The Help and The Artist Get Boosts From Guilds

It was a huge night for The Help at the SAG Awards netting three awards for its Ensemble, Lead Actress for Viola Davis, and Supporting Actress for Octavia Spencer. Those latter two look pretty solid for Oscars especially Spencer who has won all of the major precursors prior. Same goes for Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer who took home the award here. Jean Dujardin's win over George Clooney was the biggest shock (and biggest delight for me this entire awards season), but then I supposed they just couldn't let the Oscar front-runner The Artist go home empty handed could they? What it means for the Oscars is not clear except that actors clearly support The Artist as well making its run to Oscar glory even easier.

Best Ensemble: The Help
Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

The TV awards were... at best boring and at worse completely awful. Consider that 5 of the 8 awards went to last year's winners and it'd probably be 6 if they could award Claire Danes for Temple Grandin again! The only differences this year were Kate Winslet and Paul Giamatti winning Best Acting in Miniseries and Jessica Lange winning Best Actress in Drama. Plus why was Winslet not around to at least give us an overly enthusiastic speech?

Best Ensemble, Drama: Boardwalk Empire
Best Ensemble, Comedy: Modern Family
Best Actress, Drama: Jessica Lange, American Horror Story
Best Actress, Comedy: Betty White, Hot in Cleveland
Best Actor, Drama: Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Best Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Best Actress, Miniseries: Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce
Best Actor, Miniseries: Paul Giamatti, Too Big To Fail

But to shift back to films and Oscars, the Directors Guild handed out their awards earlier this weekend and the race for Best Picture is now a one-film race as Michel Hazanavicius of The Artist won it over his more experienced fellow nominees among them Martin Scorsese. I still believe Scorsese, with his acclaim and legendary status, could win at the Oscars over Hazanavicius, but this win more than any this awards season points to The Artist ultimately triumphing for Best Picture at the Oscars.

Feature Film: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
TV Drama Series: Patty Jenkins, The Killing
TV Comedy Series: Robert B. Weide, Curb Your Enthusiasm
TV Movie/Mini-Series: John Cassar, The Kennedys
Documentary: James Marsh, Project Nim
Musical Variety: Glenn Weiss, Tony Awards
Reality Programs: Neil P. Degroot, Biggest Loser
Daytime Serials: William Luel, General Hospital
Children's Programs: Amy Schatz, A Child's Garden of Poetry

The other winners are above, and I wished I could comment on them a bit more. Though I was surprised to see Patty Jenkins winning for her admittedly great work on The Killing especially in light of some fierce competition from Homeland, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Friday Night Lights. Who ever knows, right?