After the past six weeks, there’s no surprise that Avatar is in the Monday box office news. Once again the film is making scads of cash, pushing past The Dark Knight‘s domestic total and closing in on Titanic‘s box office record. High 3D ticket prices help quite a bit, as Avatar is still way behind Gone with the Wind and Star Wars on the list of most-seen films.
But while the Avatar box-office steamroller has made the film look like a lock for the Best Picture Oscar, last night’s Producers Guild of America (PGA) awards have changed the odds. The PGA awarded Best Picture for 2009 to The Hurt Locker, which was a stunning upset for Avatar, and makes The Hurt Locker an Oscar front-runner. Read More »
Posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 by David Chen
Last night marked the 15th annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards at the Shrine Exposition Center. Many see the SAG awards as indicative of who the Oscar winners will be. If that’s the case, then last night’s awards portend an interesting evening on Febraury 22nd. You’ll find a list of last night’s winners after the jump, but first a few quick notes:
- As expected, the SAG for Best Supporting Actor went to Heath Ledger for his performance in The Dark Knight
- Prior to last night, The Dark Knight was given the SAG award for “Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble.” This means that TDK actually took home two awards total.
- Kate Winslet was nominated for both Best Actress (Revolutionary Road) and Best Supporting Actress (The Reader), but only took home an award for the latter.
- For his amazing performance in Milk, Sean Penn beat out Mickey Rourke for the Best Actor statue. I think either one of them deserved to win this one, and it’ll basically be a coin toss come Oscar night.
- Meryl Streep won a much-deserved Best Actress SAG Award although I was honestly hoping that Anne Hathaway would beat her out, after Hathaway lost to Winslet at the Globes. Nonetheless, Streep’s performance in Doubt is one of 2008′s bravest, and a marvel to behold.
- Most significantly, Slumdog Millionaire won the “Outstanding Performance by a Cast” award, making it a favorite for Best Picture come Oscar night.
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