SURPRISE! 'Little Miss Sunshine' Wins PGA (Producers Guild of America)!

[Sbaraglia]

Producers pick 'Sunshine'

PGA announces winners for annual awards

By Dave McNary

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 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" was the last double PGA-Oscar winner in 2004, joining "Driving Miss Daisy," "Dances With Wolves," "The Silence of the Lambs," "Schindler's List," "Forrest Gump," "The English Patient," "Titanic," "American Beauty," "Gladiator" and "Chicago."

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."

HBO shows won two TV awards -- "Elizabeth I" for long-form and "Real Time with Bill Maher" for variety. NBC's "The Office" won best comedy series while ABC's "Grey Anatomy" took drama series and CBS's "60 Minutes" won the reality/non-fiction award for the second straight year.

Previously announced honors included Ron Meyer with the Milestone Award, Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher with the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, and Jerry Bruckheimer with the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television; "An Inconvenient Truth" won the Stanley Kramer Award while the Vanguard Award was presented to Will Wright, and concert producer Ken Ehrlich received the Visionary Award.

Ehrlich's award featured surprise performances by Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.

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

And the winners are...

FILM
"Little Miss Sunshine," (Fox Searchlight) Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa

ANIMATED FILM
"Cars,"(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation) Darla K. Anderson

LONG-FORM TELEVISION
"Elizabeth I," (HBO) Suzan Harrison, George Faber, Charles Pattinson, Barney Riesz

EPISODIC TELEVISION DRAMA
"Grey's Anatomy," Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers, Mark Gordon, James Parriott, Peter Horton, Rob Corn

EPISODIC TELEVISION COMEDY
"The Office," Greg Daniels, Kent Zbornak

VARIETY TELEVISION
"Real Time with Bill Maher," Bill Maher, Scott Carter, Sheila Griffiths, Dean Johnsen

NON-FICTION TELEVISION
"60 Minutes," Jeff Fager

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[luminum]

And well deserved. Babel is another 'concentrated storylines /analogies running together into one closely knit interaction' film, Dreamgirls is another musical, but Little Miss Sunshine was something original and adorable.

Really, well done, not filled with A-list stars (except maybe Steve Carell) who did absolutely great performances...Just amazing film that was feel-good without being overly flattering to the audience.

 

[coco2006]

No surprise : great movie.

 

[xyboyms]

I wonder if it'll get a Best Picture nom at the Oscars???

 

[Sbaraglia]

I wonder if it'll get a Best Picture nom at the Oscars???

I think Little Miss Sunshine, Dreamgirls, Babel, The Departed, and The Queen are locks for the five Best Picture nominations...unless I'm wrong!

 

[The_Reaper]

I loved this movie...

Some great moments of comedy and seriousness all mixed perfectly together...
And the last 15 minutes are some of the best cinema I've seen from a cast before...


Hope it gets the Oscar nod, it deserves it.

 

[shakeupme]

"Little Miss Sunshine" is a sweet and charming movie with some really good performances (particularly Toni Collette). It deserves a Best Picture Oscar nomination, but if it beats films like "The Queen" and "The Departed" to the top honour, I'll be as annoyed as last year. Those films, like "Brokeback Mountain" are in a completely different category.

Discuss?

 

[luminum]

That, I would say, is a problem with the whole concept of the Academy awards in general--where films of completely incomparable natures are pitted against each other and the uncomparable performances of actors are pitted against each other to see which one is 'the best'.

 

[Sbaraglia]

"Little Miss Sunshine" is a sweet and charming movie with some really good performances (particularly Toni Collette). It deserves a Best Picture Oscar nomination, but if it beats films like "The Queen" and "The Departed" to the top honour, I'll be as annoyed as last year. Those films, like "Brokeback Mountain" are in a completely different category.

Discuss?

I mildly disagree... I have a pet peeve, which is that Hollywood doesn't respect comedy. Most irritating to me, most actors don't respect comedy. This in spite of the historical reverence given to it (witness the masks that are still placed on either side of some stages, one laughing and the other crying), not to mention the old adage "dying is easy, comedy is hard". when actors who are great at comedy win Oscars, it's usually for showing that they can "do" drama (wow!) - when one wins for a flat-out comedy, it's such a shocker that rumors spread about a misread card or whatever...I *love* that Marisa Tomei won for My Cousin Vinny, and find it sad that so many find her win appalling given her high-toned competition ("they were BRITISH, for God's sake, how dare that cheap little nobody beat them...and it wasn't even an intellectual comedy, certainly not a Woody Allen comedy, humph!") Frankly, the disdain applies to anything seen as being within a genre not considered "worthy" - for instance, I've thought supporting Oscars were richly deserved by both Skeet Ulrich and Drew Barrymore for Scream, and by Seann William Scott for American Pie or Road Trip or Final Destination. Thank god the NY film critics gave a best actor award to Eddie Murphy for The Nutty Professor (for which the Oscar actors didn't even nominate him); now the supporting actor Oscar is apparerently destined to go to Eddie Murphy for a completely uninteresting performance in Dreamgirls - oh, but it's DRAMA, excuse me...

Having said all that, I'm not sure Little Miss Sunshine is the right vessel for my peeve...I liked it a lot, but... I do re-iterate my irk at the clasping of hands over movies dealing with the Holocaust, race relations, cancer, war, the suffering of small children, etc. But are they good MOVIES?? Pauline Kael, where are you? I'd rather see a good Budd Boetticher or Anthony Mann western than another sombre Spielberg pronouncement on the suffering of man, or American Pie or Scream or My Cousin Vinny than...well, I don't want to start another "jub thread argument" so I won't mention some of the current crop of "important" movies that seemed to me full of hot air and not good movies.

 

[xyboyms]

I agree with all of you. I wish the Academy would nominate more movies and roles with a little comedic edge to them. This was a great movie and I want to see more of these parts nominated instead of the usual serious drama or glitzy song and dance numbers. More diversity you Academy members! LOL

 

[gaz1978]

I think Little Miss Sunshine, Dreamgirls, Babel, The Departed, and The Queen are locks for the five Best Picture nominations...unless I'm wrong!

The Queen is nothing more than a TV movie (in much the same way The Full Monty was). It would be a joke if it was nominated, alas, Americans love the royal family so it'll probably get about 10 nominations...

Unbelievably, it also looks like United 93 will miss out, which is a disgrace as I didn't see a better film in 2006. I dont know anyone who wasnt moved by it.

Personally, I'd also like to see The Last King of Scotland sneak in there.