Accolade-rich “La La Land” wins Producers Guild’s top movie award

PanARMENIAN.Net - “La La Land” has won the Producers Guild of America’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award for top feature film of 2016 for Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, and Marc Platt, Variety reports.

The musical comedy-drama defeated “Arrival,” “Deadpool,” “Fences,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Hell or High Water,” “Hidden Figures,” “Lion,” “Manchester by the Sea,” and “Moonlight.” Dustin Hoffman presented the award at the conclusion of the 28th Annual Producers Guild Awards ceremonies at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

“La La Land” stars Emma Stone as an aspiring actress and Ryan Gosling as a strugging musician, set in modern-day Los Angeles. The Lionsgate movie, which has grossed more than $200 million worldwide, won seven Golden Globes on Jan. 8 and received a record-tying 14 Academy Award nominations on Jan. 24.

“Damien Chazelle has made a story about the sacrifices artists make,” Platt said in his acceptance speech. “We celebrate all the fools who struggle but passionately try to achieve our artistic dreams.”

The PGA has matched the Oscar for best picture in 19 of its 27 years, though it diverged last year when the Zanuck award went to “The Big Short” and the Oscar went to “Spotlight.” The two awards matched in the previous eight years with “Birdman,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Argo,” “The Artist,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Hurt Locker,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” and “No Country for Old Men.”

The evening was punctuated by mulitple declarations opposing President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order barring U.S. entry to citizens from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.

“All of us are refugees; none of us are excluded,” said Irwin Winkler at the conclusion of his acceptance speech for the David O. Selznick Award for life achievement.

PGA co-presidents Lori McCreary and Gary Lucchesi also attacked Trump’s policy in opening remarks with Lucchesi saying, “Freedom of religion was one of the founding principles of our democracy.” McCreary added, “Now, more than ever, we need to remember the words on the Statue of Liberty: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free.”

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Netflix’s first season of sci-fi horror series “Stranger Things” took the Norman Felton Award for TV drama series brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen and Iain Paterson.

It was a big night for two separate projects about O.J. Simpson as the Oscar-nominated miniseries “O.J.: Made in America” won the documentary award for Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow while “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” won the David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Long-Form Television.

FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” based on the 1994 murder case, debuted in February. It won nine Emmys in September.

Disney’s Oscar-nominated “Zootopia” won the animated movie trophy for producer Clark Spencer. In his acceptance speech, Spencer said that he was driven by the need to tell a story about the importance of diversity, using the setting of a mammalian motropolis.

FX’s freshman series “Atlanta” won the Danny Thomas award for best episodic comedy for Donald Glover, Dianne McGunigle, Paul Simms, Hiro Murai, and Alex Orr. The series won Golden Globes this month for best television series – musical or comedy while Glover won the best actor award in that category.

Netflix’s “Making a Murderer” won the award for non-fiction TV for Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. The series explored the case of Stephen Avery, who spent 18 years in prison on a wrongful conviction.

NBC’s “The Voice” won the reality competition trophy. “Comedians in Getting Coffee in Cars” took the digital series trophy while “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” won the live entertainment-talk award.

In addition to Winkler, the PGA presented previously announced honorary awards to James L. Brooks with the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television, Tom Rothman with the Milestone Award, “Loving” with the Stanley Kramer Award and Megan Ellison with the Visionary award.

Brooks opened his acceptance speech with a tribute to the late Mary Tyler Moore. “She had dignity, worth, legs, wit, she was intrinsically valiant, she was the woman who was at the center of the work and who never complained,” he said. “She made grace contagious.” Brooks was the executive producer of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which won 27 Emmys. “When a TV series is working, there’s no better job,” he added.