PGA Noms Boost 'Dark Knight' At Other Films' Expense

Kyle Buchanan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:46:58 EST

The Producers Guild of America just announced its five Best Picture nominations. So which films made the cut, and which found no endorsement with this leading Oscar indicator?

First, the (mostly predictable) nominations:

The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk

The PGA recognition positions Dark Knight well for the Oscars, though the organization historically misses one Best Picture-nominated film a year (last year, the Academy subbed in Atonement for the PGA-vetted The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and in 2006, the PGA gave a slot to Dreamgirls, which went on to face a surprise Oscar snub in favor of Letters to Iwo Jima). That the Academy likes to sneak in a period drama should serve up some consolation for also-rans like Doubt, The Reader, and Revolutionary Road, but the latter two films are beginning to circle the Best Picture drain (without the sure-shot trifecta of acting nominations that will keep Doubt buzzy throughout its expansion). At least Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein can agree on one thing: someone needs to be so fired for this.

But who cares about those real people movies! The burning question is whether these nominations hurt the chances of Oscar dark horse Wall-E. Pixar's finest actually did score a PGA nom in the animated category (alongside Bolt and Kung Fu Panda), and we've heard that animated films may not be allowed to submit in any other PGA category besides the one set aside for them. Also encouraging: the Oscars weigh their nomination votes according to numerical ranking, and Wall-E fans, who may be among the Academy's most ardent, are likely to list the film as their number-one choice. Sure, it's still a long shot, but Disney: it may be time to send EVE out to those voter-rich Toluca Lake retirement homes!

Awards Round-Up: 'Little Miss' Holy Crap!

Seth — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:49:31 EST

· The 3,300 members of the Producers Guild of America surprised just about everyone by giving its top honor to Little Miss Sunshine, the little Sundance acquisition that could. With the PGA predicting the Best Picture Oscar 11 out of the past 17 years, a Crash-style upset for Sunshine isn't beyond the realm of possibility—nor is the requisite musical number, featuring interpretive dancers pirouetting on the roof of a VW bus as Sufjan Stevens strums "Chicago" on an acoustic guitar. [Variety]
· The GLAAD Media Awards nominated Little Miss Sunshine, The Night Listener, Running With Scissors, V for Vendetta, and Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby for outstanding film in wide release. Ricky Bobby made the list presumably for the maturity with which the comedy portrayed the relationship between Sacha Baron Cohen's French Grand Prix champion and his poodle-trainer lover, played by Andy Richter. Despite its enthusiastic gay pride parade sequences and the great strides it made in humanizing the experiences of rubber-fist-dildo enthusiasts, Cohen's other effort this year, Borat, was egregiously overlooked. [THR]
· On the eve of the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nominations announcement, Cohen admitted to a WGA Q&A audience that Borat, whose production notes originally read "there was no script," actually was the work of four writers, with up to 80% of the final film was comprised of scenes they "set out to accomplish." Still, all the studio saw was a five-page outline, not the secret, 60-page detailed master bible the filmmakers were working from. [The Envelope]

· Since we already know who the Best Picture favorites are, here are the dark horses: Letters from Iwo Jima, Borat, United 93, and Pan's Labyrinth. [Reuters]
· "I wish there was an Oscar for extras. I'm not even joking because the performances they gave are so compelling and so rich and so deep." That's Razzie honoree Sharon Stone literally thanking the little people, whose compelling work as Ambassador Hotel background party guests buttressed her mostly non-lauded performance in Bobby. [Starpulse]

Gawker: defamer, pga

PGA Noms Boost 'Dark Knight' At Other Films' Expense

Awards Round-Up: 'Little Miss' Holy Crap!