2018 SAG AWARDS

[Note: Even though this is the shortest awards show, and there was only one arrivals show, I have sooo many thoughts on all of the proceedings that I have to share them on two different days. It would be too much for you guys to take in at one reading. So today features what I have to say about the actual show, and on Friday, I’ll discuss the arrivals.]

Well, the SAG Awards are always the most boring awards show of the season, but this one took the cake! So much about it upset me. I barely even live-tweeted it because I didn’t want to get that upset to put it all in writing.

But now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I can share my many, mostly negative, thoughts here. Let’s get started. First up is the show, in general.

I hate that they had a host this time.  That was so not necessary.  And Kristen Bell was awful! Thank goodness she only did her stupid little bits a few times, rather than all night.

And that she said this show is really for all the “struggling actors” out there is beyond baloney. It’s one hundred percent for the “stars!” Regular everyday actors do not receive nominations, (nor should they,) and not a one of them has ever been asked to appear on the show. It’s all about the stars! (Actually, this time, many of the presenters were sort-of obscure, but more on them in a bit.)

And having females-only as the presenters was the stupidest and most pretentious thing ever. That stunt actually made me want to quit Screen Actors Guild!!!  An awards show without cute males is pretty dull, if you ask me, (which you are by reading this!) Thank goodness they allowed the males to talk about their own films! At least these full-of-themselves females didn’t wear all-black this time, thinking that will make everything okay. I felt like I’m living on one of those Amazon islands, where the giant woman torture men, or something like that. Enough already!

To make the stage basically a no-males zone, they broke-out some of the most obscure actresses to present awards. I dare one hundred readers to name the two women presenters in the picture directly above! The answer will be at the bottom, if you want to test yourselves. (Even Mr. X could not do it.) [Clue: They’re both Oscar winners!]

Now let’s go in order of the show running:

Could Maya Rudolph’s dress be any frumpier?!

I feel bad that nominee Aziz Ansari didn’t show-up because I assume it had something to do with that disgruntled former date of his who levied some nonsensical allegations against him.  That would be a travesty if that’s why he missed-out on the fun of being celebrated for his nomination. [Note: This is why I hate this entire Hollywood witch hunt. It’s hard to know just whom to believe anymore.]

I was happy that Julia Louis-Dreyfus won because Mr. X and I voted for her, but sad that she wasn’t well enough to be there.  I have a feeling she would have given her usual fun speech.

Thank goodness Frances McDormand looked better than usual. She must have read my review of her on the Golden Globes!  She colored her hair and put on appropriate attire this time. (Actually, how badly-dressed was everyone else when Frances had one of the nicest outfits all night???)

Just one of the many presenting duos to scratch our heads over: Molly Shannon and Leslie Mann???  How did they choose those two???  I don’t even know who the latter is! It’s probably because they had to find more females than usual, even if they’re not very famous, because of the stupid “no-guys” rule.

What a stupid speech by the man who accepted for Veep! He should be fired from the show just because of his stupidity!

At this point, I made a note, “I can’t take this women shit.  I seriously can’t.” (More on those sentiments at the end.)  And them referring to actresses as “female actors” makes me sick.

I wore Allison Janney’s big-shouldered dress…in the ’80s!

I heard the writer of I, Tonya say he did write the role for Allison, but it’s Tonya’s mother, for goodness sake—he had to write it!!!

I had no idea that Daniel Kaluuya, the star of Get Out, is British!!!  OMG—what a surprise! I love his particular accent.  And he’s an even better actor than I thought he is because I can usually tell when foreigners are trying to do American accents, and with him, I had nary a clue!

I’m so glad that I was wrong about who would win Best Supporting Male, and that rightful Sam Rockwell won! (You can read all my predictions here, if you didn’t before the show: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/movie-reviewsawards-show-2018-mini-movie-reviews-part-ii-and-sag-awards-predictions.)

I loved Gina Rodriguez’s dress! I think it was the only one I admired.

I can’t stand Megan Mullally’s nasality.

How does even one person think that Alexander Skarsgard’s performance was better than that of Robert DeNiro???  Even Alexander doesn’t, which he referenced in his acceptance speech.  He was so embarrassed by it that he couldn’t even give a proper speech!  But it was actually sort-of good–he just basically said thank you and got off.

OMG—idiotic Kristen Bell just thanked Lady Bird writer/director Greta Gerwig for her story, saying, “We’re all better because of it.”  Just who exactly is better because of Lady Bird, outside of the actors in the film, who got to work and made money from doing so???

SAG President Gabrielle Carteris’ speech was beyond pretentious!  And she kept waiting for applause that never came.

Here’s yet another strange duo of presenters because the producers of this show were so desperate for females: Rosanna Arquette and Marisa Tomei!  When was the last time Rosanna worked? These two are not in the public eye right now, with zero projects between them, and they’re not icons, either. But, of course, they did mention the recent “MeToo” campaign. The weird thing is that so many of these woman who talk about it praise tons of actresses who are involved, but not one of them, including this pair, has mentioned Rose McGowan!  It’s interesting that they’ve all clammed-up about her, which seemed to happen right after I tweeted about her taking money from Harvey Weinstein for her silence, while accusing everyone else of not speaking-up.

And why would Marisa wear her hair like that, with strands sticking-up all over the place?

But Laura Dern’s hair is the absolute worst! I don’t wear mine like that to even just sit around the house!!!

Why does Nicole Kidman always wear backless dresses when she does not have a good back??? At least she put a mesh over it this time.

OMG—Nicole Kidman just said that she has the flu!!! She should have stayed home in that case! People who go out with the flu think that they’re being wonderful martyrs, but they’re far from it–it’s extremely selfish of them! Especially this year, when the strain going around is so deadly!

Very surprisingly, Laurie Metcalf wore the best mesh on a dress that I’ve ever seen, even on figure skating costumes!

When Rita Moreno came on, I thought, “Now we’re finally going to have some fun.”  But I was dead wrong—she was incredibly goony and self-aggrandizing.  But she is eighty-six, and looks great, so props to her in that category.  And she bared tons of skin, which, shockingly, did not look gross!!!

But she was in desperate need of lipstick.

Why would Morgan Freeman wear a baseball cap to any awards show, but especially to this one, where he was receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, no less!!!???

But thank goodness he finally had his teeth fixed when he got older.

More from dreadful host, Kristen Bell. This time, she said something about Meryl Streep like she was introducing her, inspiring a standing ovation for Meryl from the entire assemblage!  So she had to admit that Meryl wasn’t even there!  And then, to cover for her faux pas, she quickly introduced Olivia Munn and Niecey Nash instead, which just about stopped the applause altogether.  How uncomfortable for everyone.

And how creepy of Jason Bateman to have his wife sitting on his lap as his nomination was announced.

Finally, the first real honest moment of the evening! Niecy Nash told Olivia that she wanted to be the one to announce Sterling K. Brown if he won, and when asked why, she emphatically replied, “Because he’s black!!!”

And, when he did win, Sterling delivered the funniest line of the night: “To my white family, who’s thankfully not like the family in Get Out.” [Note: I’m proud to say that I predicted his future stardom in the first two paragraphs of this review almost two years ago, here: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/theatre-father-comes-home-from-the-wars-parts-1-2-3.]

Then they brought-out someone named Kelly Marie Tran, and I wrote, “Are they kidding me???  Did they bring someone out of the audience to present???”  So, I had to look her up, and discovered she was in Last Jedi, which is a big film, so my bad; I don’t watch Star Wars films. But why don’t they announce what projects all these presenters are from, especially if they’re sort-of obscure?!

And why is Dakota Fanning looking like she’s home for the night, instead of on-stage presenting at an awards show?  I don’t even have words for her choice of those nerdy old-woman-pink glasses and her hair in the about-to-wash-my-face updo. (I loved Dakota Fanning when she was in I Am Sam, but I have to re-think her as an adult. )

I voted for Claire Foy, but I’m shocked that she won.  I guess SAG members don’t like scientologists, Elisabeth Moss.

Kate Hudson’s dress is perhaps the ugliest one ever!

And her patter with her mom, Goldie Hawn, was inane.

The announcer called the This Is Us cast a “thirteen-actor ensemble,” but just whom did they leave out??? And why? There are so many more cast members than that. That’s not really fair to not count some of them. (They had some kids from the different ages on stage, so that alone would be nine actors! Then there are all the various family members! I count at least eighteen of them myself.)

By the way, I do watch that show, but I don’t love it. I barely even like it! So it’s hard for me to understand its popularity.

And, I’m just saying what we’re all thinking here, but it’s hard to look at Chrissy Metz, knowing that she’s dangerously obese. I’m not fat-shaming at all; I’m more worried about her health than her looks. It would be a shame if she died because people are tiptoeing around her weight! I’m trying to help her. I wish those close to her would do the same.

My heart did not quite break for James Franco, but  it did sort-of hurt for him. I give him tons of credit for showing up because he knew that, after those sexual misconduct allegations against him, he had no chance of winning, so he was just being a good sport. And his face when they cut to him after re-capping the nominations said it all. [Note, after the fact: And, just as I predicted, James was not nominated for an Oscar, which I think he would have been had this scandal not hit when it did.]

I have rarely seen a more grateful, nor more deserving, acting award recipient, than Gary Oldman.  And I loved his emotional speech.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Halle Berry look bad.  She looked like she didn’t have time to get ready.  But I loved her dress.

I absolutely loathe that Frances McDormand kept saying “MissourA!” I don’t care if the natives mispronounce their own state’s name for some unknown reason—say it right, woman!!!

And, by the way, I predicted many of the winners, including Allison Janney, Nicole Kidman, Gary Oldman, Sterling K. Brown, Frances McDormand, Alexander Skarsgard, William H. Macy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and the casts of This Is Us, Veep, and Three Billboards.

Let me finish by saying this about the male-female nonsense of recent months. It’s incredibly sad and disgusting that many males have abused their power over us for all time, and it’s great that this problem is finally getting attention. But the false claims of some are ruining it for the ones who are telling the truth. We have no idea whom to believe anymore.

That being said, I love being female, and all that comes with it. Even though some think that I like to be in charge of things in life, that’s only when the events are my work, and I need things done the right way. But I’m so happy to be the “fairer sex,” and have males help me when warranted. I could not be in the position I am without Mr. X helping me at every step of the journey. And I love that. I just feel that the women of the MeToo and Time’sUp movements are trying too hard to be in control. Yes, of course equality would be desirable, but you can’t have it both ways. This entire movement is belittling men too much; not everyone is a Harvey Weinstein. And it may even be pushing males in power to hire only men from now on, to avoid this whole new “female problem.” There has to be another way to go about all of it!

Note: The answer to “name the women in that picture” at the top is: Brie Larson (in the hideous dress) and Lupita Nyong’o.

And remember—I’m weighing-in on all the “Arrivals Hubbub” on Friday, so please check back for that. Here’s a preview–it opens with me calling-out one of the most offensive interviewers I’ve ever seen!!!