The PGA Nom's

The Producer's Guild of America has announced its nominations for Producer of the Year, and these things, give or take a single switcheroo or so, usually mirror the films that get nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award... so I'm posting them, because they sorta surprised me.

Brokeback Mountain
(Focus Features)
Diana Ossana
James Schamus

Capote
(Sony Pictures Classic)
Caroline Baron
William Vince
Michael Ohoven

Crash
(Lions Gate Films)
Paul Haggis
Cathy Schulman

Good Night, and Good Luck
(Warner Independent Pictures)
Grant Heslov

Walk the Line
(Twentieth Century Fox)
James Keach
Cathy Konrad

I mean, obviously I'm pleased as punch (though hardly surprised) about Brokeback making the cut. At this point, it's really just guaranteed to, though. Also not shocked to see Good Night, and Good Luck there.

The other three, though, I wasn't really expecting. Capote's praise has been mainly heaped in Phillip Seymour Hoffman's direction (with a bit rightfully heading Catherine Keener's way), but the film itself seemed too small, to me, for recognition. Not to mention... that voice.

Crash, I'd thought, or rather HOPED, would be forgotten, but thanks to reminders from fans like Roger Ebert (What hath thou wrought, Roger?) it's had its profile raised lately.

And, like Capote, most of the good words I'd heard spoken about Walk The Line were about the performances and not the actual film.

So, what to make of it? Oh who the hell knows? And I couldn't be less of an insider if I made my living guarding a hut in rural Romania from fleas.