2009 Screen Actors Guild Award Winners

The Screen Actors Guild Awards tend to reflect a detailed hypothesis of how the acting branch will vote during the Oscar season. Coinciding with the Golden Globes, the winners of the Screen Actors Guild awards usually stand a favorable chance of winning Oscars for acting come February or March. Of course, there have been exceptions to the rule i.e. Johnny Depp winning Best Actor for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl but losing the Oscar to Sean Penn for Mystic River in 2003. There were no surprises at the SAG awards this year as virtually every single favorite took home the award and strengthened their Oscar campaigns even further. Here were the winners of this year's Screen Actors Guild awards...

Best Ensemble: Inglourious Basterds

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges = Crazy Heart

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock = The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz = Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique = Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

Best Stunt Ensemble: Star Trek

WHAT THIS MEANS

Forget about the Stunt Ensemble award. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Oscars because the Oscars do not reward the stuntmen in feature films. If anything, it perhaps shows how Star Trek could be a thorn in the side of Avatar when it comes to dispensing the technical awards but even that is stretching it by a mile. Instead, one should turn their attention to the five other awards handed out on Saturday night, beginning with the Ensemble Award. Up until this moment, Inglourious Basterds was not making a statement in terms of the Best Picture race. What with The Hurt Locker taking home virtually every single critics' prize this season and Avatar taking home the Golden Globe for Best Drama, it would appear as if the voters were once again ignoring Quentin Tarantino's brand of auteur cinema. Yet this win on Saturday night shows how Inglourious Basterds is very popular with the actors. Tarantino himself was quoted in saying how the film was very hard to cast and that he "loved to see them getting these awards in unison." Support for the film was shown within the nominations as Diane Kruger picked up a surprise nomination in the Supporting Actress category. Personally, I would have nominated Melanie Laurent for her searingly complex performance as femme fatale Shoshanna but I also believe that any one of its main European stars could have received a nomination for the film. Inglourious Basterds has therefore become the beneficiary of a slight nudge in the Best Picture race. But even though the award for Best Ensemble Cast is well-deserved and certainly evident of support within the industry, I don't think the victory carries enough merit to catapult the film into the role of frontrunner. I still think it's a two-horse race between The Hurt Locker and Avatar, though it would be a nice surprise if Basterds shocks us all.

Sandra Bullock took a huge step in the Oscar race last weekend with an upset victory over Meryl Streep. But once again, I am inclined to believe that voters are following their hearts rather than their minds on this one. Many of those actors have worked with Bullock over the years and have a sincere respect for her body of work. They can't honestly believe that The Blind Side is a film worthy of honoring her creative talents. Or can they? To the surprise of many this season, audiences have fallen in love with The Blind Side. They are viewing it as an inspirational true story carried on the wings of an endearing performance from Bullock. Now I am obviously in the minority on this one, believing that The Blind Side is a Hallmark movie thinly disguised as a heartening piece of studio cinema. Yet in spite of my emphatic disgust with the choice of Bullock as the year's Best Actress, she is cleaning up as of late and is really making a statement in this year's Oscar race. Yet perhaps the only reason SAG did not dispose its highest honor on Meryl Streep is because they gave her the award last year for Doubt. I'm inclined to consider that as a very serious option and am convinced that this Best Actress race is far from over. I wish that there was some love for Gabourey Sidibe or Carey Mulligan in this race. But the voters are going with their hearts this year. And their hearts are telling them to either vote for Bullock or for Streep.

Oh...Jeff Bridges...Christoph Waltz....Mo'Nique...what do they all have in common? All of them have taken home numerous critics prizes. All of them have taken home the Golden Globe award. All of them have taken home the Screen Actors Guild award. And all of them will win on Oscar night. You can take that to the bank. You can bet any amount of money you want on those three names. All of them will win on Oscar night. Mark it down right now. It'll be the easiest money you ever made.