Well, finally we get our first industry/guild awards group, or in other words, one that actually matters. It matters because the guilds have major overlap with the Academy, unlike critics awards, and the guilds are going to tell us for sure which movies and actors are popular within the industry and which ones aren't. Birdman leads with four nominations, but right behind it with three each are Boyhood, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything. Theory was the big surprise here, getting into Ensemble (or SAG's equivalent of Best Picture) despite the minimal cast, which shows that love for the film is very strong. Stronger than I had anticipated, similar to what happened with Dallas Buyers Club last year. A big snub was the total shutout of Selma, which is expected to factor in heavily at the Oscars this year, but the film was not finished in time for the studio to send out screeners to the SAG nominating committee, which has pretty much doomed every single late release in the last few years (last year it was Wolf of Wall Street, which went on to get five Oscar nominations, including Leo Dicaprio and Jonah HIll for acting). I think Selma will make a comeback with the Golden Globe nominations tomorrow- if it doesn't, then it might be in some trouble.
Ensemble
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Actor in a Leading Role
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Female Actor in a Leading Role
Jennifer Aniston, Cake
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Actor in a Supporting Role
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
Naomi Watts, St. Vincent
Another surprise (a happy one for me) was Grand Budapest Hotel making it into Ensemble, a possible sign that this may finally be the year a Wes Anderson movie cracks the Oscar Best Picture race. Also, the vast majority of SAG nominees go on to receive Oscar nods every year, save for maybe one or two in each category. Looking over this list it's pretty obvious which ones will likely be left out for someone else, starting with Jennifer Aniston in Cake. Aniston is a big star, and TV actors make up a lot of SAG's membership. To me, that's the reason she got into a weak Best Actress field, which is shocking enough on its own, but I'd be flabbergasted if she made it into the Oscar field for such a poorly received film, no matter how hard she campaigns. Other likely non-Oscar contenders will be Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts and Robert Duvall, because those films are all considered to be non-entities in the Oscar race, so look for them to be replaced with other names. But everyone else looks pretty set to me. We'll see if they solidify with tomorrow's Golden Globes announcement.