And American Beauty got an even bigger boost this past week to put it firmly in the driver's seat to be the big winner this Oscar night.
The last of the big Oscar precursors were presented last weekend, and these are some of the best predictors for who and what will be winning come Oscar night. But as learned so harshly last year, a sure thing doesn't seem so much as far as Academy Awards are concerned.
Anyway, here's a look at what happened at the Director's Guild ceremony last Saturday night, and the Screen Actor's Guild ceremony, which was televised live on TNT this past Sunday.
Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey won the top acting honors for their roles as a dysfunctional couple in the suburban satire American Beauty, positioning them as frontrunners at the Oscars later this month.
Bening's victory was certainly a surprise, especially since Hilary Swank has been the odds-on favorite all awards season long. Now Best Actress has become a very heated two-way race ... ever since the nominations for the Oscars came out, a tide has been turning for Annette Bening, possibly for all the wrong reasons, not necessarily based on the quality of work in her film, but on other factors, like the fact that her husband is getting the Thalberg award come Oscar night, that she's due to win the Oscar, that she's incredibly pregnant right now, and also to cement an American Beauty sweep of the top five awards.
This one is going to be tough to call ... Bening's was good in Beauty, but Hilary Swank gave the strongest performance of any actress this year in Boys Don't Cry.
American Beauty also won the guild's ensemble acting award. Spacey, who already has a supporting actor Oscar for The Usual Suspects, thanked his American Beauty co-stars, saying they were "the reason I was able to come to work every day."
He also praised director Sam Mendes and said "if this is my best work, you are the reason." Bening thanked her co-stars and family, including husband Warren Beatty and their three children. She is eight months pregnant with their fourth child. "One thing to all the actresses out there," the 41-year-old Bening said. "Don't wait to have a baby. Do it now."
