Oscars: Upset in Best Picture Race – ‘The King’s Speech’

By Paul Sheehan

 The Producers Guild of America named “The King’s Speech” as the Best Picture of 2010, ending the sweep of precursor awards by “The Social Network.” A dozen of our pundits expected that film about Facebook to win this kudo as well. Like the Academy Awards, the PGA champ is decided using a preferential system of ballot counting.

The next test for both these films will be the SAG Awards where they vie for Best Ensemble against three of their PGA rivals — “Black Swan,” “The Fighter” and “The Kids Are All Right.” Those awards from and for actors were where eventual Oscar champs “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) and “Crash” (2005) first trumped the frontrunning “Saving Private Ryan” and “Brokeback Mountain” respectively.

And like “Shakespeare in Love,” “The King’s Speech” could well lead with the most Oscar nominations this year which has been a proven bellwether for predicting the Best Picture champ more often than not over the past four decades.
Among the other 10 nominees for Best Picture at the PGAs were “127 Hours” and “True Grit” which had been snubbed by the Golden Globes. Notable PGA omissions include “Another Year,” “Winter’s Bone” and “The Way Back.”

Last year’s PGA winners of the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producers — the quartet behind “The Hurt Locker” — made it to the stage of the Kodak Theater to collect the Oscar for Best Picture. The PGA and Oscars had agreed upon 8 of 10 contenders. The PGA nominated “Invictus” and “Star Trek” over eventual Oscar choices “The Blind Side” and “A Serious Man.” During the past 20 years, the guild and Oscars agreed on 13 of 20 Best Picture champs.

Another of this year’s PGA nominees for Best Picture — “Toy Story 3″ — was named Best Animated Picture. And “Waiting for Superman” prevailed as Best Documentary.

Reigning Emmy champ “Modern Family” won Best Comedy Series on its first nomination. “The Colbert Report” won Best Live Entertainment/Competition for the third year running while “Mad Men” also three-peated for top TV Drama Series. “Deadliest Catch” finally took the Non-Fiction TV prize with its third consecutive bid. And Emmy winner “The Pacific” took the combined TV Movie/Mini award.

Emily Blunt’s wavy, shoulder-length hairstyle

At the 16th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards in Hollywood, Emily Blunt showed off her shoulder-length locks which she paired with a dazzling gown. Emily Blunt wore her brunette hair styled in soft waves that dusted her shoulders. Emily Blunt wore a casual ponytail while out and about in London.

Has Angelina Jolie’s ‘Cleopatra’ Found A Director In Paul Greengrass?

Angelina Jolie in “Alexander”

Photo: Warner Bros.

For a hot minute, it appeared as though James Cameron would be switching up his directorial itinerary, sweeping into the world of ancient Egypt and helming the Angelina Jolie-starring “Cleopatra” before jetting back to Pandora for his “Avatar” sequels. Now it seems that Paul Greengrass — who, for a similarly hot, similarly short minute, was circling the director’s chair for the Cameron-produced “Fantastic Voyage” — will be taking on directing duties for “Cleopatra,” the 3-D adaptation of the current New York Times best-seller, “Cleopatra: A Life.” Deadline is reporting that producer Scott Rudin has said “we’re pretty close” to signing a director for the project and that sources tell the website filmmakers “like the idea” of Greengrass for the gig. Jolie, though, hasn’t yet discussed the possibility of Greengrass, who left the “Bourne” franchise late in 2009. “I hope to one day [play her], but we don’t have it all together,” Jolie told MTV last month about the film. “All the pieces are not together.” Sony is said to be eyeing a production start in 2011 and readily acknowledges that the budget will be massive. Rudin described the script, which has been penned by Brian Helgeland (who also wrote the “Green Zone,” which Greengrass directed) and is based on Stacy Schiff’s biography, as presenting “a completely revisionist Cleopatra, a much more grown-up, sophisticated version.” “She’s not a sex kitten, she’s a politician, strategist, warrior,” he went on to explain. “In the Joseph Mankiewicz movie, Elizabeth Taylor is a seductress, but the histories of Cleopatra have been written by men. This is the first to be written by a woman. It felt like such a blow-the-doors-off-the-hinges idea of how to tell it, impossible to resist.”