The guild makes things hard for producers, and movies that aren't getting awards do get a little love.
Here's how I understand it: if I notice something in the Producers Guild nominations (namely, that the guild decided not to credit eight of the producers on its nominated films, including Ryan Kavanaugh of "The Fighter") and write about it, that's not an exclusive. If somebody else notices the same thing and writes about it an hour and a half later, adding an additional piece of information that isn't correct, that's not an exclusive either — or, perhaps, the only thing exclusive about it is the error. At any rate, the error (that Kavanaugh is appealing the PGA decision) is long gone from Deadline's report on the nominations, papered over by an "update" that concedes that the appeal actually took place last year and that the current credits can't be challenged after all. But that "EXCLUSIVE" is still sitting there. (Deadline)
For the record, here's why it's difficult for a producer like Kavanaugh to land the "produced by" credit that would entitle him to a nomination: the PGA’s code of credits requires a producer receiving that credit to have “significant decision-making authority over a majority of the producing functions across the four phases of a motion picture’s production.” Those phases are Development, Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production & Marketing. The code of credits lists 30 separate functions over those four stages, and says that a producer must exercise authority over a majority of them – a huge obstacle for a producer who comes in partway through a long-in-development project like "The Fighter," "The Kids Are All Right" and "Black Swan," all of whom had producers disqualified. (Producers Guild of America)
In the heat of awards season, movies slip through the cracks. So Anne Thompson rounds up a batch of what she calls "underrated, underdog and misunderstood films of 2010," collecting suggestions from the New York Times, the Atlantic, Associated Content, ThePlaylist and Moviefone, and then adding her own entries: "Mademoiselle Chambon," "Sweetgrass," "Cairo Time," "Hereafter" and a few others. It's a nice – and this time of year, needed – reminder that good movies and awarded movies are not always the same thing. (Thompson on Hollywood)
Here's a new award whose nominees are made up almost exclusively of the kind of films that fall through the cracks: Cinema Eye Honors, which typically honors documentary films, has partnered with Filmmaker Magazine to create the Cinema Eye Heterodox Award. It's designed to honor "a narrative film that imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production," and the five nominees are an inventive, unusual group: Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio's "Alamar," Matt Porterfield's "Putty Hill," Lena Dunham's "Tiny Furniture," Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cannes winner "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," and Michaelangelo Frammartino's "Le Quattro Volte," which includes the most counfounding and delightful extended shot I think I've ever seen. (The camera pans back and forth at a snail's pace, and almost all of the considerable and carefully choreographed action takes place when it's turned the other way.) Filmmaker Magazine editors made the nominations, a jury of directors and producers will pick the winner, and the results will be announced on January 18 at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. (Cinema Eye Honors)
"Does the audience get a vote?" ask Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes. The easy answer, since they're talking about the Oscars, is no– but what they're really asking is whether the strong boxoffice returns for "True Grit" will help it win Academy Awards. Their verdict: the money can't hurt, though "strictly speaking, boxoffice results have no bearing on the Oscars." Along the way, they manage to leave out the fact that a small Christmas weekend-to-New Year's weekend drop was fairly common (not, as they say, "spectacular") this year, and they quote me to help misrepresent the initial reaction to the film in the blogosphere and make it look as if the audience, not the critics, has made this an awards movie. I think it's pretty clearly a mixture of the two, though reviewers unquestionably got the ball rolling well before the movie opened. (New York Times)
