Doubt Gets a Major Boost from the SAGs

The list of nominations from the Screen Actors Guild is always crucial to Oscar nominations because it has a tendency to match up miraculously well. If you predicted Oscar nominations solely based on the SAG nominations, you'd probably end up above 80% correct. In each category, it's rare for less than 4 out of 5 of each nominee to end up also getting a corresponding Oscar nomination, and often they match up 5 for 5.

The big winner is Doubt, which nominated basically everyone in its cast: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. Though Davis only appears in one sequence, it's Adams who was on the weakest footing; her inclusion signals that the film has wide-ranging support.

Enough support for a Best Picture nomination? It would be very hard to imagine all four of those actors also being nominated for an Oscar, but leaving the film out of the Best Picture nominees. However, if the Academy doesn't go for Adams, it might also not go for Picture.

This is particularly crucial because conventional wisdom says that Doubt is currently contesting The Dark Knight for the fifth best picture slot. Frost/Nixon, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button seem to be very good bets at this point, while Doubt, Dark Knight, and possibly Revolutionary Road are gunning for the fifth spot.

With the SAG nominations announced, Doubt has now pulled ahead.

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Recent Entries:
· The Will Smith Factor
· Chicago Film Critics: Wall-E and Slumdog
· More SAG Winners and Losers

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