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.

Capsule Reviews for the Dog Days of Summer

With the fall festival season just around the corner and pundits gearing up for the months-long deluge of awards hopefuls, now seems like a good opportunity to take advantage of the calm before the storm by catching up with some summer releases I never got around to writing about. Here are some 1-or-2-sentence reactions to various films: