The Screen Actors Guild really enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook and the hot TV comedies of three years ago

The annual Screen Actors Guild Awards offers the opportunity for actors to get all glammed up, convene before cameras, and congratulate each other on their craft—an opportunity that, in these months, is as special as your local Subway offering the chance to see genuine sandwich artists at work. However, in SAG's case, it does so without any writers or crew people, freeing actors to offer platitudes to each other without any pale, surly creatures scurrying about looking for discarded bones to gnaw on. It also does so without any regard for or influence on the Oscars, liberating them to recognize performances like Nicole Kidman's in The Paperboy that might otherwise have gone ignored because they are hilariously stupid.

There are a few other deviations from the increasingly accepted norm, including nods for Javier Bardem in Skyfall and Helen Mirren in Hitchcock, somewhat surprising attention for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (up for the body's Best Picture-equivalent prize of Best Ensemble), and an almost total disregard for The Master beyond Philip Seymour Hoffman. Not so much on the TV side, which in the case of the comedy category reads like the Emmys of several years ago: Modern Family, Nurse Jackie, The Office, Glee, 30 Rock, and The Big Bang Theory are all over the place—ditto another obligatory nomination for Betty White in Hot In Cleveland—while nothing newer or less predictable such as Community or Veep or New Girl or Happy Endings or hell, even Girls registered. Consider Louis CK's nomination a small victory, then remind yourself that, even in the vacuum of industry self-congratulation, the SAG Awards are particularly meaningless.

The complete list [via IndieWire]:

Best Ensemble
Argo

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Les Miserables

Lincoln

Silver Linings Playbook

Best Male Actor In A Leading Role
Denzel Washington, Flight
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes, The Sessions

Best Female Actor In A Leading Role
Helen Mirren, Hitchcock
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Marion Cotillard, Rust & Bone
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor In A Supporting Role
Alan Arkin, Argo
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Javier Bardem, Skyfall

Best Actress In A Supporting Role
Maggie Smith, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Sally Field, Lincoln
Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy
Helen Hunt, The Sessions