The dubious potboiler earned the stars both of the night's top acting prizes, while The Secret Life of Bees outmaneuvered that, Cadillac Records, The Family That Preys and Miracle at St. Anna for the evening's Best Picture award. Bees's Jennifer Hudson won Supporting Actress in addition to three music prizes, including Best Album and New Artist. Event co-host Tyler Perry failed miserably on the film side while claiming four TV awards for his House of Payne series.

Shocker of the night: Jenny Lumet — snubbed by both the WGA and Oscars for the multiethnic utopian melodrama of Rachel Getting Married — won the evening's Best Original Screenplay hardware. Though consider adding an asterisk: It didn't have to face the formidable, jellyfish-aided denouement of Seven Pounds. Recount!

• Jennifer Hudson wins big at Image Awards [THR]

Dakota Fanning was one of five Secret Life of Bees performers to score an Image Awards nod, joining fellow Best Actress contender Latifah, Supporting Actress candidates Sophie Okonedo and Jennifer Hudson, and Supporting Actor nominee Nate Parker. Their film also made the running for Best Picture alongside Miracle at St. Anna, Cadillac Records, Seven Pounds (!) and Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys — the latter naturally being our awards-night favorite for Feb. 14, however many writers' throats Perry had to cut to keep House of Payne competitive in the TV category.

The Image Awards have been a slightly more multiethnic affair of late, with Angelina Jolie nominated last year for A Mighty Heart and Penelope Cruz considered in 2006 for Volver. Still, pending a comprehensive check of our records, we think Fanning is far and away the whitest person ever recognized by the Image Awards committee. For that outreach, we celebrate them — and hope to Christ they never catch wind of her work in Hounddog. Though Jennifer Lopez was thrown a bone in '03 for Maid in Manhattan, so maybe anything goes.

• Tyler Perry gets double NAACP noms [LAT]

The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) announced today at a press conference that it will sign an interim agreement with the NAACP for The 39th NAACP Image Awards, which will take place on February 14, 2008, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

The agreement will allow the hiring of WGA writers to script the show and means that there will be no picketing of the event by striking writers. In addition, the Guild has granted a waiver permitting the use of clips from motion pictures and television programs.

"The NAACP would like to thank the leadership of the WGA and its members for demonstrating their support of the NAACP and its historic mission by granting The NAACP Image Awards an interim agreement," said Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. "The NAACP stands in solidarity with the Writers Guild in its fight for meaningful collective bargaining and the rights of all workers to make an honest and fair living."

This happy news during our drought-plagued awards season means that high profile nominees like Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and America Ferrera can arrive at the ceremony free from worry that they'll be greeted by a horde of deeply conflicted, placard-hoisting red shirts, whose angry heckles of, "We hope you rot in hell, you picket-line-crossing scumbags whose brave and lauded performances have done wonderful things for the advancement of America's visible minorities!" will surely put a damper on the evening's festivities.

• WGA Will Sign Interim Agreement for NAACP Image Awards [wga.org]