Producers Guild preview

Tonight the first major industry guild will announce its winners: The Producers Guild of America. Not only are they the first guild out the gate in this loooong phase 2, but they're arguably the most important, or at least the most indicative, when it comes to winning Best Picture.

When the Academy made the switch to ten nominees and the preferential ballot back in 2009, the PGA was quick to shadow their decision. In all three years since, the PGA and Academy have matched up. So it follows that tonight's winner should be considered in the driver's seat for Best Picture... for the moment.

One of the key differences this year is the length of the season. Whoever walks away with tonight's PGA award will get a big boost, but with four weeks to go until the Oscars, how far will that momentum stretch? That may depend on the film. If it's Lincoln of Life of Pi -- already considered the frontrunners -- it may well be the dagger for the other Best Picture nominees. But if something like Silver Linings Playbook or Argo ekes it out, media outlets will be buzzing on that for a while. Long enough perhaps for a backlash to take hold. It's a tricky year to read.

So who wins? Smart money is on Lincoln, and Life of Pi is far from an unreasonable guess. Both of them are box office success stories, which usually lands you in the PGA's good books. But I wonder if the preferential ballot might be more beneficial for crowd-pleasers Argo and SLP. I'm gonna go with Argo. Maybe Affleck's director snub has rebounded into some goodwill from the rest of the film industry? I dunno. I'm probably wrong but it feels right.

Elsewhere, it looks like audience fave Searching for Sugar Man is in good shape to win the group's Documentary prize.

I also think the PGA may be the guild to look to for guidance in the Best Animated Feature category. They're a large group with mainstream tastes not dissimilar to the Academy's. I get the feeling Brave might be the most palatable for them, but then if ParaNorman is a feat of anything, it's "production". Oh, I'll just go with Brave. What a tight and fascinating race this one is!