Good Times Keep Rolling for 'La La Land' with PGA Win

La La Land continued its precursor dominance last night with the Producers Guild of America's top award. Zootopia and O.J.: Made in America also continued their similar dominance in the corresponding animation and documentary categories.

ACE Eddie Winners, and PGA/SAG Preview

To the surprise of precisely no one, La La Land won the ACE Eddie Award last night for Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy). Tom Cross is likely en route to his second Oscar in three years.

The Dramatic Feature category was a bit more competitive, but prevailing pundit logic of Joe Walker's editorial of Arrival winning out proved to be correct. Can't argue with either of these winners. For me, they're easily the top two editing achievements of the year, with everything else eating their dust.

Producers Guild Names Ten

The Producers Guild of America listed their nominees today for Outstanding Feature Production. They mostly followed the status quo, save for the audacious inclusion of Deadpool.

Even by 'token blockbuster' standards, Deadpool's persistent presence thus far this season has been surprising. Chalk it up in part to the Critics Choice Awards turning themselves into the Ryan Reynolds show, followed by its finalist status on the Best Makeup shortlist. But this nomination from the PGA is not all that surprising. They usually reserve one slot for a box office movie.

The ten are:

Arrival
Deadpool
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Con Job: 'The Big Short' stuns as PGA winner

Well fuck.

The only fraud bigger than the one Wall Street perpetrated against the American public prior to the 2008 housing crisis, is the one The Big Short -- which "smartly" depicts that shameful recent chapter of history -- is pulling over on Hollywood as we speak.

And yet there it stands, as our new Best Picture frontrunner by "virtue" of having won the Producers Guild of America's top prize late last night in Los Angeles. Anyone who claims to have seen this coming is being a revisionist historian. Under no circumstance did this film -- as abrasive, impenetrable and, at its worst, condescending a comedy as you'll likely see -- have the qualities of a consensus pick. It's victory here, and its now inevitable victory at the Oscars, will baffle me for years to come.

PGA Preview + My Award Nominations: Original Screenplay

Tonight all eyes will be on the Producers Guild of America, who have matched the Academy all six years of the expanded Best Picture era so far. Pundit logic suggests that Spotlight (my prediction) is the only movie that can survive the rigors of the preferential ballot, although I wouldn't put it past them to be sufficiently impressed by the gargantuan production that was The Revenant. Spotlight is a relatively small and very talkative movie after all; Not the type that usually wins Best Picture, but I'll try to remain optimistic.

While the producers' decision may ultimately end the perceived race for the Academy's highest honour, the race for my own awards is just getting started. Each weekend from now until the Oscars I'll be publishing my own list of personal preferences, starting with Best Original Screenplay.

Time's Up

Oscar voting closed today, capping off a busy week of industry nominations. I won't parse through them all, but merely highlight that the critical favour of Carol has not converted the way its fans (yours truly among them) hoped that it would, while sleeper contenders Straight Outta Compton, Ex Machina, and especially Sicario have turned up the heat at the tail end of this fertile voting phase.

What it all means in the Best Picture race... Hard to tell with that maddening variable-number-of-nominees system. All I know is that in five of the last six years, at least two PGA nominees have missed the Academy's cutoff, and at least one PGA-snubbed contender always squeaks in.

The good news: Carol seems a likely candidate to be this year's squeaker. The bad news: It could just as easily be something like Trumbo. I'm keeping the former in my predicted lineup for now, but it may be wishful thinking -- I've long since given up on Inside Out, Steve Jobs, Son of Saul, Room and Creed (looks like minimal overlap between me and AMPAS this year).

'Birdman' Shocks as PGA Winner

I was hoping I'd be wrong about The Imitation Game coasting to a Producers Guild Award, and subsequently the Oscar, on the preferential ballot system.
I knew there was at least a decent chance of it not having quite enough support to edge out other Best Picture heavyweights like Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Any of those three seemed like plausible victors with the guild, given how they had all the requisite Oscar nominations needed to win the big prize.

But this, I did not see coming.

Inarritu rockin' the blazer and the hoodie... and the PGA Award for Best Picture.

Awards Season Primed for Defining Weekend with 2 Key Guilds...

For many pundits, the Oscar race has already settled into a predictable groove, with many people picking Boyhood as the odds-on favourite.

I... am not convinced. Not yet, anyway.

Yes, Boyhood has been winning Best Picture prizes left, right and centre for the last two months, but let's put things into a bit of context: Every award it's collected all season has been from some critics or media group. It's the sort of ambitious, artistically inspired movie that was always going to appeal to them, but these people don't vote on Academy Awards.

There is an Oscar season from years past that immediately springs to mind when I consider the pattern of this season thus far: The 2010/2011 season, in which
The Social Network won every critics honour under the sun before its momentum was snatched away by The King's Speech. When was it that the eventual Best Picture winner made its move? --- At the Producers Guild of America Awards.

Producers Guild anoint ten, 'Selma' not among them

The PGA's nomination have landed, and the big ten are:

American Sniper - Bradley Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Andrew Lazar, Robert Lorenz, Peter Morgan
Birdman - Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, James W. Skotchdopole
Boyhood - Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland
Foxcatcher - Megan Ellison, Jon Kilik, Bennett Miller
Gone Girl - Ceán Chaffin
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Jeremy Dawson, Steven Rales
The Imitation Game - Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, Teddy Schwarzman
Nightcrawler - Jennifer Fox, Tony Gilroy
The Theory of Everything - Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten
Whiplash - Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook, David Lancaster

Par for the course. I anticipated nine of these. With American Sniper and Nightcrawler picking up steam heading towards Thursday's voting deadline, I'm inclined to believe at least one of them will crack the Academy's Best Picture lineup. But which one? I think Nightcrawler might be a touch too cool for the older demographic that dominates AMPAS, and that many of them will be eager to vote for a decent Clint Eastwood movie (his first in years, so I'm told).

Sunday Top Ten: Pet peeves and highlights of the 2013-14 Oscar season

The big show is coming up on being only a week old, but it feels like ages ago, so I think it's high time for me to finally put the season to bed. 2014 is now here, with its own slate of hotly anticipated Oscar hopefuls in the pipeline, and it's time to get to work on scoping out those, but not before capping off the awards derby that was with my annual list of highs and lows.

Mind = Blown.

The Producers Guild of America is supposed to be the Oscar bellwether. In the four years that the Academy has had an expanded Best Picture lineup of nine or ten, the PGA has been the only group whose own top prize has gone on the win the Oscar all four times. Last night's PGA ceremony was supposed to finally clarify for us that American Hustle was the film to beat, but then the unthinkable (and I'm not just throwing that word, "unthinkable", around) happened.

The PGA Award was a freakin' TIE, between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave!

Mind = Blown.

For the first time in the ten-some-odd years I've been following the Academy Awards, Best Picture is officially too close to call.

Elsewhere, Frozen predictably triumphed in Best Animated Feature, while Alex Gibney's slick We Steal Secrets took home the Documentary honour, which isn't a bad consolation prize after it failed to even make the Academy's 15-title shortlist.

SAG, PGA Preview

The first of the industry's top guilds to announce their winners for 2013 will be the Screen Actors Guild (broadcast live tonight) and the Producers Guild of America (tomorrow).

All eyes are on American Hustle to snatch SAG's coveted Best Ensemble award, but nothing's ever set in stone. Remember just last year that another starry David O. Russell ensemble piece, Silver Linings Playbook, was also pegged to take this category, only to be trumped by eventual Best Picture juggernaut Argo, despite it not winning any individual acting honours. So it is possible that 12 Years a Slave could still pull the same trick it did at the Globes and the Critics Choice; keeping a lower profile all night before popping up in the final envelope.

Producers Guild nominees

The Producers Guild of America is one of the key guilds in terms of predicting eventual Oscar winners because they use the same preferential balloting system as the Academy. When it comes to nominations, however, there are some noteworthy differences:

For one, the PGA fills all ten slots available, whereas the Academy can fill anywhere between five and ten. Recent years seem to suggest that a full lineup of ten Best Picture nominees is mathematically unlikely. I think it safe to assume that at least one of these PGA nominees is falling out.

Also worth mentioning is that while PGA voters get to list their ten favourites on their ballots, Oscar voters only get to list their top five, meaning lower tier consensus titles face an uphill struggle against the passion votes. This is where a movie like Inside Llewyn Davis (not nominated by the PGA) can triumph with the Academy.

Why and Why Not Argo?

What a bizarre and fascinating awards season it's been so far. Even before the season truly began in December, it was apparent that this would be the most tightly contested Oscar race in recent memory. But the date change for nominations added another layer of nuance onto the proceedings.

Without the benefit of the DGA's nominees to guide them, the Academy's directors branch voted with their hearts, and yielded a pair of refreshingly unexpected Best Director nominees upon which future generations are destined to look back and smile with approval. But it yielded one unfortunate omission which has now thrown the season into flux. Funny how one little "snub" can so entirely muddy the waters of Oscar prognostication.

Funny also how it can so fervently stoke the fires of debate. Across the Internet we're seeing writers and pundits making heated arguments (some coloured by more than just a little personal bias) as to why Argo will, or why Argo won't, win Best Picture in just under a month's time.

So, why Argo?

PGA winners!

Well whadya think about that? My hunch (and several other pundits' hunch) about Argo being in the best shape to win with the Producers Guild turned out to be true. That preferential ballot, I tells ya! It works wonders for the least objectionable film on the slate, and of all the Best Picture nominees this year, Argo seems to be the one that just about everybody likes.

Its big win last night pushes it into a slight lead in the Best Picture race, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions: If Argo wins Best Picture, who wins Best Director? With so much time until Academy ballots are due, could Argo be peaking too soon? Final voting doesn't even start for nearly two weeks. That's more than enough time for either a backlash to take hold, or for the SAG and/or DGA Awards to shift momentum to another player.

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.

Producers Guild nominees

The Producers Guild of America have named their ten best of the year. All the usual Best Picture contenders are there (unless you're still one of those who think The Master will be nominated), plus box office juggernaut Skyfall and independent gems Moonrise Kingdom and Beasts of the Southern Wild. I'm seriously hoping those last two can translate this eleventh-hour boost into some academy votes before the January 4th deadline. They are among the year's best in my book and I'd love to see either of them at the big dance -- preferably both!

Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures:

Argo
Producers: Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Producers: Michael Gottwald, Dan Janvey, Josh Penn
Django Unchained
Producers: Reginald Hudlin, Pilar Savone, Stacey Sher
Life of Pi
Producers: Ang Lee, Gil Netter, David Womark
Lincoln
Producers:  Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg
Les Miserables
Producers: Tim Bevan & Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh
Moonrise Kingdom
Producers: Wes Anderson & Scott Rudin, Jeremy Dawson, Steven Rales
Silver Linings Playbook
Producers: Bruce Cohen, Donna Gigliotti, Jonathan Gordon
Skyfall
Producers: Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson
Zero Dark Thirty
Producers: Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Megan Ellison

PGA Doc nominees

The Producers Guild has stumped for five documentaries, which are:

A People Uncounted
The Gatekeepers
The Island President
The Other Dream Team
Searching for Sugarman

With the Academy doc branch's new voting process, having a high profile is a huge advantage, directing the members' eyes to certain screeners over others. From this list, The Gatekeepers and Searching for Sugarman, having already been cited by other awards bodies this year, benefit the most from this announcement.

PGA winners

I wasn't around to offer up my thoughts on last night's PGA Awards this weekend, but it's not like there's much to discuss. The Artist is the defacto winner both with this group and with the Academy, as its pending Best Picture triumph will eventually confirm. If there was going to be a surprise upset of any kind, it would have happened with the Producers Guild, whose voting process mimics the Academy's.

The Documentary category offered up even less drama in terms of the Oscar race, going to the un-shortlisted Beats, Rhymes & Life, which I have not seen, so no comment.

A much more interesting development, however, came in the Animated category, where Spielberg's Tintin reprised its Golden Globe victory over presumed forntrunner Rango (much to my delight!). I still think the film's biggest hurdle in the way of Oscar is getting nominated, but if it does, things might not be as cut-and-dry in that category as we currently assume.

Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures
The Artist - Thomas Langmann

Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
The Adventures of Tintin - Peter Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg

Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures
Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest - Michael Rapaport, Edward Parks

PGA nominees

All seven of my predicted Best Picture nominees showed up on the PGA's longlist, so that doesn't give us much to chew on. The three remaining PGA nominees are somewhat surprising. I'd have thought the populist nominee would be either Potter or Apes, but they opted for Bridesmaids instead. I'm tickled pink to see that The Ides of March got some love. Maybe its Oscar chances aren't dead in the water after all? As for Dragon Tattoo, it obviously survived its late opening, but I still doubt the Academy will go for it.

Best Picture
THE ARTIST, Producer: Thomas Langmann
BRIDESMAIDS, Producers: Judd Apatow, Barry Mendel, Clayton Townsend
THE DESCENDANTS, Producers: Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Producers: Ceán Chaffin, Scott Rudin
THE HELP, Producers: Michael Barnathan, Chris Columbus, Brunson Green
HUGO, Producers: Graham King, Martin Scorsese
THE IDES OF MARCH, Producers: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Brian Oliver
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, Producers: Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum
MONEYBALL, Producers: Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, Brad Pitt
WAR HORSE, Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg

In animation, they opted for five instead of the expected three. I say Tintin is in the most vulnerable position, if only because its mo-cap format might sour traditional animators.

Best Animated Feature
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, Producers: Peter Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg
CARS 2, Producer: Denise Ream
KUNG FU PANDA 2, Producer: Melissa Cobb
PUSS IN BOOTS, Producers: Joe M. Aguilar, Latifa Ouaou
RANGO, Producers: John B. Carls, Gore Verbinski