Season heating up despite SAG storm clouds

Is it deja vu or what?

Even as the season really started heating up this week, storm clouds over a call for a SAG strike authorization vote has thrown the fate of the entire award season into question. Would a strike in early January KO the Globes AGAIN? Can the Oscars escape another close call after the WGA strike almost obliterated the 80th Academy Awards? Is this all part of a grand SAG plan to get the attention of the Alliance Motion Picture and Television Producers?

There was lots of talk among some academy and SAG members at a reception last night for director Jan Troell after a screening of his Swedish Oscar entry, the splendid "Everlasting Moments".

Actor Seymour Cassel, a 1968 supporting actor nominee for "Faces" who ran against SAG President Alan Rosenberg and nearly defeated him last year, thinks that a strike is probably inevitable and necessary now. When someone optimistically predicted it would all be over before the Oscars, he said with ominous intonation that he didn't think so.

Swell. Here we go again.  For now, though, the focus is on heavy campaigning.

Before interviewing Michael Sheen at a SAG nominating committee screening Friday night, a harried publicist told me Universal had set up 11 guild screenings over the weekend for "Frost/Nixon." That would pretty much cover everyone except the Lollipop Guild. Same thing was going on for "Australia" as Fox was running Baz Luhrmann and company from one side of town to another Saturday and Sunday.

There is such demand to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" that Paramount suddenly added four screenings just to keep up with demand after the press was finally able to see the finished film at Paramount on Saturday after the DGA digital snafu that cut the film short by about 2 hours and 20 minutes Thursday. 

Speaking of the DGA, an 85-year-old producer, Alan Newman, died of a heart attack after standing in line waiting for a screening and David Fincher Q&A on Sunday, eerie since the remarkable film is a rumination on life and death. It sadly gave an added dimension to that screening to be sure.

Although like every other film with supporters and detractors, "Benjamin Button" is such an impressive and groudbreaking cinematic achievement that it seems to have genuinely earned its frontrunner status and looks like a cinch for at least 10 nominations, including for Cate Blanchett and Taraji P. Henson among the actors. Brad Pitt's haunting performance is low key and all in his eyes. He's great, but will it be too subtle for the actors' branch?  Hope not.

Over at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, about 400 showed for the official academy screening of "Milk" Saturday night and gave it a warm reception, especially when star Sean Penn's name appeared on-screen at the end. A big 650 showed for "Australia's" official unspooling Sunday night with nice applause at the end for Baz Luhrmann, Hugh Jackman and cinematographer Mandy Walker as their names came up. Overall response was said to be "polite." There was a light (about 250) but reportedly highly enthusiastic turnout (despite scattered walkouts) Sunday afternoon for Danny Boyle's surging "Slumdog Millionaire," attendance one rival consultant said was probably hurt by the film's DVDs arriving at members' homes Friday.

    "Cadillac Records," a sleeper musical from Sony/Tri Star about the early days of Chess Records and the mainstream emergence of such blues artists as Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Etta James, had SAG nominating committee members whooping it up at the Fine Arts on Sunday, applauding performances by Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Columbus Short and others. Costar and producer Beyonce couldn't make the Q&A, as she was performing at the AMAs that evening. The execs behind the entertaining picture are hoping for some serious love from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. in its Golden Globe comedy/musical categories. Beyonce as Etta James, Mos Def as Berry, Wright as Muddy Waters, Eammon Walker as Howlin' Wolf and newcomer Columbus Short as L'il Walter tear up the screen and deliver sizzling performances that merit  the attention. Beyonce shows "Dreamgirls" was no fluke. She's the real triple threat: singer, dancer, actress.

  There was also much anticipation (considering the controversy about its inclusion in the 2008 race) for Monday's press unveiling of the Weinstein Co.'s  "The Reader," which officially is pushing all of its actors in the supporting categories, now including top-billed Kate Winslet. Although her performance could be considered a lead, she doesn't want to cannibalize her chances in the top category for "Revolutionary Road," and she's on the cusp anyway, a realistic possibility for supporting actress in a very strong performance in which she gets to age and look haggard (a big plus among voting actors). The irony is that her entrance into the supporting race could hurt the Weinsteins' other big shot at the Oscars this year, Penelope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."  Who will Harvey vote for?

Also impressive is Ralph Fiennes, who really only figures in the final third of the film but is very good in a scene near the end with a wonderful Lena Olin. Eighteen-year-old German newcomer David Kross is terrific in a role that would be challenging for anyone but particularly for a teenager. I heard that shooting of the graphic fully nude sex scenes between Winslet and Kross had to wait until after July 4, when the young thesp turned 18 and was "legal" enough not to cause problems for the producers.

The film reuniting "Hours" director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare is another downer drama, but it certainly delivers and joins "Defiance," "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and "Valkyrie" in the suddenly crowded Nazi-themed award competition this year.

With "Gran Torino," "Valkyrie" and "Seven Pounds" rolling out early next week just as the National Board of Review, the BFCA's Critics Choice awards, the HFPA and other critics groups get ready to vote, the table is being set for a surprisingly competitive year, particularly in the acting categories, ironic since SAG could just end up crashing the whole party.

— Pete Hammond

(Photo "Frost/Nixon" courtesy Ralph Nelson / Universal Pictures)

Comments

[RBBrittain]

The SAG strike-mongers forget that (a) it takes 75% of the membership to authorize a strike and (b) AFTRA isn't on their side this time. IMO, there's too many dual cardholders to let a strike happen; if it did, SAG would be decertified while AFTRA (perhaps with a name change) would be the sole actors' union.

Sabre-rattling is the only way SAG can hope to get anything more out of the producers, but in the end they're over a barrel when AFTRA, IATSE, DGA and now WGA are all on the other side of the picket line. Surely SAG should know that if they strike now they'll end up like Ronald Reagan's air-traffic controllers.

Question: Did the producers of "Cadillac Records" intentionally hold their SAG screening during the AMAs to keep strike-mongers from chewing out Beyoncé over her front-and-center role in AFTRA's strike-breaking strategy at the Grammys last season?