2010 SAG Award Predictions

Best Actress

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Say what? Sandra Bullock?

I know I'm going a bit out on a limb here, but unlike Jeff Bridges' Crazy Heart, Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side is truly a career-capping flick — as in, more box-office cash registers ringing than, say, Miss Congeniality, Infamous, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, or The Proposal. Additionally, the heart-warming, family-friendly, holiday-cheering, greenhouse-gas-reducing The Blind Side proves that

a) Bullock can be really successful in dramas,

b) she can have two major box-office hits in a single year (that used to be Julia Roberts' exclusive province),

c) she looks good as a blonde.

Item c) is the most difficult to accomplish, something I'm sure SAG members will recognize. I'm betting they'll also want to reward Bullock for

a) her perseverance (she's been around for more than two decades),

b) for proving everyone wrong about her "fading" box-office appeal

c) for daring to (once again) get cast against type.

In just about any other year, Meryl Streep would have been my pick for the SAG Awards for her highly successful star turn in Julie & Julia — but not in 2009. After all, Bullock has never even been nominated for an individual SAG Award (though she was part of the winning Crash ensemble back in early 2006), while Streep won last year for Doubt. Two SAG Awards in a row? Though not impossible — anything is possible when it comes to Meryl Streep and acting awards — I'd say that Bullock is the one to beat this year. At least at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Carey Mulligan, much like Colin Firth for A Single Man, could produce an upset victory for her determined schoolgirl in An Education, though I believe that most SAG members — who tend to like big-name winners, anyways — will decide Mulligan still has plenty of time to bring trophies home. Gabourey Sidibe and Helen Mirren for, respectively, Precious and The Last Station, are surely glad they've been nominated this year. That's good.

Photo: Ralph Nelson / Warner Bros.