“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Saturday January 24, 2015
Sunny and Windy 68°F/20°C in Rancho Santa Margarita
Unleaded gas $2.24 gal/ €1.99 gal
Buongiorno,
At the top of my viewing list this weekend
is my favorite awards show. I’ll be watching from
my rocking chair with my faithful dog Lola curled up on the futon beside me. It’s the 21st annual Screen Actors
Guild Awards - my favorite awards show because I actually get to help decide
who the winners will be. I have that privilege because I belong to the
entertainment union, SAG-AFTRA, which sponsors the SAG Awards.
It is, to quote its website, “The only televised awards shows to
exclusively honor performers, it presents thirteen awards for acting in film
and television in a fast moving two hour show which airs live on TNT and TBS. The awards focus on both individual
performances as well as on the work of the entire ensemble of a drama series
and comedy series, and the cast of a motion picture.” As a union member and
SAG Awards voter, I could not feel more privileged if I were a member of the
College of Cardinals selecting the next Pope.
As for the other awards shows, I
usually watch another channel. For one thing, directing all those egos in one
coherent production is worse than herding cats. Apart from Sacheen
Littlefeather’s speech at the Oscars back in 1973, when she turned down the
Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando in The
Godfather, there are rarely any surprises. And, I absolutely hate it when
the recipient pulls out the written crib notes so that everyone from deity down
to hair stylist and caterer can get credit for the golden moment. I can
understand why so many of them show up hammered. And even when the “exit music”
starts, it does not mean that the award winner is about to shut up. (I have
actually gone to the kitchen for a fresh drink, hit the bathroom on the way out
my front door and mowed the front yard, and still found them babbling on the
dais when I returned to the living room). I’ll settle for reading the results
in the trades the next morning. That takes me 30 seconds.
The SAG Awards is different. These
winners are my former colleagues, and, every year, I am sent a collection of
DVD’s and links to super secure studio website and asked to view and vote,
along with several thousand other professional performers. I usually don’t
share this story, partly because recent acquaintances will just chalk it up to
“senior dementia,” and for those who’ve known me professionally for all those
years, I don’t have to. But, I’m breaking radio silence this year to share with
you an insider’s view that there is at least one awards program on television
that is the “real deal.”
I’m not going to predict the final
outcome. For that, I’d have to be clairvoyant. But, I would like to share some
of my impressions.
Outstanding Performance by a Cast
in a Motion Picture: Birdman, Boyhood,
The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything. My
vote goes to – The Grand Budapest Hotel! After
watching Imitation Game, Theory of
Everything and Birdman, I almost
passed on Budapest Hotel. After all,
I had already seen Edward Norton in Birdman
and he was his usual amazing self. No, I went for Budapest Hotel because I have rarely seen so many great actors
under one roof having so much fun just by being great actors having so much
fun. Budapest Hotel went immediately
into my short collection of “cult classics,” along with The Big Lebowsky and anything by the Coen Brothers.
Outstanding Performance by a Male
Actor in a Leading Role: This was a toughie for me. I admire all five
nominees-Steve Carell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Keaton,
and Eddie Redmayne. Gyllenhaal especially hit close to home for me, because in
my days as a TV newsman I had known some real versions of the rapacious
paparazzo that he portrayed in Nightcrawler.
Mine came down to a choice between the portrayals of two historical figures
Benedict Cumberbatch as cryptanalyst Alan During and Eddie Redmayne as
physicist Steven Hawking. It was a saying from my favorite quotemeister, Winston Churchill, that finally swayed me into voting
for Benedict Cumberbatch, when Churchill described Russia as, “a riddle wrapped
in a mystery inside an enigma." Of course –
Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game.”
Outstanding Performance by a Female
Actor in a Leading Role: The nominees – Jennifer Aniston, Cake; Felicity Jones, Theory
of Everything; Julianne Moore, Still
Alice; Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl;
and Reese Witherspoon, Wild. From her
first moment, Felicity Jones literally jumped off the screen at me as she
consistently impressed me with her ability to create a character that so
complimented that of her leading man, Eddie Redmayne. Remember, the SAG Awards
are all about ensemble performances. So,
my choice is – Felicity Jones for Theory
of Everything.
Outstanding Performance By a Male
Actor in a Supporting Role: The nominees are five of my favorite actors –
Robert Duvall, The Judge; Ethan
Hawke, Boyhood; Edward Norton, Birdman; Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher; J.K. Simmons, Whiplash. Now, I don’t know if Robert
Duvall will be have many more winning roles, he is 83 after all, so my vote for
him also represents a desire to honor him for a lifetime of acting achievement.
I first saw him as the reclusive Boo Radley in 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
Also, as I screened The Judge, I got a kick out of seeing
SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard as the judge who sentences the ailing
and old Robert Duvall character to prison. Good to see that I’m still a member
of a union comprised of working performers. I think Ken should get a SAG
award. How about Best Performance by the
President of SAG/AFTRA in a motion picture?
Finally, Outstanding Performance by
a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. The nominees are: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood; Keira Knightly, The Imitation Game; Emma Stone, Birdman; Meryl Streep, Into the Woods; Naomi Watts, St. Vincent. As the Joan Clarke
character came on screen in The Imitation
Game, I watched for a while then reset the video to the opening of that
scene, all the while thinking, “Is THAT Keira Knightly?!!!” Very different than the Keira Knightly of Love, Actually, or Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Not just
another pretty face in this key supporting role. Knightly gets my vote for
Female Actor in a Supporting Role.
Well, by now the votes are in and
counted, and we all get to see how it turns out on Sunday Night if you watch it
on TNT or TBS. I’ll be following the awards with you. We can compare notes on
Monday.
Ciao,
MikeBo
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