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Producers Guild Announces….Exactly as Expected
The PGA have announced their nominees for 2010. As I said, over the weekend, these awards are basically the Producers’ union’s equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar. And while I’m very happy to see certain nominees up there, this is really showing how boring the rest of the season will be. I was really hoping that “Winter’s Bone” was going to be able to beat out “The Town,” but c’est la vie. At least the actual nominees for Best Picture are balloted by the entire Academy and not just the producers, so it should fare a better chance in a few weeks.
Here’s the full list of nominees:
Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures
“Black Swan” (Scott Franklin, Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver)
“The Fighter” (David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Mark Wahlberg)
“Inception” (Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas)
“The Kids Are All Right” (Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Celine Rattray)
“The King’s Speech” (Iain Cunning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin)
“127 Hours” (Danny Boyle, Christian Colson)
“The Social Network” (Dana Brunetti, Ceán Chaffin, Michael De Luca, Scott Rudin)
“The Town” (Basil Iwanyk, Graham King)
“Toy Story 3″ (Darla K. Anderson)
“True Grit” (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Scott Rudin)
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
“Despicable Me” (John Cohen, Janet Healy, Christopher Meledandri)
“How to Train Your Dragon” (Bonnie Arnold)
“Toy Story 3″ (Darla K. Anderson)
Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures
“Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer” (awaiting final credit determination)
“Earth Made of Glass” (Reid Carolin, Deborah Scranton)
“Inside Job” (Charles Ferguson, Audrey Marrs)
“Smash His Camera” (Linda Saffire, Adam Schlesinger)
“The Tillman Story” (John Battsek)
“Waiting for Superman” (Lesley Chilcott)
Milestone Award
James Cameron
David O. Selznick Award
Scott Rudin
Nice to see Scott Rudin getting the Lifetime award at the end, there. The guy has really done a lot for film in the last decade. And it looks like he might be getting a chance at a second Oscar under his belt should “The Social Network’s luck continue. Rudin won three years ago for “No Country for Old Men.”
Interesting also to see “Despicable Me” beating out both “The Illusionist” and “Tangled” for Best Animated, However, once again these are producers, so box office success is taken much more into account.
As far as my winner predictions go, I am both hoping and believing that “The Social Network” will take this down. Since it probably has both the DGA and the WGA in the bag, a win here would all but seal it for a Best Picture victory at the Oscars. If “The King’s Speech” doesn’t make a stand here, all the Golden Globes in the world aren’t going to be able to help it. I’d say that if anything were to upset “Network” it would be either “Black Swan” or “Inception.” Both films are riding huge waves, right now. They are also the two biggest box office successes in their respective areas, “Inception” being a towering Hollywood blockbuster and “Black Swan,” the independent film that just won’t stop breaking records.
Perhaps the biggest dark horse for the win is “Toy Story 3.” The film is a monster box office success, turning in mountains more than any other film this year. The PGA also has a penchant for honoring animated films. They were nominating Pixar before the Academy ever got around to it, and this was before there were ten nominees. They even gave the Zanuck award to “The Incredibles” in 2004. If “Toy Story 3” can pull off a win here, it will be a massive coup, and then every awards-related news story for the next month will be “Can an animated film win Best Picture?” and the dominos may begin to fall from there. We’ll see.
The film will for sure clean up in the Animated Feature Award. Sad, really. If it wasn’t for Pixar constantly bombarding us with amazing cinema, “How to Train Your Dragon” would have had a huge chance. Best Documentary should be a showdown between “Waiting for Superman” and “Inside Job,” but the latter definitely has the edge.
Stay tuned for the WGA nominations which should be out within the next few hours. I was reminded earlier that I completely forgot to consider “Animal Kingdom” in the Best Original Screenplay category, which has a lot of potential for showing up.
San Francisco Film Critics Ring In
San Francisco always seems to be my favorite critics group of the year. They always seem to make at least one inspired choice that makes me all warm inside. One of my fondest memories was “Little Children” making an unexpected sweep of 3 major categories in 2006, thus thrusting the film into the awards race.
And this year, they’ve done it again, by giving Best Supporting Actor to John Hawkes for “Winter’s Bone.” So far, it’s my pick for that particular award. Truly an outstanding job by a underrated performer.
Other than that, the continuing legacy that is “The Social Network.”
Full list of winners:
BEST PICTURE
“The Social Network”
BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky – “Black Swan” AND David Fincher – “The Social Network” (TIE)
BEST ACTOR
Colin Firth – “The King’s Speech”
BEST ACTRESS
Michelle Williams – “Blue Valentine”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
John Hawkes – “Winter’s Bone”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jacki Weaver – “Animal Kingdom”
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
“The King’s Speech”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
“The Social Network”
BEST ANIMATED FILM
“Toy Story 3”
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“Mother”
BEST DOCUMENTARY
“The Tillman Story”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
“Black Swan”
15 Best Documentary Finalists
For those who don’t know how the Oscars are chosen, there are certain awards that are narrowed down to a series of finalists which are eventually narrowed down to their respective nominations. Best Make-Up Effects takes seven finalists, while Best Visual Effects has fifteen. Another award that has fifteen submissions is Best Documentary Feature. Those finalists have been listed below, and though I haven’t seen them all, I can tell you that this is an extremely crowded and competitive field.
These are the finalists:
“Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer,” Alex Gibney, director (ES Productions LLC)
“Enemies of the People,” Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, directors (Old Street Films)
“Exit through the Gift Shop,” Banksy, director (Paranoid Pictures)
“Gasland,” Josh Fox, director (Gasland Productions, LLC)
“Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould,” Michele Hozer and Peter Raymont, directors (White Pine Pictures)
“Inside Job,” Charles Ferguson, director (Representational Pictures)
“The Lottery,” Madeleine Sackler, director (Great Curve Films)
“Precious Life,” Shlomi Eldar, director (Origami Productions)
“Quest for Honor,” Mary Ann Smothers Bruni, director (Smothers Bruni Productions)
“Restrepo,” Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, directors (Outpost Films)
“This Way of Life,” Thomas Burstyn, director (Cloud South Films)
“The Tillman Story,” Amir Bar-Lev, director (Passion Pictures/Axis Films)
“Waiting for ‘Superman’”, Davis Guggenheim, director (Electric Kinney Films)
“Waste Land,” Lucy Walker, director (Almega Projects)
“William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe,” Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler, directors (Disturbing the Universe LLC)
For sure, the showdown for the big prize will end up being the inspirational education rally “Waiting for Superman” by Davis Guggenheim, who won previously for “An Inconvenient Truth,” and the hard-boiled assault on corrupt Wall Street bankers “Inside Job,” by Charles Ferguson, who was shamefully robbed of an Oscar for his enraging look at the Iraq War, “No End in Sight.”
“Waiting for Superman” has some heavyweights backing it up, such as Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates, however “Inside Job” has the added benefit of being extraordinarily good (as I will write in my upcoming review) which sometimes has an influence on the Academy.
My personal favorite in the category, however, would probably be “Restrepo,” the heart-wrenching story of a platoon of soldiers stationed at the most dangerous outpost in all of Afghanistan. It’s a bit too small and unknown to take home the gold, but I’m confident that it can ring in with a darkhorse nomination.
Probably the most surprising omissions from this list are “12th and Delaware” a searing look at the abortion argument by the makers of “Jesus Camp” and “A Film Unfinished,” a film piecing together never-before-seen footage of Holocaust propaganda films made by the Nazis. These are powerful subjects by great filmmakers, and they should have deserved a spot on this list.
Stay tuned for my updated Oscar Predictions which should be coming out within the next few days.
The Edge of the Frame 