It was a weekend of awards, with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Producers Guild both handing out their gongs. It was Inglourious Basterds that was the big winner at the SAG awards, picking up the equivalent of the guild’s Best Film award – Outstanding Performance By A Cast In A Motion Picture.
Jeff Briges won Best Actor for Crazy Heart and Sandra Bullock picked up Best Actress for The Blind Side. As many in SAG also vote for the Oscars (the Academy includes more actors than any other profession), it certainly puts the duo as the front-runners for the Oscars, which is particularly impressive for Bullock, who no one was even touting as a possibility a couple of months ago.
The Supporting Actor and Actress awards went to Chrtistoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds and Mo’Nique for Precious.
At the Producers Guild it was The Hurt Locker that picked up Best Feature, while Up won Best Animated Feature.
All this means that the race for the Best Picture Oscar is still wide open, with no one emerging as the absolute front-runner. There’s momentum behind Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds and Up In The Air, but none of them seen like a absolute lock (although as Avatar breaks ever more records it could well emerge as the fave, with the Academy wanting to reward the film’s box office achievements, if nothing else). The Oscar Nominations are due on February 2nd, at which point the speculation will reach fever pitch.