Awards season: What a splendid ball of confusion

After yesterday’s Screen Actors Guild awards, the Oscar race is now officially a beautiful mess.

All the tea leaves point now to an upset win for “Argo” in the best picture category, despite the fact that “Argo” director Ben Affleck was not nominated for an Oscar. “Argo” won best ensemble at the SAG awards (basically their version of best picture), and it won best picture at the Producers Guild awards the day before.

This isn’t all that surprising. After all, one of the heroes of “Argo” is a movie producer (played by Oscar nominee Alan Arkin). And director Affleck is an actor as well. Each guild was backing one of their own.

The rest of the SAG winners all seem well on their way to Oscar gold. Daniel Day-Lewis won best actor for “Lincoln”; Jennifer Lawrence won best actress for “Silver Linings Playbook”; and Anne Hathaway won best supporting actress for “Les Miserables.” All look like slam dunks at the Academy Awards.

The wild card was Tommy Lee Jones’ win for best supporting actor. That made “Lincoln” the night’s only double winner, but I wouldn’t count Robert De Niro out yet for “Silver Linings Playbook.”

One thing’s clear — it’s doubtful that any one picture will dominate the Oscars. If “Argo” wins best picture, that’s likely all it will win (how rare would that be?). But both “Silver Linings” and “Lincoln” are probably still in the race at this point, since the guild awards may just be backlash votes consoling Affleck after he didn’t get the Oscar directing nomination.

In essence: Who knows? And how cool is that?