PGA Nominees and the Excitement of Best Picture!

The Producers Guild unveiled their nominees today. I predicted 2/5 of the film ones and got all 3 of the animated ones in my predictions (those were BEE MOVIE, RATATOUILLE, and THE SIMPSONS MOVIE). The non-animated nominees are:

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
JUNO
MICHAEL CLAYTON
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

While I am ecstatic about "The Diving Bell", which keeps looking more and more like a lock for Best Picture, I am not so happy about "Michael Clayton" or "There Will Be Blood". Could this be the Oscar list for Best Picture? Oh wait, where is "Into the Wild"? If that gets in, it will be for both the film and for director Sean Penn. Jason Reitman, director of "Juno", is very unlikely to garner a nomination, so then could these five be up for Best Picture and someone like Sidney Lumet replace Jason Reitman for Best Director? Wait for the excitement - this list leaves off both Golden Globe winners for Best Picture - "Atonement" and "Sweeney Todd". For the first time in quite a while, the race for Best Picture is wide open between eight films. And that is not even taking into account "Once", "American Gangster", or "Hairspray", all of which have slim chances, but the latter two did get nominated for SAG ensembles, which is a boost. I have never been so excited for the Best Picture race. Some interesting statistics:

This is the first time since the PGA started releasing nominations in 1997 that neither Globe Best Picture winner has been nominated. Only three winners have ever been left off ("Toy Story 2", "The Hours", "Lost in Translation"). The latter two went on to receive Best Picture nominations at the Oscars.

In the documented history of the Golden Globes back to 1954 (things get fuzzy before then), 22 winners for Best Picture - Comedy/Musical have missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. By contrast, only three Best Picture - Drama winners have been snubbed, and they all date back to 1963 and before ("The Cardinal", "Spartacus", and "East of Eden"). Both "The Cardinal" and "East of Eden" were nominated for Oscars for Best Director. It appears that the only year that both winners were snubbed for Best Picture was 1955, when "East of Eden" and "Guys and Dolls" won the Globes.

**Also worth noting: the match-up is never 5/5 between PGA and the Oscar Best Picture list. Usually it is 3/5, and the last two years it has been 4/5, with the PGA choosing false positive crowd-pleasers like "Walk the Line" and "Dreamgirls" over "Munich" and "Letters from Iwo Jima". There is not really a nominee like that this year save for "Juno", which I think should make it in. Maybe "Michael Clayton"?

Given those statistics, it would seem highly likely that "Atonement" would get in for Best Picture. Obviously history is not the only thing to go on, but I cannot imagine that both "Atonement" and "Sweeney Todd", which Globe voters clearly loved more than "Michael Clayton", "No Country for Old Men", and "There Will Be Blood", and "Juno" and "Hairspray", respectively, would end up snubbed. The subsequent DGA/WGA/PGA/SAG ignoring of all those is appalling but otherwise exciting. Thus, we have our eight major contenders for Best Picture:

ATONEMENT
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
INTO THE WILD
JUNO
MICHAEL CLAYTON
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
SWEENEY TODD
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

The only lock at this point should be "No Country for Old Men". Anything and everything else is fallible. "Michael Clayton", which has been doing quite well, has yet to win a single major award. It has been nominated for everything (save SAG ensemble, which is unimportant) but failed to pick up any directing or producing trophy. "Juno" has most of the pre-reqs, though a DGA nom and an expected SAG nom would have helped. "There Will Be Blood" is getting lots of attention for Day-Lewis, and this now makes it a presence at all but SAG for ensemble (it was never really in the running). People think it may have peaked too late, but unlike "Children of Men" and "Pan's Labyrinth" last year, it has made it in everywhere. "Into the Wild" was snubbed at the Globes but has since popped up everywhere...except the PGA. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" has all but SAG, and more importantly, Globe wins for Best Director (which is a huge plus) and Best Foreign Film (it was ineligible for Best Picture due to its foreign language dialogue). So, this is how I think it plays out, grouped in order of chances:

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
JUNO

INTO THE WILD
ATONEMENT

MICHAEL CLAYTON
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
SWEENEY TODD

ONCE
AMERICAN GANGSTER

For Best Director, "Atonement" may be out and "Juno" is definitely out. Swap in P.T. Anderson for "There Will Be Blood" and Sidney Lumet for "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and I think you have your list. At this point, I would say "No Country for Old Men" wins Best Director and "Juno" shocks for Best Picture. Alas, you never know.

My constantly changing, yet actually pretty much the same, predictions:

Best Picture
ATONEMENT
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
INTO THE WILD
JUNO
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Director
SIDNEY LUMET, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD
JULIAN SCHNABEL, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
SEAN PENN, INTO THE WILD
THE COEN BROTHERS, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON, THERE WILL BE BLOOD