Predictions Friday Part One — Over to You, Screen Actors Guild

Now that the Producers Guild gave us Green Book as their winner, we now have to move to what will have to be a DIFFERENT winner because Green Book is not nominated for SAG ensemble. However, Green Book might still win an award with Mahershala Ali — it will have to depend, once again, on how hard the film was hit and whether that impact is sustainable. Every time Ali or anyone else from Green Book comes on stage, however, they have an opportunity to heal whatever wounds have been caused, deliberately or not. I personally have never seen ugliness directed at a single film in all of the twenty years I’ve been doing this, and perhaps that’s because Green Book won Toronto, the NBR, the Globe, and the PGA. Your argument, White Woke Film Twitter, is that all of those voters are either stupid or racist? Okay then. Good to know.

The important thing to remember about the SAG Awards is that they, like the Globes, are a high profile publicity event. That means the presenters, the vibe, the applause can all be measured and it will be easy to see where people stand on these films. Even though Roma is not represented at the SAG for nominations, you can bet its presence will be felt somewhere.

Either which way, we are in a conundrum in terms of finding out Best Picture, which will have to emerge as the least hated film of the bunch. Right now that appears to be either Roma or BlacKkKlansman. Only one of those has a SAG ensemble nomination, however.

There are so many different narratives for Sunday’s telecast that could play out. A Star Is Born could win big, setting it up as once again the season’s frontrunner. Bohemian Rhapsody could win, yes, even still. Black Panther could win which will tell us nothing about the Best Picture race since it’s an outside shot to win there.

And then again, we could see BlacKklansman’s first big win, setting up Spike Lee’s potentially historic win. Here we are, in the 91st year of Oscar. A woman has won Best Director, but so far, even with 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight winning, no black or African American director has won. Are we going to get to year 100 before that happens? In a year of so many successful, inventive, memorable films by black artists, will the awards community deny all of them? Who knows. It’s hard to say. Will Black Panther draw too many votes away from BlacKkKlansman? Again, hard to say.

Lead actor does feel down to Christian Bale vs. Rami Malek, the two Globe winners. Both have an equal shot since both have corresponding Oscar nominations, along with Best Picture. Vice has support across the board for writing and directing, while Bohemian doesn’t. On the other hand, with a voting body of 150,000, how do you get all of those people to respond to Vice enough to hand Bale the win?

What if it’s someone else, like Bradley Cooper or Viggo Mortensen? Well, that would be a different kettle of fish. In general, however, Lead Actor is usually a Globe winner in either drama (usually) or comedy. You have to go back to 2016 to find a year when Best Actor went to someone who lost the Globe in the same category. And only once in all of that time it went to a comedic actor in a film that also won Best Picture (The Artist). On the other hand, Vice isn’t really a comedy and never belonged there. On the other hand, people inexplicably like Bohemian Rhapsody.

My friends, flip a coin.

Best Actress is down to the legend Glenn Close heading for her first historic Oscar win up against Lady Gaga. It’s hard to imagine a third actress popping up here, but some have said they believe Olivia Colman might just be that spoiler. I would not bet against Glenn Close, however, not in a room full of actors who have watched her career over many decades.

Here are our predictions:

Ensemble
Bohemian Rhapsody — Marshall Flores
A Star Is Born — Jazz Tangcay
BlacKkKlansman — Sasha Stone, Ryan Adams

Best Actor
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody — Tangcay, Flores, Adams
Christian Bale, Vice — Stone

Best Actress
Glenn Close, The Wife — Stone, Flores, Adams
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born — Tangcay

Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Vice — Flores, Stone, Tangcay
Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place — Adams

Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Green Book — Stone, Flores, Adams
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me — Tangcay

And away we go!