By John H. Foote
Green Book, the much loved road film about the unlikely friendship between an Italian Bronx tough guy and an elegant black musician in the turbulent sixties, has won the coveted Producers Guild Award for Best Picture of the Year.
This bodes very well for Green Book as we head into nominations week for the Academy Awards.
Since the formation of the Guild and their decision to honour the year’s best films, which began in 1990, the Academy and Guild have agreed on Best Picture 20 times.
Among the more surprising PGA winners have been The Crying Game (1992), The Aviator (2004), Brokeback Mountain (2005) and La La Land (2016), the latter surprising only in that it did not follow through with an Oscar.
With the win Green Book becomes the odds on favourite for Best Picture.
John H. Foote is a well-recognized Canadian film critic/historian who has been an active critic for 30 years. His deep love for the movies began at a very young age. He began his career as co-host of the popular TV show Reel to Real where he remained for nine years. While on TV he began dabbling in education, eventually ascending to Director of the Toronto Film School, where he also taught film history. After leaving the college to care for his wife, he returned to teaching at Humber College where he taught both Film History and Method Acting Theory. John has written two books: “Clint Eastwood – Evolution of a Filmmaker” and the upcoming “Spielberg – American Film Visionary”. He is currently working on two books, one about the films of the seventies and another on the films of Martin Scorsese. Through his career he has worked in TV, radio, print and the web. John has interviewed everyone in the industry (more than 300 interviews) except Jack Nicholson, he says sadly. Highlights include Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep Robert Duvall, Jane Fonda, Francis Ford Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow.
