So, the Producers Guild announced their awards tonight.
Always a big deal. Typically, whatever wins their award almost always wins Best Picture.
Examples: Argo, The Artist, The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Chicago, Gladiator, American Beauty, Titanic, The English Patient, Forrest Gump, Schindler’s List, The Silence of the Lambs, Dances with Wolves, Driving Miss Daisy.
The only times the PGA and Best Picture didn’t match were with (PGA winners in parentheses, and not bolded and italicized) The Departed (Little Miss Sunshine), Crash (Brokeback Mountain), Million Dollar Baby (The Aviator), A Beautiful Mind (Moulin Rouge!), Shakespeare in Love (Saving Private Ryan), Braveheart (Apollo 13), and Unforgiven (The Crying Game).
So that’s 7 times in 24 years. Typically, when the PGA announces a winner, you can pretty much call off the Best Picture race and know what’s going to win. Since they use the same voting system that the Academy does. So if something makes it through the PGA, you can count on it making it through the Academy.
Unless what happened tonight happens:
For the first time ever, there was a tie at Best Picture at the PGA awards.
Both Gravity and 12 Years a Slave won the award.
And since everyone’s general assumption was that American Hustle was the film to beat, this actually did the exact opposite of what the PGA usually does. This just made things a hell of a lot more interesting.
Oh, yeah, they also went Frozen for animated. But that doesn’t matter as much, since they’ve been wrong the past two years (giving it to Tintin in 2011, which should have won the Oscar… if it were nominated, and Wreck-It Ralph last year, which also should have won). So there’s no guarantee it’ll win, though I think with the absence of a Pixar nominee, its only competition is The Wind Rises.
But that’s not the story. The story is the tie.
This just threw Gravity right back into the race, and gave us a three-way race to the finish between Gravity, American Hustle and 12 Years a Slave. Now is when the knives come out.
I truly think 12 Years a Slave is pulling up the rear in this race, since they’re the ones that are gonna have to play it classy throughout. They can’t do the dirty work that Harvey Weinstein would be willing to do. American Hustle feels like the film that will do that dirty work. (Hell, they even use the song over the opening titles!) And Gravity – I really wonder just how much of a shot that has at Best Picture.
Either way, they just made things interesting.
The thing that’s most interesting is to see what ends up happening with this preferential ballot.
My guess is, the two films that’ll go furthest are Gravity and American Hustle. Because I think a lot of the Academy is old and white and cranky and racist. So, while there will be a lot of 12 Years a Slave #1 votes, how many people won’t vote for it at all or will put it low on the list? You know Gravity is going to get #1, #2 and #3 votes. People loved that movie, and they have little reason to hate it. Most people respect it. And American Hustle has a lot of support, and will also get high votes.
Right now, if I had a ballot, and got to rank all 9 of the nominees, here’s what I’d do:
1. Gravity
2. The Wolf of Wall Street
3. Her
4. American Hustle
5. 12 Years a Slave
6. Captain Phillips
7. Dallas Buyers Club
8. Philomena
9. Nebraska
Assuming you’re a typical Academy member — what are you voting for?
Being a typical Academy member, you’re probably white, around 60-62 years old, and pretty conservative. You didn’t want to vote for that “gay cowboy” movie, and you really liked how classy The King’s Speech was, over that “spacebook” movie. You probably don’t even know what Her is about. You thought The Wolf of Wall Street was appalling. You probably really only liked four movies – American Hustle, Gravity (maybe), Nebraska and Captain Phillips. I know the Academy doesn’t want to give the Oscar to 12 Years a Slave. I know they don’t. In a way, the film actually wins if it doesn’t win. Because then it didn’t win. And we all know why it didn’t win. And we can say why it didn’t win for years to come. Them actually giving it a win would be something daring. And when’s the last time (if ever) the Academy was daring?
So that tells me that it’s probably between Gravity and American Hustle. One has been steady throughout and the other has rabid support from a lot of people. One’s been coming on like a banshee lately, and it’s starting to look like momentum might propel it to a win. However — the polls for the PGA awards closed on Friday. So it’s not like we can point to the polls closing too early to know. That says a lot that they closed two days ago and American Hustle still didn’t win. By this time last year, Argo already had the momentum. Plus — if the DGA goes with Cuaron next week, that could be another big step in Gravity‘s direction.
It’s one thing to have two movies duking it out for the win. That’s happened a lot — 2010 (though not really), 2006 (though I’m not sure just how many were duking it out that year), 2005 (though that one was more than just two films. That was one film and reactionism, and the other film only was duking it out because it went down easier), 2004. But three films — it’s rare to see three films this close this far into the race.
2006 is the closest we’ve had to such an open race. Because that year – The Departed, Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine (The Queen shouldn’t have even been nominated. That wasn’t winning. P.S. Also Stephen Frears) — that one was actually pretty wide open. I think most people assumed Babel wasn’t winning, but Little Miss Sunshine had the PGA win, Letters from Iwo Jima had Eastwood, who had won two years prior and was considered a threat, and The Departed had Martin Scorsese, who was so long overdue for an Oscar that he pretty much had to win that. So the Academy ended up doubling down on him.
(Which is also interesting, since that year Babel only won the Globe for Picture – Drama, which is exactly what 12 Years a Slave did. Just in case you guys are looking for a precedent with which to cast a vote.)
Thing is, though — this year — there isn’t that. Now it’s just a matter of, “Which do you guys like best?” The DGA will factor very heavily now, whereas before, if any film won this thing standalone, the DGA wouldn’t have mattered at all. Cuaron would have probably won, and we’d all have went, “Split.” Now, if Cuaron wins, there’s a very strong chance that people could just go both for Best Picture.
So instead of calling the race, now we’re all sitting up a little straighter in our chairs and trying to figure out what’s going to happen.
This is probably for the best. Since at this point, I don’t necessarily have a problem with any of the films in the race.
I feel like American Hustle would be the weakest choice, historically, but would be able to not cringe when I saw it. I feel like 12 Years a Slave would be thought of fondly, wouldn’t be too strong a winner, but would be solidly middle of the road. Though it would also be one of those movies that the people (like myself) who felt it didn’t necessarily need to win wouldn’t really be able to speak out against. Because certain movies, if you speak against them, you just come off weird. Like Schindler’s List. Try saying that movie shouldn’t have won Best Picture. People will look at you sideways. That’s my main issue with it winning. I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but I just think people are a little too enamored with whatever it is they see in it. And then Gravity – I’d personally vote for that, since it is the landmark film of the year. Though these types of movies never win, and I don’t see how it would hold up at all, to be honest. It’s not timeless, necessarily. It’s just a great movie.
In fact, of all the nominees, 12 Years a Slave is the one that would hold up the best, so in that sense, we probably should hope it wins. At this point, I don’t really care. I’m just sort of going whichever way the tide doesn’t. I see all this support for American Hustle, so I’m pulling away a bit to keep everything at an even keel. And now that it’s three films, I’m pulling in multiple directions, so as to keep everything right in that sweet spot of the Venn diagram. So, honestly, as long as everything stays even keeled, I’m cool with whatever happens.
I just want to pick it correctly, that’s all.
