aware that I was watching a performance because I could always see the wheels turning. One example is in the first scene: she as Lydia is searching for the next word she wants to say and mechanically says "the the the the the" to indicate that Lydia is thinking in the moment of what she's going to say next. The problem is that that's an actor trick; people don't talk like that in real life, and it exemplifies that Blanchett was thinking about the performance while acting it. I will say that Tár is a tedious, pretentious movie (I mean, that's Todd Field in a nutshell) that is an hour too long, and some of the dialogue is impossible to deliver naturally. Still, this is far from my favorite Blanchett performance. Danielle Deadwyler is fine in Till, but between this film and Clemency, I am left completely cold by Chinonye Chukwu's directorial style: everything is portentous and tragic, the score doesn't match the tone of the rest of the film and is therefore very distracting, and everything occurs on the same emotional level with lots of slow-motion shots. I felt like that hamstrung Deadwyler, who was basically directed to hit the same exact note of grief for the entire movie. The only time I got more from her was when Mamie was on the stand; she was terrific in that scene, and I think she could've been really incredible if the rest of the film allowed her to do different things. Viola Davis is fine in The Woman King, but I feel like she's nominated because she's Viola Davis because I don't feel like she did anything that incredible in this film. She's borderline supporting, and the movie itself is your basic action movie that's fairly entertaining and that's it (and whose attempt at recasting the Dahomey as rising above the slave trade is very problematic). Davis is fine, but I would not have nominated her. Blonde is a piece of misogynistic shit, and Marilyn Monroe is not a fully formed character as much as she's the apotheosis of suffering. In that way, it's not Ana de Armas's fault that her performance is an utter failure. She is, however, totally miscast as Monroe and has absolutely no business being nominated by SAG or the Academy for this performance. Honestly, I'd have nominated Andrea Riseborough, Margot Robbie, and Letitia Wright over de Armas, Davis, and probably Blanchett, but at least Michelle Williams and her awwwwwwwwwwful performance were left off.

1. Michelle Yeoh
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.
(A gap spanning all multiverses at once)
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2. Danielle Deadwyler
3. Cate Blanchett
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4. Viola Davis
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(A gap spanning the infinite suffering of Marilyn Monroe)
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5. Ana de Armas

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ke Huy Quan. I thought about voting for Brendan Gleeson and thought a bit more about voting for Barry Keoghan, but I had to go with Quan. On paper, Waymond is the least fleshed-out of the three Wangs, which makes sense because the more central relationship in the film is between Evelyn and Joy. Waymond is Evelyn's true north, which could be fairly uninteresting, but Quan never let me forget that Waymond (in any verse) loved Evelyn and, more importantly, never lost his belief in her potential to evolve. It's no accident that Waymond is the one who ultimately saves the day with his innate kindness. Quan grounds all of that in Waymond's love for his family, which sounds trite, but he gives the fantastical absurdism of this movie essential and human stakes. Barry Keoghan really is heartbreaking as Dominic. I think The Banshees of Inisherin is ultimately about the human need for love and the different ways damage is done when that need is either unmet or rejected, and Dominic's innate innocence makes him the most tragic figure in the film. While he is, let's say, simple and although he is horribly abused by his father, he has a core of sweetness to him and just wants to love and be loved. Keoghan is genuinely funny, but his way of portraying Dominic's essential want is so simple and sincere and unexpectedly moving to me. On the other end of the spectrum, Brendan Gleeson showcased how a lack of love can cause someone to want to hurt himself and everyone around him. Colm is a cruel asshole who rejects his longtime friend for being too nice (which he frames as "dull") and is willing to hurt both himself and Pádraic to maintain that rejection. Gleeson finds these great moments of humor while doing horrible things to himself and saying horrible things to Pádraic; it's something that the only time he seems to like Pádraic is when Pádraic does something in retaliation. Gleeson portrays Colm as a bitter and empty shell of a human, which makes his interest in the nihilism of others make sense; it's the only way Colm can feel anything. I have never, ever liked Paul Dano in anything, and nothing about his terribly bland performance in The Fabelmans changed that. Eddie Redmayne, whose nomination here makes zero sense, is always so focused on finding the bodies of his characters that he neglects to connect the physicality to anything internal. Now, it's very much an acting technique for theatre actors to work on the physical body of their characters because that's an essential component of acting onstage and because that physical work allows you the actor to access your character's internal life. The problem I have with Redmayne as an actor is that he never connects the external with the internal; everything is very superficial, but it all feels artificial and actor-y. Also, The Good Nurse is a Lifetime movie.

1. Ke Huy Quan
2. Barry Keoghan
3. Brendan Gleeson
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.
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Look, Ma, I'm Acting! Eddie Redmayne
Tylenol PM. Paul Dano

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Stephanie Hsu. Overall, this is a great category – the best of the film categories. Even with that, Stephanie Hsu was a pretty easy pick. The parent-child dynamic that's at the core of EEAaO may seem fairly typical: the parent doesn't accept something about the child, and conflict ensues. However, what the movie does so well is show how truly damaging it is for the child when his/her/their parent just won't accept some fundamental aspect of that child. The end result of that neglect can range from never really wanting to see her parent again (Joy) to literally trying to destroy the universe (Jobu). Whether as Joy or Jobu, Hsu's desire to be seen by Evelyn for who she really is is crystal clear and grounds her characters in something very human (which is especially important for Jobu), and it's why the climax is so moving. Jamie Lee Curtis leans into the absurdity of EEAaO probably more than any of the other actors, and she has an absolute ball playing all the versions of Deirdre. She brings a lot of comedy to the proceedings, but those are also balanced out by some really touching moments, especially when she feels seen as something other than an IRS bogeyman. Kerry Condon gives a wonderfully frank and energetic performance as Siobhán, the one character who has enough self-love to save herself in a way that no other character in her movie can. She and Farrell have a wonderful sibling dynamic, and her directness and refusal to take any shit from any of the men on that island are so refreshing. Because she's such a vital presence, you really feel the loss for the community and, especially, Pádraic when she decides to leave for her own happiness and fulfillment. Angela Bassett is fantastic as Queen Ramonda. While grieving the death of her son, she has to lead her country, comfort and try to guide her daughter through their shared loss, and face off against a more powerful enemy. Bassett was able to navigate both the big, powerful moments and the small, quiet moments with ease, and there is no one who is more effortlessly regal than she. I've loved Hong Chau in other projects, and I liked her in The Whale; however, as I said, the movie is beyond offensive. Also, a few of Liz's monologues are really, really stagy, which unfortunately saddled Chau with a few awkward line deliveries, but she did the best job in the film of making Liz's struggles feel very real.

1. Stephanie Hsu
.
2. Kerry Condon
.
3. Angela Bassett
4. Jamie Lee Curtis
.
.
5. Hong Chau

OUTSTANDING FILM STUNT ENSEMBLE: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

OUTSTANDING TV MOVIE/MINISERIES ACTOR & ACTRESS: Paul Walter Hauser and Amanda Seyfried. I watched none of the actor performances, and since Steve Carell already has SAG awards, Sam Elliott is an asshole, and I didn't want to reward anyone connected to a Ryan Murphy exercise in exploitation, I flipped a coin between Hauser and Taron Egerton. Seyfried, however, was incredible as Elizabeth Holmes and deserves every award she's received; I hope she wins this one, too.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ENSEMBLE: The White Lotus. I haven't watched Better Call Saul or Severance, and I thought this season of The Crown and the final season of Ozark were generally disappointing. The second season of The White Lotus, however, was just as much of a blast as the first season. I mean, even that beautiful block of wood Theo James was good!

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTOR: Adam Scott. Jason Bateman is the only actor whose show I watched, and he's won enough of these (and, again, I was realllllllly disappointed by the show's ending). Bob Odenkirk, Jeff Bridges, and Jonathan Banks have already won SAG Awards while Adam Scott hasn't, so I voted for my darling Ben Wyatt. I really didn't care about this category.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTRESS: Julia Garner. Garner was really the bright spot of Ozark's final season and gave the best performance throughout the course of the show (give or take Laura Linney), so I went with her as kind of a series MVP. Unlike Actor, I thought this was a really strong category as I thought about voting for all five of these women.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ENSEMBLE: Only Murders in the Building. I had the hardest fucking time with these comedy nominees because I wanted to vote for at least two nominees in each category. With ensemble, I went with Only Murders in the Building because I couldn't vote for both Steve Martin and Martin Short, even though I thought about voting for The Bear and thought really, reallllllly hard about voting for Abbott Elementary (and probably will next year if it's nominated since I already feel guilty about not voting for it). I absolutely love the cast of Only Murders in the Building, though, so I don't feel I voted incorrectly. It's just a really strong category.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTOR: Jeremy Allen White. Honestly, even though I love Martin and Short so much, White did some truly, truly incredible work in The Bear. As the child of two addicts, I can tell you White absolutely nails the psyche of someone related to an addict and how deeply and painfully that relationship affects you in ways that take so much work to undo.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTRESS: Quinta Brunson. It kills me not to vote for Jean Smart, but I voted for her last year and found Brunson to be such a wonderful delight. The deal I made with myself was to vote for Brunson since I wasn't voting for her ensemble, but she's completely deserving on her own merits.

OUTSTANDING TV STUNT ENSEMBLE: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[Above the Title]

Just always love you posting your votes as well as your rationale!

[NUguy514]

(02-17-2023 08:11 AM)Above the Title Wrote:  Just always love you posting your votes as well as your rationale!

Thank you!

[NUguy514]

I marathoned a whole bunch of movies (and a few TV shows, too) and actually finished watching everything almost two weeks ago. I voted last Thursday, though, mostly because I was perseverating on one category. Anyway, here are my votes, along with a few raves and a few more rants:

OUTSTANDING CAST: American Fiction. I loved American Fiction and thought the cast was stellar all the way around – not a bad apple in the bunch. What I loved about this ensemble is that everyone brought something unique, a different energy, to the film, and the way these different approaches came together really elevated the film as a whole. I did think about voting for Barbie, which I loved and whose cast I loved, and I think there's a very decent chance this cast will win. Everyone was having a blast, but there were a few moments of real depth (mostly provided by Margot Robbie). I didn't love Will Ferrell (to be fair, though, I've never loved – or even liked – him in anything), and that was enough to tip me to American Fiction since all of that film's actors were fabulous. Oppenheimer is not an acting achievement, and that's because Christopher Nolan is most interested in films that showcase Christopher Nolan. The characters are a means to an end, and the last movie of his that I thought had multidimensional characters in it was The Dark Knight. The characters in Oppenheimer are more of the same: ciphers that exist to allow Nolan to show off the technical prowess he loves. I didn't hate the movie, but I thought it was trying to be three movies in one, which diluted everything. Also, Nolan has no interest in telling stories about women: to wit, you could lift Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh right out of this film, and no one would notice. I would actually say Josh Hartnett was my favorite, which kind of shocked me: he's become a total DILF, and he actually had this delightful enthusiasm, which absolutely no one else had. And yet again, Rami Malek gives a horrible performance in his thirty seconds of screen time; no one else stood out as being terrible, though, so I guess that's something. Similar to Nolan, Martin Scorsese is not interested in stories centered on women. Actually, he's really only interested in telling stories about violent white men, and that just really didn't work for me in Killers of the Flower Moon. The book actually centers on the investigator who uncovered the atrocities inflicted upon the Osage people, but of course Scorsese chose to center it on the monsters who committed these atrocities. I found the movie offensive in that way; it would've been so much more interesting to see this film centered on the people (and the women, especially) who were the victims of these crimes. I think because of how Scorsese framed the story, the acting suffered. Leonardo DiCaprio is just completely miscast (he's way too old), Brendan Fraser has about two minutes of screen time in a 3.5-hour film and is horribly over the top, and Robert De Niro just doesn't register and feels out of place in this film. Jesse Plemons and Lily Gladstone are good, but not amazing. The Color Purple...OK, so, the 1985 film is one of my top five favorite movies of all time. I LOOOOOOOOOVE it. So, the 2023 version was starting at a deficit with me, and it's just such a cheap imitation. It's an amalgam of the original film (a lot of dialogue was transposed verbatim from the original) and the musical (I'm not familiar with the musical, but I do know the movie excised thirteen songs from the musical) and seems hellbent on making everything feel lighter and more fantastical. The end result is that the events of the movie seem to happen without any sense of time and without any real stakes because the depth of the story has just been completely flattened. None of the actors particularly resonated with me, except for Corey Hawkins, whom I would watch in anything. No one other than Hawkins is able to give much depth to their characters because the story has been thinned out so much. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the end: the original film's ending is one of the most emotional of any film I've ever seen because the whole movie built to it so beautifully while this version's ending just kind of...happened and didn't really affect me because the rest of the movie felt like a series of vignettes without any emotional stakes. For what it's worth, had Poor Things or The Holdovers been nominated, I would've voted for either of those casts.

1. American Fiction
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2. Barbie
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Whatever. The Color Purple
I Don't Care. Oppenheimer
Do You? Killers of the Flower Moon

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR: Paul Giamatti. I am on record as finding Paul Giamatti a completely ridiculous actor who often says every line. As if it's. The MOST important. Line. Any actor. Has EVER said. It's so pretentious. However, he was fucking wonderful in The Holdovers. Seriously, this was the perfect role (a fucking classics teacher whose name is also Paul) for him because it not only tapped into that incredible pretension but also forced him to engage with these two other characters in very, for lack of a better word, human ways. Paul the character really gave Paul the actor an opportunity to play these wonderful, funny, heartbreaking moments without having to try too hard; he could just be in the moment, and he really moved me so unexpectedly. I loved him. Jeffrey Wright is the only other nominee I loved. One of my favorite qualities about Wright is how brilliant he is; his intelligence comes through in all of his characters, but Monk's whole thing is that he fancies himself to be so much smarter than everyone, which really allows Wright to play with so many facets. He has a hard time connecting with anyone because he has this veneer of superiority that is really a defense mechanism, and even when he does connect, he can be so cruel. His incredulity (bordering on rage) throughout the film when he has to play into the false narrative he's created is also really funny. He's really wonderful. I don't really have much to say about the other three here. Cillian Murphy sort of stares blankly into space for three hours; again, that's more because Nolan isn't interested in Oppenheimer as a fully dimensional character, so it's not really Murphy's fault. Still, he has nothing to work with. I read this quote about Colman Domingo's performance in Rustin: Domingo gives a Tony-worthy performance. Unfortunately, he gives it in a film. Throughout Rustin, I kept wondering why Domingo kept acting to the third balcony. When I saw that George C. Wolfe directed the film, it all made sense: that man absolutely CANNOT direct for the medium of film. He is always directing his actors as if they're on stage, it's terrible, and Domingo suffered because of it. Bradley Cooper had exactly one authentic moment in Maestro: after Bernstein lies to his daughter about his cheating (with men), Cooper has this moment where he lets the lie affect him. And that's it. Everything else is completely inauthentic and hammy, and I would say that one authentic moment is serendipitous because it's something I think Cooper himself has done. A lot. In general, though, he almost always plays at a character, rather than just reacting in the moment. Also, fuck him for this awful vanity project that was such an obvious ploy for Oscar.

1. Paul Giamatti
2. Jeffrey Wright
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3. Cillian Murphy
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I would like to thank the American Theatre Wing. Colman Domingo
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GIVE ME OSCARS. Bradley Cooper

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS: Emma Stone. There was no decision to be made here. Poor Things is my favorite movie of the year. It's hilarious and moving and gorgeous and imaginative and batshit crazy in the way I love, and the success of the film rests largely on Stone's shoulders. When she won her Oscar for La La Land, Stone said she was going to take her Oscar as a symbol to keep growing and learning, and I love that those were not idle words. She has challenged herself as an artist since that win, and she's found an incredibly symbiotic artistic partnership with Yorgos Lanthimos. Bella is just an incredible character for an actor to play, but she could go horribly wrong with anything other than the perfect calibration of wonder, self-confidence, abandon, sense of play, and willingness to try anything. Stone didn't just walk that line perfectly: she danced it. It's an astonishing performance, and it is such a pleasure to watch her embrace the challenges that are helping her grow so much as an artist. She's truly the preeminent actor of her generation. Margot Robbie really has not gotten enough credit for her work in Barbie. She has a wonderful sense of comedy and a great touch, and this is one role for which her otherworldly beauty is an asset. However, she's SO much more than a gorgeous face. She brings real depth and poignancy to Barbie, and she brought tears to my eyes a few times during the movie. Ryan Gosling has the flashier role, but I think Robbie gives the deeper, more interesting and nuanced performance. It's just a shame she hasn't received the recognition for it, although I sort of think she might win this award. Annette Bening's performance in Nyad is very good. The real Diana Nyad is, to be euphemistic, a bit of a pill, and I really appreciated that Bening fully embraced how unlikable Nyad is. The physical aspect of her performance is also impressive, but I think the success of her performance hinged on her commitment to Nyad's unlikable traits because it explained her laser focus and the reason why these other characters were willing to go on this journey with her. It's a fairly typical, middling movie (that elides the controversy of Nyad's achievement), but I enjoyed Bening in it. Lily Gladstone is good in Killers of the Flower Moon given what little she has to work with. Her character (a real woman) really exists in this film to be the avatar of the great suffering of the Osage people, and she doesn't have any dimension beyond that. That's due, as I said above, to Scorsese's inability to tell or his disinterest in telling stories about women. There is one brief exchange between Mollie and her mother in which Mollie references how her wild and reckless sister is their mother's favorite, and I wanted to know so much more about that, about these women and their relationships; THAT movie could've been incredible, but that's not the movie we got. Instead, Gladstone gets to play suffering for almost the length of the film and to spend half of it sick in bed. Also, she's a supporting character in this film. I'd say that's also an issue for Carey Mulligan in Maestro. Cooper makes the completely obnoxious move of giving Mulligan top billing, but make no mistake: this is Cooper's movie. Mulligan is such a talented actor, but she has to say some truly awful lines of dialogue that no one could make work and to tie a character whose motivations are all over the place together. I actually thought she was kind of bad in this, but that's not her fault as much as it's just how bad the movie is and Mulligan kind of goes down with the ship. I'd have replaced Mulligan and probably Gladstone with Sandra Hüller and Greta Lee in a heartbeat, and I'd rank Natalie Portman higher, too.

In a galaxy far, far above. Emma Stone
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2. Margot Robbie
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3. Annette Bening
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Suffering. Lily Gladstone
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I'm sorry your gay husband is gay. Carey Mulligan

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR: Willem Dafoe. I was really torn between Dafoe and Sterling K. Brown, but I ultimately went with Dafoe for a few reasons. His character so easily could've been reduced to a one-note monster or caricature: Dr. Frankenstein. However, he really does a wonderful job of giving Godwin this soft, sweet, paternal heart. He has a moral code, and he really does want his creation to learn and to grow and to be safe and taken care of. He also grounded some of the more surreal aspects of the film and his character with these very human qualities. What tipped me toward Dafoe were that I could vote for Brown as part of the ensemble of his film and that Dafoe has never won a SAG Award before while Brown has four. Brown, though, was an utter delight in his film. He's this wonderful agent of chaos and brings this vital energy to the film at the precise points the story needs it. I also loved how Brown played Clifford as a total mess who didn't give a shit that he was a total mess. Also, not for nothing, in this movie, he is basically the hottest man I've ever seen, and when he talked about all the twinks he's fucking to make up for coming out late in life, I was like:

Ryan Gosling is great in Barbie. He is completely in on the joke and leans into the ridiculousness of Ken at the beginning of the film, which makes his total embrace of the patriarchy later on really funny and incisive. Robert Downey Jr., like the rest of the actors in Oppenheimer isn't given much of a character to play. He is a wonderfully charismatic, improvisational actor, but I thought his film's complete lack of humor and its overly self-serious tone really boxed him in. It gave him no space to do what he does so well, and so his performance as a one-note villain wasn't anything more than that; I don't even remember anything about his performance, and I watched the movie three weeks ago. He's had all of these awards in the bag since his casting in the film was announced, but this specific performance has been, in my opinion, wildly overpraised and doesn't deserve them. Robert De Niro is also just playing a one-note villain in Killers of the Flower Moon: he pretends to be a friend and an advocate of the Osage, but he's really trying to kill and steal everything he can from them! I suppose that could've been interesting to watch, but it's not in this movie because De Niro's performance is just so listless. I would've nominated Mark Ruffalo (who'd have been my winner) and Dominic Sessa over Downey and De Niro; Charles Melton, whose performance I also thought was overpraised, would've been more deserving than these two as well.

1. Willem Dafoe
DILF. Sterling K. Brown
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I can feel the Kenergy. Ryan Gosling
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You won't be the worst winner ever. Robert Downey Jr.
You were at least better than Leo, I guess. Robert De Niro

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Da'Vine Joy Randolph. Randolph's work in The Holdovers is beautiful. It's not flashy, but it feels very real. She never loses this vague whisper of grief Mary always carries, nor does she dwell on it and let it be the only thing about Mary. She has this wonderful rapport with both Giamatti and Sessa, and she is funny and heartbreaking in ways that she always, always grounds in something human and real. I feel like I've met Mary, and that's because Randolph makes such subtle, specific choices at every turn. Jodie Foster is wonderful in Nyad. Like Randolph, Foster grounds Bonnie with choices that feel effortless and real. She also feels like someone I've met. I went with Randolph because I think there's more to her performance than there is to Foster's (which is really because Randolph's script gives her so much more to work with), but Foster is so wonderful. It's awesome to see her back and to remember why she already has two Oscars. Penélope Cruz really tries in Ferrari. She really does. There is nothing to her character other than spurned wife, and she's acting opposite a completely miscast Adam Driver; because she's such a good actor, she does find a few really interesting moments, but her spot is just a placeholder because this category is really pretty weak aside from the top two. Danielle Brooks really, really, really suffers from the comparison to Oprah as the OG Sofia. Oprah was able to run the gamut because that version of this story gave her and the other actors space to deepen their characters. Brooks' version of this story does not. Everything seemingly happens so quickly that there is no sense of how the weight of time is its own form of oppression and torture. Danielle Brooks, like the rest of the actors, is also directed to be big and broad in a way that sacrifices emotion. I was actually really surprised by how little I was moved by her performance because Sofia's plight just seemed kind of incidental and short-lived and Brooks wasn't able to overcome that with the more theatrical performance she gave (or was directed to give). I honestly would not notice if I watched Oppenheimer a second time and Emily Blunt were cut out of it altogether. Her performance does not register in the slightest bit because, as I said, Nolan doesn't care about female characters, and Kitty does not matter in the slightest to bit to the story. Blunt is a good actor, but she has absolutely nothing to do here. This is the very definition of a coattail nomination.

1. Da'Vine Joy Randolph
2. Jodie Foster
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3. Penélope Cruz
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Oprah was robbed. Danielle Brooks
Wait, she was in Oppenheimer? Emily Blunt

OUTSTANDING FILM STUNT ENSEMBLE: Barbie. Why not, you know?

OUTSTANDING TV MOVIE/MINISERIES ACTOR & ACTRESS: Steven Yeun and Ali Wong. Beef was a batshit crazy rollercoaster ride, but Yeun and Wong were phenomenal; because of their funny, heartbreaking work both together and with the other actors, this series ended being something special. I'm thrilled they've been so handomely rewarded for their incredible work.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ENSEMBLE: Succession. This wasn't even a contest.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTOR: Kieran Culkin. I almost voted for Matthew Macfadyen, whose Tom Wambsgans is a singular creation, but I had to go with Culkin, whose Roman Roy is just as singular and was more central to the plot during the final season. Roman is probably the Roy I find both the most loathsome and the most heartbreaking, and that is a true testament to how good Culkin is.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ACTRESS: Sarah Snook. This was as easy of a call as Emma Stone was. Shiv is, in some ways, the most complex character in Succession, and Snook was able to play all of those shadings so seamlessly. During the final season, though, she truly ran the gamut, and I'd say hers was the most essential and impactful performance of the season, which is truly high praise.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ENSEMBLE: The Bear. I'm kind of in awe of this show and its ability to thread the needle between gentleness and violence, quiet and cacophony, comedy and drama, and that's in large part because of how incredibly gifted this ensemble of actors is.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTOR: Jeremy Allen White. This is a great category. Even still, White's performance as Carmy is one for the ages. Let me tell you, as the child of two addicts, I can recognize how perfectly he nails that psychology (as does Abby Elliott), and his inability to allow himself to experience joy is, honestly, perfect.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY ACTRESS: Quinta Brunson. I was very tempted to vote for Ayo Edebiri, but Brunson really is the wonderful, funny beating heart of her show. I'd be thrilled for either woman to win.

OUTSTANDING TV STUNT ENSEMBLE: Beef

[Brad]

Thanks for these. Always enjoy reading your thoughts. Were pretty much on the same page this year with everything.

[NUguy514]

(02-11-2024 10:55 PM)Brad Wrote:  Thanks for these. Always enjoy reading your thoughts. Were pretty much on the same page this year with everything.

Thanks, Brad! And yeah, we really are mostly on the same page this year!