|
 It is the first time the Producers Guild of America has
declared a tie in the 25-year history of its awards. The PGA has
correctly chosen the eventual Academy Award winner for best
picture for the last six years, including Iranian hostage drama
"Argo" a year ago.
The PGA decision clashes with that of the Screen Actors Guild
(SAG), which on Saturday chose the 1970s-set corruption caper
"American Hustle" from director David O. Russell for its top
prize, best film ensemble cast.
But SAG has a mixed record on foreshadowing the Oscar best
picture with its ensemble cast award, correctly predicting the
Academy Award in six of the last 10 years.
Nevertheless, after an intense week of awards, the Oscars are
shaping up to be a three-way race between these films. "American
Hustle", with its strong performance, and "Gravity", with its
technical innovation, lead nominations with 10 nods a piece,
while "12 Years a Slave" and its brutal depiction of pre-Civil
War slavery in the United States has nine.
The highest honors of the film industry from the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be handed out on March 2.
Voting among the 6,000 members runs from February 14 to 25.
It was a crucial night for "12 Years a Slave", which won the
coveted Golden Globe last Sunday for best drama but failed to
bring in any other awards that night. It has also lost out on
key acting awards.
Director and producer Steve McQueen, in accepting the PGA award
along with co-producer and actor Brad Pitt, addressed an issue
that could complicate the film's Oscar potential: talk that it
is too difficult to watch.
"When the film first came out in Toronto, some people were
saying that this was a brutal film, that no one would go to see
it," said McQueen, a British filmmaker. "Box office here in the
United States and in the U.K. has proven differently."
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 "AMAZING YEAR IN CINEMA" The film from Fox Searchlight Pictures is based on the true-life
story of Solomon Northup, a free man tricked and sold into
slavery in Louisiana plantations who witnesses and is subjected
to horrific treatment. He is played by British actor Chiwetel
Ejiofor.
"Gravity," from Mexican director and producer
Alfonso Cuaron, is based on a script he wrote with his son Jonas
Cuaron inspired by their own setbacks as filmmakers. It is about an
astronaut played by Sandra Bullock who is stranded in space after a
space station is destroyed and her fight to return to Earth and a
life marked by deep loss.
Cuaron said that it took more than four years for him and
co-producer David Heyman to make "Gravity" and that the director
(himself) "was difficult, stubborn and uncompromising".
Cuaron tested the patience and budget of Warner Bros. with his
technical innovation to portray the weightlessness and the vastness
of space.
Cuaron also touched on one of the big themes of the year, the
extraordinarily high number of quality films that have made this
awards season a celebration of a thriving industry.
"This has been an amazing year in cinema and I am talking about
these amazing films that were nominated and many other films that
were not nominated," Cuaron said.
The next big test for these films comes at next Saturday's Directors
Guild Awards. Cuaron, McQueen and Russell are all nominated for the
top DGA award and for the Oscar for best director.
But the longer time lag this year between Oscar nominations, voting
and the ceremony could spell some unpredictable voting among Academy
members, adding more uncertainty to the highly competitive race.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)
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