Okay, I know this is a little late, but I finally have the time now, so here I go. The Producers Guild has announced their ten choices for Best Picture of the year. And they are:
The Artist
Bridesmaids
The Descendants
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
The Ides of March
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
War Horse
Okay, the ones that were pretty assured were The Artist, The Descendants, The Help, Hugo, Moneyball and War Horse, which have pretty much all solidified their nominations for Best Picture this year. This is where it gets tricky, since the Academy has now announced their new and asinine rule about there can be anywhere between five and ten nominations as their way of "making things exciting". Yeah. The only people that would matter to are movie award nerds like me who actually follow these things and even I think it's a pretty ridiculous attempt to try and "attract more viewers".
Since the Academy has made it their game plan to try and appeal to the masses (to try and combat seriously declining ratings), you know The Help is going to be one of the nominees as it is going to be their token "$100 million+ nominee". That being said, I think that Bridesmaids chances have now drastically increased as a loveable longshot.
As for the others, Midnight in Paris' chances have increased pretty drastically also. It could probably be Woody Allen's first Best Picture nominee since 1986's Hannah and her Sisters, which would be exactly 25 years ago. We all know the Academy loooooves their milestones and that would be a nice round number to brag about, especially for someone they looooove to nominate time and time again (though he hasn't been nominated for Best Screenplay since 1997's Deconstructing Harry).
The Ides of March is making a strong comeback, now earning slots in the National Board of Review's Top 10 list, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture (director, actor & screenplay) and now a Producer's Guild nod, it's slowly gaining steam again, especially after getting completely shut out of the Broadcast Film Critics Awards and Screen Actors Guild nominations, two categories where it should have cleaned up. I'm not saying it's chances are strong, but they are getting stronger than they were before.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo may be able to sneak in, but with lackluster box office (did they seriously think a movie with two graphic rape scenes would be the hit of the Christmas season?), it's going to be a serious uphill battle.
I'm not ruling out Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. That's all I really want to say about it, I hate the man, I hate his pretentious movies, I don't want to waste any more time on him, so I'll just say I'm not ruling him out...though I hope he does get ruled out.
Movies whose chances are all but gone now are Drive, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The first two were nominees from the Broadcast Film Critics that were looking like they had pretty good chances, but Drive's underperforming at the box office and Loud's critical equivalent of meh were pretty much two nails in their coffins. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was always a grassroots campaign from a devoted fanbase.
I'm sorry, everyone, but I never thought Harry Potter had a chance. The movies were fun and cute, but they were never anything more than well produced children's films. They never had the complexity or the dramatic motivations that we saw in movies like The Lord of the Rings films, which had deeper subtext and morality tales. So, expect a couple of technical nods (sets & effects), but nothing major.
So, for right now, I'm predicting for Best Picture:
The Artist
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
War Horse
With Bridesmaids, The Tree of Life and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being in the running also.
Stay tuned, I have plenty more things to complain about as the Art Directors guild nominees were released today and the Academy's Visual Effects branch has narrowed their fifteen semi-finalists to ten...with some glaring omissions.
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