Awards Season Review: Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG-AFTRA)

Awards seasons continues with the last major ceremony before the Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, so naturally I was excited to watch the 25th iteration of it last night! With that being said, Megan Mullally, the host, was seriously awkward, and I don’t know that I even heard chuckles from the audience for most of her jokes. Although I did like when she brought out Smitty from Will & Grace. Her opening monologue was so poor that I think she took away from what would have been a pretty good joke from Ricky Martin, who was a presenter of the first award of the night.

I apparently didn’t look too closely at who was nominated for each category before tuning in, because some were quite odd and surprising. It seems some people who were considered for supporting roles were considered for main ones here, Sam Rockwell got shut out of the supporting actor, and so did Vice for the best ensemble category. Some surprise wins for me included Emily Blunt for her silent role in A Quiet Place, John Krasinski’s nomination for best actor in a drama series, and This Is Us taking home the trophy for best drama over the last season of The Americans.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel swept all the categories it was nominated for, and Rami Malek further cemented his chances for best actor after he nabbed it again last night (did anyone else see Christian Bale’s face at that win?!). I was surprised, but not, to see Black Panther win best ensemble, especially since it was up against other crowd favorites like Crazy Rich Asians. I did notice that Roma had no nominations and A Star is Born got completely shut out again (not looking good, Oscars), so some other actors got some real chances. And this awards show is different in that the awards are voted on by their SAG peers – it’s almost like a superlatives show, although good actors know good acting, so I can’t ignore that.

Notable speeches of the night included Rami Malek, Emily Blunt, and Life Achievement Award recipient Alan Alda. Go fishing through Youtube to find those – you’re welcome.

TV Review: This is Us

I’ve been sticking with “This is Us” since it premiered a few years back mainly because I am a huge fan of Milo Ventimiglia (“Heroes” R.I.P.); however, when season 3 started up in the fall I found myself dreading watching it. I’m sure there are plenty of other people out there who cry at least once during every single episode. And crying is not fun! I know that I end up loving every episode, but I was just really not looking forward to the tears this fall.

With that, I decided to binge watch them all. I know, I know. VERY STUPID IDEA. So about a week ago I started going through the first nine episodes of season 3, and I’m proud to say there were only tears two times! There was a lot of back and forth within episodes between Jack in Vietnam and all of the rest of the Pearson clans problems. Such problems include: IVF, depression, losing a job, running for city council, coming out, and really awkward dinners (like, lots of them). I was pretty excited to see Jack’s brother Nicky this season, although he turned out to be a big jerk and SPOILER ALERT – alive! Overall, the episodes were pretty good, and where episode nine left off has me excited for it to come back on January 15th.

I say all that, but this show is almost too much, so I can’t say I’m sad there’s only one season left. Hate me 🙂