Why the Last Awards Weekend Before the Oscars Matters |
Voting for the Oscars is officially closed, so we can all just take a deep breath and put our feet up, right?
Not exactly. I’m Rebecca Ford, and I’ll be busy bouncing around the Los Angeles area this weekend, going from one awards show to the next. On Saturday, the Independent Spirit Awards will take place in Santa Monica, and then I’ll make my way to the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Although the results of these two events can’t influence Oscar voters anymore, they could give us more insight into who might win next weekend. Both ceremonies will showcase some of this season’s tightest races, so we’ll be taking a close look at who wins—and what that might mean for Oscar Sunday.
At the Indie Spirit Awards, Anora is likely going to pick up another best-film prize, although fellow best-picture nominees Nickel Boys and The Substance are also in the running. And the directors race features another face-off between Anora’s Sean Baker and The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet, who are in a tight race for the Oscar at this point.
Because not all Oscar films qualify for the Indie Spirits, there are sometimes different victors there, though a number have lined up with the Academy Awards’ acting winners in recent years (in the supporting category, for example, Da’Vine Joy Randolph won last year, while Ke Huy Quan took home the award the year before). So I expect Oscar front-runner Kieran Culkin, who is competing in the supporting-performer category and has won nearly every award he’s been nominated for, to walk away with this win as well. In lead performer, Demi Moore will likely win yet another trophy, but there’s a chance that Mikey Madison, fresh off her somewhat surprising BAFTA win, could beat her again here. That would be another indication that the best-actress race remains up in the air.
The SAG Awards on Sunday should be especially interesting to watch for that battle between Moore and Madison. A win for Madison there could indicate that a Moore victory is not a safe bet. I’d also keep an eye on the SAG Awards’ ensemble prize, which could go to Anora (solidifying it as best picture) or, as I chose for our SAG Awards predictions, Wicked. A win for Wicked would show that actors—who make up the largest voting branch of the Academy—are big fans, and it could indicate that the film’s a real contender for lots of trophies next week. It’s our last weekend to read the tea leaves before you make your Oscar-pool picks—let’s make it count. |
