Brief SAG Reaction

Only two real surprises:

1) The rather random inclusion of Diane Kruger in Supporting Actress

Everybody loves the Basterds this Awards season!. On the one hand I think it's a fun and occasionally delicious performance, and on the other I find it a real shame that Melanie Laurent was campaigned by the Weinsteins in the Leading category, as she clearly would have got in here if they'd settled for Supporting. Laurent and Kruger remain outside shots, but the inevitable split that will occur from this probably means that neither will make it and the last spot will be taken up by either Julianne Moore, Academy favourite Samantha Morton, or the mishandled Marion Cotillard. At least that's my take on the situation.

And while we're on it, if Nine is going to be the worst-reviewed film to get a Best Picture nomination this decade, is it really going to get this many major nominations? It seems comparable with Memoirs of a Geisha four years ago, which got equally poor reviews and probably would have managed a spot in a ten-wide field, given its six nods. None of those, however, were for the big six categories, and so it seems to me that Marion Cotillard is on kind of shaky ground given that she now seems behind Cruz and is saddled with a film that people simply don't like? Nine will probably win the Globe but I can't see it gaining any real momentum before the Oscar ballots are posted.

2) The ensemble snub of Up in the Air

While early precursors suggested Up in the Air had enough to emerge as a solid favourite the support for it clearly doesn't rival that of previous BP winners, and it certainly seems to be dwindling under the euphoric love for The Hurt Locker. At the moment it seems like a three-way tussle between Reitman's film, Bigelow's critical favourite, and James Cameron's beastly, cinema-altering production. Say what you want for the ten-wide category but it's feeling very nostalgic to those forties Best Picture winners (I'm looking at you Rebecca and Casablanca) which only managed one or two other victories. That's possibly why Avatar might have the edge, given that it's likely to win multiple effects prizes, but at the moment it seems pretty wide open.