Produce Stand

With the Academy Award nominations just two days away, the Producers Guild of America has chosen its favorite films of the past year...

Dave McNary of Variety writes:

In an unpredictable turn in the wide-open awards season, the Producers Guild of America has tapped offbeat family comedy "Little Miss Sunshine" as winner of its top feature film award over "Babel," "The Departed," "Dreamgirls" and "The Queen."

The PGA, based on voting by its 3,300 members, gave its Darryl F. Zanuck trophy to "Sunshine" producers Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa in ceremonies Saturday night at the Century Plaza. The award, presented by Tom Cruise, was only the second comedy ever chosen by the PGA, joining "Forrest Gump."

With a $12 million price tag, "Sunshine" was the lowest-cost of the nominees for the PGA award. Fox Searchlight acquired the pic -- starring Alan Arkin, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Abigail Van Breslin, Steve Carrell and Paul Dano as a dysfunctional family -- at last year's Sundance Film Festival.

In his acceptance speech, Turtletaub singled out Michael Arndt's screenplay and said the key scene in making him decide to back the project came when he read about the grandfather advising his grandson to have sex with a lot of women -- "I mean, like a thousand."

"Thank you Michael," he added. "Without your wonderful screenplay, with equal parts of humor, heart and wisdom, none of us would be here tonight."

The PGA win for "Little Miss Sunshine" -- a surprise success first released during the summer with domestic grosses hitting nearly $60 million -- gives it significant awards season momentum as the PGA winner has matched the Best Picture Oscar winner 11 times in 17 years. However, the orgs differed last year with the PGA choosing "Brokeback Mountain" and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences going with "Crash" and in 2005 with "The Aviator" winning at the PGA and "Million Dollar Baby" winning the Best Picture Oscar.

"Little Miss Sunshine" hadn't been seen as frontrunner recently, thanks to "Babel" and "Dreamgirls” taking the Golden Globes for best drama and best comedy/musical, respectively. "Babel," "Dreamgirls," "The Departed" and "Sunshine" have all been nominated for the DGA award for director, the WGA for script and the SAG award for top ensemble.

If "Sunshine" receives an Oscar nom for Best Picture on Tuesday, the exec committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will then have to eliminate at least two of the five producers from being credited due to the AMPAS requirement limiting the number of producers to three. The PGA, which formally advises AMPAS on producer credits, has no limit on the number of producers that can be credited although it's been attempting to cut down on the proliferation of credits.

The PGA's determination of credits last year on "Crash," which named only Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman, provoked a lawsuit against the PGA and AMPAS from financier Bob Yari. A judge dismissed the suit last month.

Yerxa, in his acceptance speech, thanked the PGA for giving all five producers the award. "We did different things at different times and we had a great working relationship," he added. We couldn't be more gratified that the Producers Guild credited all five of us...

The PGA presented its second animated feature trophy to Disney/Pixar's "Cars," which topped "Flushed Away," "Happy Feet," "Ice Age: the Meltdown" and "Monster House." ...

...Also at the kudofest was former Vice President Al Gore, who gave a well received speech as part of the presentation of the Kramer award given to the producers of "An Inconvenient Truth."

The full article and winners list....

This is a great win for Little Miss Sunshine...It's a superb film well worth the rent.

...The road to the Super Bowl continues for the Chicago Bears as they take on sentimental favorites, The New Orleans Saints later today...Here's a preview of the big NFC Championship Game...I'll be sweating it out in front of my TV for the Bears, that's for sure--especially after last weekends' sqeaker win against the Seattle Seahawks...