February 19, 2009

Getting Ready for Oscar - The Guilds

The most famous "guild awards" is the Screen Actor's Guild. There are guilds and organizations for just about every other Oscar category though, and they provide a decent ruler by which to measure Sunday night's wins.
  • Leading Actor - Sean Penn, Milk
  • Leading Actress - Meryl Streep, Doubt
  • Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
  • Supporting Actress - Kate Winslet, The Reader
This year's SAGs aren't much help in the actress department this year. Kate Winslet was nominated for both lead and supporting at the SAGs. She was beaten by Meryl Streep for leading but at the Oscars Kate's only nominated for The Reader...as Lead. Confused?


Producers Guild of America
  • Feature Film - Slumdog Millionaire
  • Documentary - Man On Wire
  • Animated - Wall-E
This award reflects on the best picture nominees. The other nominees at the PGA were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, Frost/Nixon, and The Dark Knight. The only difference in nominees for best picture at the Oscars is that Dark Knight was replaced by The Reader. Harvey Weinstein is campaigning ruthlessly for it to win but I'm hoping (and fairly confident) that Slumdog will still take best picture. Man On Wire and Wall-E are both no-brainers on Oscar night.


Director's Guild of America
  • Feature Film - Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
  • Documentary - Ari Folman, Waltz With Bashir
A couple things about this:
  1. Usually at the Oscars, when the director wins, his film wins.
  2. Oscar doesn't offer a director's award for documentary, but this is another reason Waltz could win Foreign Film, beating out the other leading contender The Class.
  • Original Screenplay - Milk
  • Adapted Screenplay - Slumdog Millionaire
  • Documentary Screenplay - Waltz With Bashir
It is odd that the Academy didn't nominate Waltz for Documentary when so many other awards did. Oscar doesn't award a screenplay for doc, so here's yet another argument for Waltz to win foreign.


American Cinema Editors
  • Dramatic Feature - Slumdog Millionaire
  • Comedy or Musical Feature - Wall-E
Wall-E is not nominated for editing at the Oscars and Slumdog is likely to win.


Art Director's Guild
This one offers no real help. There are separate categories for Period Film (Benjamin Button), Contemporary Film (Slumdog), and Fantasy Film (Dark Knight). So, the three leading contenders in the Oscar category of art direction were all given awards by this guild. More often than not, Oscar rewards period films though.


Costume Designer's Guild
There are three categories for this guild as well, but it's much more helpful than the ADG winners. The CDG passed out their awards on Tuesday night and the award for best period film went to The Duchess. Fantasy and Contemporary matched the ADG, but it doesn't matter because they aren't nominated for an Oscar in this category. So, one could assume from this win that The Duchess will edge out its biggest competition, Benjamin Button on Sunday night. Come to think of it though, The Dark Knight should have been nominated in this category for the Academy Awards.



The American Society of Cinematographers
  • Slumdog Millionaire

Motion Picture Sound Editors Guild
The MPSE Golden Reel Awards will be handed out Saturday night. The nominees are listed at their site.

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