Fuck a duck and holy shit, just when you thought that Awards season might be over and set in stone comes a major game changer, “The Hurt Locker” just beat “Avatar” in the PGA (Producer’s Guild Awards). For the layman out there, if the Director’s Guild, or SAG is the 9 out of 10 (or close enough) bellwether of what happens at the Oscars, well the PGAs are the Guild equivalent of Oscar at the Oscars.
No, they’re not guaranteed to go on to win Oscar, but for example, over the last twenty years, PGA has correctly foreseen the best picture at the Oscars thirteen times. Admittedly, this isn’t scientific proof and not necessarily the greatest number (only 65%). In fact, most of those PGA/Academy Award agreements were in earlier years. Oscar and PGA have seen eye to eye on”Slumdog Millionaire” and “No Country for Old Men,” but they disagreed the previous three years.
But basically if you’re sick of seeing the “Avatar” juggernaut trample everything in site, this is a glimmer of hope. Especially since, if you’re like us, “The Hurt Locker” seems to be the only quality film we can all collectively root for. We hate to be super alarmists, but what does it say if “Avatar” wins Best Picture this year? What kind of message? The Oscars sure, are just the Oscars, a meat parade popularity contest, but the way the film industry is going these days — like all industries, dumbing down and bowing down to the almighty dollar – we’d rather, frankly, live in a world where “The Hurt Locker” is the Best Picture of the year, just sayin’. But, frankly, we’re not convinced it’s gonna happen. Years where the PGA and Oscars have differed have been with populist fare: “Crash” over “Brokeback Mountain,” etc. etc., but it would be nice, no?
Also, we’ve been saying the tremendous dolphin documentary, “The Cove,” has been a lock for the Best Oscar documentary for months and the PGAs offer more evidence that this will be the fact come March. Also, as you’d expect, Pixar’s “Up” took the Best Animated Film which is again, how it will probably go down at Oscar time.
In case you forgot, the 10 films nominated were “District 9” “An Education,” “The Hurt Locker” “Inglourious Basterds” “Invictus,” “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire,” “Star Trek,” “Up” and “Up in the Air,” so it’s kind of amazing to note that the smallest film of this bunch and the one certainly with the smallest box-office total, took the main prize. Can it happen at Oscar? Hmm, we hope so, but man, it still seems rather impossible, no?
Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures:
‘The Hurt Locker”
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures:
“Up”
Producer: Jonas Rivera
Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures:
“The Cove”
Producers: Paula DuPre Pesman, Fisher Stevens
