News: And We Have a Race. The Producers Guild of America Names "The King's Speech" Best Picture

     At this point, it seemed like an inevitability. "The Social Network" has won almost every single solitary "Best Picture" award given out this year, but last night, the Producers Guild of America (PGA) put the brakes on the unstoppable train that was "The Social Network" by giving "The King's Speech" its Best Picture award. The reason why the PGA awards are so important as an Oscar precursor is for two reasons. First, the producers branch of the Academy is fairly large and the cross-over between the two branches is significant. Secondly, and more importantly, when the Oscars switched over their Best Picture award to ten nominees where the winner is decided by a confusing preferential ballot system (click here to read the details if you're interested), the PGA followed and adopted the same process. This means the more bland, milquetoasty "The King's Speech" may upset "The Social Network" because, even though "The Social Network" has a more passionate fanbase, "The King's Speech" may be more generally agreeable to everyone. I'm guessing especially for the Academy's older voters, who may be turned off by the fast-paced dialogue, and younger characters and subject matter (that new fangled Facebook), the great achievement that is "The Social Network" may pass them by (and if this happens, yet another reason the Academy should consider an upper age-limit in my half-joking opinion). Let me go on record now, if "The King's Speech" beats "The Social Network" come Oscar night, in the years to come, it will be another "the Oscars did what?!" moment that will only help to reinforce the view of the Oscars as a stuffy awards body with the inability to award influential films over generic prestige films. Until that time though, there will sure be a lot of heated discussion about what will win, and for anyone who puts money down on Oscar ballots, filling out your ballot just got that more stressful.