SAG AWARDS: HIDDEN FIGURES WINS ENSEMBLE CAST!

You didn't see this coming, did you? With La La Land out of the way, the Ensemble award from the Screen Actors Guild was perceived by most to be a race between almost any of the nominees, though few predicted Hidden Figures, not least with its lack of wins in the individual categories. Alas, this likely only strengthens La La Land's Oscar potential, given that its closest rival, Moonlight, continues to lose the big guild awards. A largely predictable SAG ceremony was closed out by two big shockers, in the Ensemble Cast choice and in a surprise pick for Lead Actor  - Denzel Washington in Fences, winning alongside his costar Viola Davis. Check out SAG's film nominees here.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

Emma Stone (La La Land)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Denzel Washington (Fences)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

Viola Davis (Fences)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast

Mahershala Ali, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Taraji P. Henson, Aldis Hodge, Janelle Monae, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)

Outstanding Stunt Performance by an Ensemble

Hacksaw Ridge

Lifetime Achievement Award

Lily Tomlin

REVIEW - FENCES (DENZEL WASHINGTON)

The legacy of a people is told through the voice of that people, viewed through the lens of lifetimes of accumulating pain. August Wilson's portrait of black America is a definitive one in essence, in character, in its realization here in the hands of some of the country's most estimable black artists. A stage play initially, the coarse, vivid realism of Fences' style is one of theatrical immediacy, rather than gritty cinematic naturalism. Wilson and Denzel Washington foreground those features that reside normally in the background of the people they portray - not the characters, the people. History floods through Fences in its prose, in its participants, in its plot, in its cumbersome metaphors and its brilliantly burdensome messages. The film is a stark, unambiguous address of the formation and the development of a particular racial identity, and a cruel critique of its meanest manifestations. The manner in which neither writer nor director / lead actor insist upon teasing out the true reason behind all this anger and all this pain is Fences' most persuasive exhibit of its surprising subtlety - a necessary component in such a dense study. So it's cruel, but not unkind, a tough love reflection, and a simple celebration of this people and their legacy in the plain fact that, as is all too rare in the media, we're not merely seeing them here but understanding them too. Washington is an uncommonly astute director of actors, but he struggles to adopt a more fitting technique for handling anything more abstract than their emotional expressions. Alas, the film needs little else, entrusted as it is to this exceptionally fine cast, led by the magnificent Washington and Viola Davis. Theirs is a legacy, alongside Wilson's, which will shape that of their people for many lifetimes to come.

SFFCC AWARDS: MOONLIGHT WINS AND FENCES BREAKS THROUGH

The San Francisco Film Critics Circle has announced its award winners for cinema in 2016, having announced its nominees earlier this week. As with so many critics groups, Barry Jenkins' Moonlight is a big hit with the SFFCC, though a couple of ties ensure that there's plenty of room for other films to pick up awards. And Denzel Washington's Fences wins two acting prizes, one for the director and one for his co-star, Viola Davis. All the details below.

Best Picture

Moonlight

Best Director

Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

Best Actress

Isabelle Huppert (Elle)

Best Actor

Denzel Washington (Fences)

Best Supporting Actress

Viola Davis (Fences)

Best Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

Best Screenplay, Original

Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

Best Screenplay, Adapted

Eric Heisserer (Arrival)

Best Cinematography

James Laxton (Moonlight)

Best Film Editing

Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders (Moonlight)

Joe Walker (Arrival)

Best Production Design

Ryu Seong Hee (The Handmaiden)

Best Original Score

Mica Levi (Jackie)

Best Animated Feature

The Red Turtle

Best Documentary

I Am Not Your Negro

Best Foreign Language Picture

The Handmaiden

Special Citation

The Fits

Marlon Riggs Award

Peaches Christ

TRAILER #2 FOR DENZEL WASHINGTON'S FENCES

Come and collect your Oscars, Denzel and Viola! Fences comes out in the US on Christmas Day and in the UK on the 10th of February, then wins all the Oscars on the 26th.

TEASER TRAILER FOR FENCES: VIOLA DAVIS / DENZEL WASHINGTON DRAMA

Paramount hopes to hit hard this awards season with Fences, August Wilson's adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play. It's directed by Denzel Washington and also starring him; alongside the two-time Oscar-winner is two-time nominee Viola Davis, each actor reprising their Tony-winning roles in the hopes of securing Academy Award glory this time around. You get the message: this has awards written all over it, and the above trailer goes a good way toward proving why Paramount must be so confident that Fences will reap what it's attempting to sow. Released in the US on Christmas Day.

REVIEW - THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (ANTOINE FUQUA)

For all that Antoine Fuqua may be a forceful director, ever seeking a dynamic set-piece and a capable director of action, he's a dismal storyteller. Tasked with remaking a classic remake of another classic, and handed a promising script by Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk, he yet again proves himself incompetent at dealing with the most basic elements of filmmaking, and The Magnificent Seven thus falls far short of the magnificence it touts. Whether smearing the screen with sun-dappled lens flare courtesy Mauro Fiore's insipid cinematography, or flattening out all the thematic texture with John Refoua's workmanlike edit and his own inability to stage dialogue, Fuqua ensures that, no matter what noble or exciting aspirations to which this film may strive, it'll eternally fail to strike one as anything nobler than just average. The warning signs arrive early - whatever hopes you may harbour that The Magnificent Seven might recreate the timbre of Hollywood's many iconic mid-century Westerns are succinctly dashed by sorry choices such as an unremarkable aesthetic scheme and an astonishing over-reliance on ADR (entire sequences feature not a single word visibly uttered on the screen, yet line after line exits the speakers). Better to sit back and anticipate the inevitably arresting action, which papers over some issues of confusion and continuity with its general fast pace and some committed performances. No-one commands the screen quite like Denzel Washington, and there are vivid turns from Vincent d'Onofrio, Lee Byung Hun and Peter Sarsgaard (the narrow winner of the most closely-contested game of 'Who Would Paddy Fuck First From The Cast?' in years). Strictly surface pleasures then, but pleasures nonetheless.