2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations predictions

The Screen Actors Guild Awards are never easy to predict, at least when it comes to nominations. This is the group, after all, that nominated the likes of Cloris Leachman in Spanglish; Meg Ryan in When a Man Loves a Woman; Hank Azaria in The Birdcage; Stockard Channing in Smoke; Gwen Verdon in Marvin's Room; Judi Dench in The Shipping News; and BOTH Gena Rowlands and Marisa Tomei in Unhook the Stars.

It is all but guaranteed there will be at least one real eyebrow-raiser of a nominee on SAG nominations morning. Could it be Warren Beatty in Rules Don't Apply? Margo Martindale in The Hollars? There are plenty of obscure contenders lurking around the corners of these categories.

With that said, here's my hunch on how the SAG nominations go down. Of course feel free to comment with your own thoughts as well!

Best Ensemble

1. Moonlight
2. Manchester By the Sea
3. La La Land
4. Hell or High Water
5. Hidden Figures
   ---
6. Fences
7. 20th Century Women
8. Patriots Day
9. Jackie
10. Hail, Caesar!

Best Lead Actor

1. Casey Affleck, Manchester By the Sea
2. Denzel Washington, Fences
3. Ryan Gosling, La La Land
4. Tom Hanks, Sully
5. Jake Gyllenhaal, Nocturnal Animals
   ---
6. Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
7. Joel Edgerton, Loving
8. Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
9. Michael Keaton, The Founder
10. Warren Beatty, Rules Don't Apply

Best Lead Actress

1. Emma Stone, La La Land
2. Natalie Portman, Jackie
3. Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
4. Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
5. Taraji P. Henson, Hidden Figures
   ---
6. Amy Adams, Arrival
7. Isabelle Huppert, Elle
8. Ruth Negga, Loving
9. Sally Field, Hello, My Name Is Doris
10. Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane

Best Supporting Actor

1. Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
2. Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
3. Ben Foster, Hell or High Water
4. Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals
5. Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
   ---
6. Lucas Hedges, Manchester By the Sea
7. Dev Patel, Lion
8. Kevin Costner, Hidden Figures
9. Alan Rickman, Eye in the Sky
10. Adam Driver, Silence

Best Supporting Actress

1. Michelle Williams, Manchester By the Sea
2. Viola Davis, Fences
3. Naomie Harris, Moonlight
4. Nicole Kidman, Lion
5. Molly Shannon, Other People
   ---
6. Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women
7. Helen Mirren, Eye in the Sky
8. Janelle Monae, Hidden Figures
9. Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
10. Margo Martindale, The Hollars

2016 Golden Globe nominations predictions

The Golden Globes are hardly my favorite precursor of the Oscar season. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is, after all, kind of a joke, its elusive members notorious for handing out awards and nominations in exchange for Rolex watches (which is precisely how Sharon Stone was stunningly recognized in Best Musical/Comedy Actress for Albert Brooks' flop The Muse) and other glitzy gifts. The now-defunct television network Trio once ran an incredible documentary, The Golden Globes: Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret, that exposed the HFPA's shady practices. It should be a must-see for awards buffs - the problem, of course, is the program became all but impossible to track down after Trio's departure, an exit that happened before the days of YouTube.

That being said, I do still get a modest kick out of the Globes and enjoy predicting them. Putting these together, I'm particularly tickled that I can list the likes of Rebecca Hall, Sally Field and Susan Sarandon - performances exceedingly unlikely to grace my Oscar predictions.

Note that I've received some contradictory information as to category placements for a couple of films. Only one, however, shows up in my predictions, which I've noted below.

So, with that said, here are my 2016 Golden Globe nomination predictions, ranked from most to least likely to be nominated. Of course feel free to chime in and offer up your own thoughts too!

Best Motion Picture - Drama

1. Manchester By the Sea
2. Moonlight
3. Silence
4. Lion
5. Loving
   ---
6. Arrival
7. Sully
8. Jackie
9. Fences
10. Hacksaw Ridge

Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical

1. La La Land
2. Florence Foster Jenkins
3. 20th Century Women
4. Hail, Caesar!
5. Sing Street
   ---
6. Love and Friendship
7. American Honey
8. The Lobster
9. Rules Don't Apply
10. Cafe Society

Best Lead Actor - Drama

1. Casey Affleck, Manchester By the Sea
2. Denzel Washington, Fences
3. Tom Hanks, Sully
4. Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
5. Joel Edgerton, Loving
   ---
6. Jake Gyllenhaal, Nocturnal Animals
7. Chris Pine, Hell or High Water
8. Michael Keaton, The Founder
9. Mark Wahlberg, Patriots Day
10. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Snowden

Best Lead Actress - Drama

1. Natalie Portman, Jackie
2. Amy Adams, Arrival
3. Ruth Negga, Loving
4. Isabelle Huppert, Elle
5. Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
   ---
6. Taraji P. Henson, Hidden Figures
7. Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train
8. Rachel Weisz, Denial
9. Rebecca Hall, Christine
10. Jennifer Lawrence, Passengers

Best Lead Actor - Comedy/Musical

1. Ryan Gosling, La La Land
2. Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
3. Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic (if Drama, move to #8 in that line-up)
4. Colin Farrell, The Lobster
5. Warren Beatty, Rules Don't Apply
   ---
6. Don Cheadle, Miles Ahead
7. Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool
8. George Clooney, Hail, Caesar!
9. Adam Driver, Paterson
10. Russell Crowe, The Nice Guys

Best Lead Actress - Comedy/Musical

1. Emma Stone, La La Land
2. Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
3. Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
4. Kate Beckinsale, Love and Friendship
5. Kristen Stewart, Cafe Society
   ---
6. Renee Zellweger, Bridget Jones's Baby
7. Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen
8. Sally Field, Hello, My Name Is Doris
9. Sasha Lane, American Honey
10. Susan Sarandon, The Meddler

Best Supporting Actor

1. Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
2. Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
3. Dev Patel, Lion
4. Lucas Hedges, Manchester By the Sea
5. Ben Foster, Hell or High Water
   ---
6. Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals
7. Issei Ogata, Silence
8. Kevin Costner, Hidden Figures
9. Adam Driver, Silence
10. Peter Sarsgaard, Jackie

Best Supporting Actress

1. Michelle Williams, Manchester By the Sea
2. Naomie Harris, Moonlight
3. Viola Davis, Fences
4. Nicole Kidman, Lion
5. Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women
   ---
6. Rachel Weisz, The Light Between Oceans
7. Helen Mirren, Eye in the Sky
8. Janelle Monae, Hidden Figures
9. Lupita Nyong'o, Queen of Katwe
10. Lily Gladstone, Certain Women

Best Director

1. Damian Chazelle, La La Land
2. Martin Scorsese, Silence
3. Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By the Sea
4. Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
5. Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
   ---
6. Denzel Washington, Fences
7. Clint Eastwood, Sully
8. Denis Villenueve, Arrival
9. Pablo Larrain, Jackie
10. Jeff Nichols, Loving

Best Screenplay

1. Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By the Sea
2. Barry Jenkins and Tarell McCraney, Moonlight
3. Jay Cocks, Silence
4. August Wilson, Fences
5. Jeff Nichols, Loving
   ---
6. Luke Davies, Lion
7. Damian Chazelle, La La Land
8. Joel and Ethan Coen, Hail, Caesar!
9. Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water
10. Todd Komarnicki, Sully

Best Original Score

1. Johann Johansson, Arrival
2. Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka, Lion
3. Alexandre Desplat, Florence Foster Jenkins
4. Justin Hurwitz, La La Land
5. John Williams, The BFG
   ---
6. Mica Levi, Jackie
7. Abel Korzeniowski, Nocturnal Animals
8. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Patriots Day
9. Kim Allen Kluge and Kathryn Kluge, Silence
10. Carter Burwell, Hail, Caesar!

Best Original Song

1. "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)," La La Land
2. "We Know the Way," Moana
3. "Can't Stop the Feeling," Trolls
4. "Drive It Like You Stole It," Sing Street
5. “Suis-moi," The Little Prince
   ---
6. "The Rules Don't Apply," Rules Don't Apply
7. "The Great Beyond," Sausage Party
8. "City of Stars," La La Land
9. "I See Victory," Hidden Figures
10. "How Far I'll Go," Moana

Best Animated Film

1. Moana
2. Zootopia
3. Kubo and the Two Strings
4. Finding Dory
5. The Red Turtle
   ---
6. The Little Prince
7. April and the Extraordinary World
8. Miss Hokusai
9. Sing
10. My Life as a Zucchini

Best Foreign Language Film

1. Toni Erdmann
2. The Salesman
3. Neruda
4. Elle
5. Fire at Sea
   ---
6. Ma'Rosa
7. The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki
8. Julieta
9. Death in Sarajevo
10. Barakah Meets Barakah

2016 Los Angeles Film Critics Awards winners

Congratulations to this year's exemplary Los Angeles Film Critics Awards honorees!

Picture: Moonlight
Runner-up: La La Land

Director: Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Runner-up: Damien Chazelle, La La Land

Screenplay: Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster
Runner-up: Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Actress: Isabelle Huppert, Elle and Things to Come
Runner-up: Rebecca Hall, Christine

Actor: Adam Driver, Paterson 
Runner-up: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Supporting actress: Lily Gladstone, Certain Women
Runner-up: Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Supporting actor: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight 
Runner-up: Issey Ogata, Silence

Animated Film: Your Name
Runner-up: The Red Turtle

Foreign-Language Film: The Handmaiden 
Runner-up: Toni Erdmann

Documentary/Non-Fiction: I Am Not Your Negro 
Runner-up: O.J.: Made in America

Editing: Bret Granato, Maya Mumma, Ben Sozanski, O.J.: Made in America
Runner-up: Tom Cross, La La Land

Production Design: Ryu Seong-hee, The Handmaiden
Runner-up: David Wasco, La La Land

Music score: Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, La La Land
Runner-up: Micah Levi, Jackie

Cinematography: James Laxton, Moonlight
Runner-up: Linus Sandgren, La La Land

Douglas Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video Prize: The Illinois Parables from writer-director Deborah Stratman

Next Generation: Trey Edward Shults, Krisha Fairchild, Krisha

Special Citation: Turner Classic Movies for preserving historic cinema and bringing it to a wider audience via FilmStruck.

Lifetime achievement: Shirley MacLaine

Review: "Manchester By the Sea"

When done right, no film genre can hit home for me quite as intensely as the family drama. I'm talking about the kinds of movies that, particularly in the late-1970s, into the 1980s, used to dominate the Oscars (often to the chagrin of those preferring something more visually compelling), not because they were sprawling epics or terribly "important" films but because the acting, writing and storytelling were so spot-on and reminded us vividly of our own family situations. I think of three Best Picture winners in particular - Kramer vs. Kramer, Terms of Endearment and, one of my all-time favorite films, Ordinary People.

In 2000, writer/director Kenneth Lonergan delivered a motion picture nearly on-par with those - You Can Count on Me, which gave Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo opportunities to turn in career-best work. Longeran's latest film, Manchester By the Sea, is even better than his 2000 effort.

In the film, Casey Affleck, in one of the year's very best performances, portrays Lee Chandler, an emotionally distant but easily agitated man who one winter day receives the worst of news - his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has died from heart failure. Lee, who years ago left his hometown of Manchester, Massachusetts following another truly tragic incident, must return to that Cape Ann town to get his late brother's affairs in order. While going over Joe's will, Lee is stunned to discover that he has been named guardian to his teenage nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Hardly prepared to take on those duties, and of course grappling with the death of his beloved brother, Lee also finds himself haunted by his Manchester past, unable to escape memories involving his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams), who still lives in the town.

Lonergan may have a hit-or-miss record as a screenwriter - among his credits are the middling Gangs of New York and flat-out dreadful The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle - but, when attached to the right project, particularly when he's directing to boot, he is a true master at crafting rich, real and engrossing characters and dialogue. Not a false note is struck here.

The acting, with the exception of a distracting Matthew Broderick cameo late in the picture, is first-rate all-around. Affleck dominates the film but Hedges is so impressive too - he reminded me a ton of both Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People and Michael O'Keefe in The Great Santini. Those two young men garnered Oscar nods (with Hutton winning) and I sure do hope Hedges can do the same. Williams and Chandler are fantastic too, albeit in far more limited roles, and there are many other great, small performances to be found throughout the film.

If I have a quibble with the film, beyond Broderick, it's a rather minor one - the picture's score, composed by Lesley Barber, is at times a nice one, complimenting scenes. There are key moments, however, when the music is curiously bombastic - in one critical scene in particular, it sounds like something straight out of The Phantom of the Opera. It's pretty bizarre but not bad enough for me to not give the film an...

A+

Review: "Rules Don't Apply"

With 14 Oscar nominations under his belt for directing, writing, producing and acting in his pictures, including one competitive victory (for directing 1981's Reds) and one honorary prize, Warren Beatty is unimpeachably among the most powerful and talented figures to have ever graced Hollywood.

Yet, for such a legend, looking back, the Beatty filmography is actually an awfully spotty one. For every tour-de-force production like Bonnie and Clyde and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, there's a supreme underwhelmer like Ishtar and The Fortune. Beatty's directorial efforts - just look at the classic likes of Heaven Can Wait, Bulworth and his Oscar-winning Reds - have generally been terrific...when he's allowed his name to be officially attached in the end. It is well-known Beatty called the shots on both Love Affair and Town & Country, both of which are depressingly dismal endeavors.

Rules Don't Apply, Beatty's first official directing-writing credit since Bulworth in 1998, falls somewhere toward the middle of the filmmaker's collective work. It's nowhere near as stunning as Reds or entertaining as Heaven Can Wait but nor does it induce the headaches that other Beatty works have.

Set in 1958, the picture opens with Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), a devout Baptist beauty queen from small town Virginia, arriving in Hollywood, where she plans to become an actress. Under contract with the elusive entrepreneur and film tycoon Howard Hughes (Beatty), Mabrey spends her early days in La La Land getting acquainted with her driver, Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), who is also on the Hughes payroll. The two carry on a charming flirtation that tests their staunch religious beliefs and must remain hidden from Hughes, who forbids romance between his employees and actresses.

The film's opening, Beatty-free half hour marks a fine showcase for Collins and Ehrenreich, both immensely talented and charismatic performers, long overdue for such leading turns. While their chemistry is a delight, however, this section suffers a ton from poor editing, with abrupt cutaways as actors seem to be in mid-sentence and an overwhelming feeling that a hefty chunk of material was left on the cutting room floor. There is a scene, for instance, featuring the great Ed Harris and Amy Madigan in which the Oscar-nominees have virtually no dialogue. Scenes featuring Annette Bening as Mabrey's mother also feel trimmed to the bone. Perhaps this explains why Rules Don't Apply is officially, curiously billed as running two hours and thirty-eight minutes in length, yet in actuality only runs for about two - Beatty and his editors, no doubt, were taking a chainsaw to this thing at the 11-'o-clock hour.

The remaining hour and half of the film is largely dominated by Beatty's Hughes, who at this point in his life was a notorious recluse, clearly plagued by mental illness and in very hot water with the U.S. government. Beatty's performance is a true roller coaster ride - while I don't think his Hughes is quite as compelling as Leonardo DiCaprio's in The Aviator or Jason Robards' in Melvin and Howard, it's still an awfully convincing portrayal and his energy keeps the film from ever dozing off in his scenes. Beatty hits so many notes here, both tragic and funny, and has terrific chemistry with his leads.

While Beatty's performance is a memorable one for sure, however, his writing and directing are, I'm afraid, haphazard and unfocused. Yes, Rules Don't Apply looks fantastic - how could it not with the likes of Caleb Deschanel taking on the cinematography and Albert Wolsky designing the costumes - and the central trio of actors are terrific but these great things, all too much of the time, feel lost at sea in a choppily edited and convoluted endeavor.

Fans of the filmmaker need to see this. It is, after all, the rarest of occasions when we get a new Warren Beatty flick. And I'm certainly hopeful he goes on to write, direct, produce and star in more feature films - don't allow the disappointing reviews and box office receipts deter you! But yes, Rules Don't Apply, while sporting several worthwhile things, does feel like a bit of a missed opportunity.

C+