Hey, they're handing out yet more awards this afternoon

So the Screen Actors Guild Awards will be starting soon, and I'm stuck watching them. My favorite part is always the sanctimonious, self-congratulatory openings, where sundry actors deliver soliloquys that strive to ennoble their profession: "As a child, I scrapped and scraped for food in the dumpsters of Long Island for my mother and my two other feral siblings. Then, someone noticed I was really attractive. Today, I pout petulantly when my trailer is 18 inches further from the set than my co-stars' and refuse to shoot my day's work. My name is [insert appropriate name here], and I am an actor."

(Here's an idea: They give out the trophy above - with the guy holding the smiley face aloft - to the winners, and then give the losers trophies with the guy holding the sad face aloft. That way, everyone goes home with hardware!)

What does the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture or those for Drama or Comedy Series ensembles really stand for? Traditionally, it's been understood that the trophies are de facto Best Picture or Best Series honors, but that doesn't necessarily honor the acting - the best film isn't necessarily the best-acted film - so the name is misleading. "Slumdog Millionaire," for example, is up for Outstanding Cast, but only otherwise got one acting nomination, Dev Patel's Supporting Actor nod.

Certainly, great acting can come in the presence of mediocrity elsewhere in a production. So if SAG really wanted to demonstrate to us what it considers great acting, they'd stray from the reservation a bit and actually nominate films that aren't just rubber-stamping the critical darlings or the behemoths that were created for the sole purpose of winning year-end awards.

Just a thought, you know, if you want to improve appreciation of your art form rather than, say, further coddle a bunch of big-name celebrities.

- "The 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards:" 8 p.m., TNT and TBS; 5 p.m. if you have satellite TV.