The Director’s Guild of America Awards were held over the weekend, and Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman ever to win for feature film direction in the guild’s 62 year history. She won for directing The Hurt Locker, and beat out some stiff competition, including Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron, Jason Reitman, and Lee Daniels.

This could be a momentum changer going into the Academy Award nominations tomorrow morning. There have only been six times in its history that the DGAs have not correctly predicted the eventual Oscar winner. Incidentally, a woman has never won an Academy Award for best director, either.

Other highlighted winners from Saturday night included:

Movies for Television/Mini-Series Ross Katz, Taking Chance

Documentary Louie Psihoyos The Cove

Dramatic Series  Leslie Linka Glatter Mad Men “Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency”

Comedy Series Jason Winer Modern Family “Pilot”

For a complete list of all the winners, visit the DGA site.

Photo courtesy of the DGA.

The SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild) awards aired on Saturday evening. As far as the actual awards given, it was largely a repeat of last week’s Golden Globes.  However, since Avatar was not nominated in any categories, another film  got to bask in the glow of the evening.

Inglourious Basterds won for best ensemble cast, and Christoph Waltz repeated last week’s Golden Globe win. Other repeat winners included Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Mo’Nique, Michael C. Hall, Julianna Margulies, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Bacon, and Drew Barrymore.

Despite the lack of  suspense, the show seemed quite a bit more lively and more entertaining than last week’s rather restrained Golden Globes. Here are a few highlights.

Sandra Bullock beat out perennial favorite Meryl Streep, and this was a vote by her peers.  She clearly has won the respect of a lot of naysayers this year. She gave an adorable acceptance speech, and was truly funny when she introduced Betty White for her lifetime achievement award.  This is shaping up to be the year of the Sandra.

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The 67th annual Golden Globes awards took place last night, and Avatar walked away top honors of  Best Picture and Best Director, fueling speculation that it is gaining momentum going into the Oscar nomination race. Avatar and Crazy Heart picked up two awards each, but there were no lopsided wins this year.

Critical darling The Hurt Locker was shut out and went home empty handed.  The Hurt Locker has been cleaning up top honors at Critic Circle awards nationwide. Up in the Air was nominated for six awards, but only won for Best Screenplay.

Veteran actors Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep won acting awards, and delivered particularly elegant and classy acceptance speeches.

On the television side, Dexter fared well, with John Lithgow and Michael C. Hall both winning acting awards.  HBO’s film Grey Gardens won two awards as well.  Mad Men won for Best Television Series, Drama and freshman series Glee won for best Television Series, Comedy or Musical.

A complete list of winners follows. Also, be sure to check out our photo gallery of all the winners after the jump.

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Welcome to our very first live-blogging event on The Flickcast. If you are not familiar with live-blogging, basically it is a running commentary that you will be able to see in real-time.  Staff writers Elisabeth Rappe, Cortney Zamm,  John Muth, and myself (Shannon Hood) will be your commentators this evening.  In order to see the latest comments, scroll down throughout the evening, and refresh your browser often.

If you have any comments to make during the ceremony, feel free to use our comments section at the end of the post.  Now, let’s talk Golden Globes!

So our first arrival that we will comment on is….Fergie.

Shannon 6:05  It looks like Fergie is pregnant or had some work done

John 6:06 I guess it’s kind of inconsiderate to be like, “so Fergie, you going to have a little Gremlin soon?”

John 6:09 January Jones didn’t look that great…Whoa, but Marion Cottiard…

Shannon 6:09 She looks gorgeous. Very stunning.

John 6:10  NO!!! Ask about Inception!!! Dammit!

Cortney 6:10 Cannot wait for that movie. I have no idea what it’s about, but I’m excited.

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As hard as it may be to believe sometimes, someone (or someones) actually sits down and writes a movie or TV show before you end up seeing it at your local multiplex or on your favorite TV network. The people who do the sitting and the writing are, surprisingly, called writers and, like the Directors, the Golden Globes and the Oscars, they have their own awards show.

This week, the Writers Guild of America, which is the trade group and advocate for writers, announced its nominations for outstanding achievement in feature film and television, radio, news, promotional writing, and graphic animation during the 2009 season to be honored at the upcoming 2010 Writers Guild Awards on February 20, 2010, in Los Angeles and New York.

We realize that these nominations may not be as glamorous as the Golden Globes or the Oscars, but we kinda like writers around here and think they do a pretty important job. So, with that in mind, here’s a complete list of nominees.

Check out these names, these people are pretty important. Without them you wouldn’t get to enjoy your favorite TV show, movie or pretty much any other form of entertainment. The 2010 Writers Guild Awards will be held on Saturday, February 20, 2010, simultaneously at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and the Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City.

FILM NOMINEES

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

(500) Days of Summer, Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

Avatar, Written by James Cameron

The Hangover, Written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore

The Hurt Locker, Written by Mark Boal

A Serious Man, Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Crazy Heart, Screenplay by Scott Cooper

Based on the novel by Thomas Cobb

Julie & Julia, Screenplay by Nora Ephron Based on the books Julie & Julia by Julie Powell and My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher Based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Star Trek, Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman Based upon Star Trek, Created by Gene Roddenberry

Up in the Air, Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon TurnerBased upon the novel by Walter Kirn

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The DGA, which unveiled the small-screen nominations in eight categories last Friday, will announce the winners Jan. 30 at its 62nd annual awards ceremonies at the Century Plaza Hotel. AMC’s Mad Men received three Directors Guild of America TV nominations for drama series and HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and Fox’s Glee each got a pair for comedy. The nominations included a trio of season finales in Mad Men, Curb and ABC’s Lost. In the comedy category, two shows — the pilot for ABC’s Modern Family and Glee — also received nominations.

Thomas Carter scored a nomination in the TV movie-miniseries category for TNT’s Gifted Hands — The Ben Carson Story along with Bob Balaban for Liftetime’s George O’Keefe, John Kent Harrison for CBS’s The Courageous Heart of Irene Sandler, Ross Katz for HBO’s Taking Chance and Michael Sucsy for HBO’s Grey Gardens.

Here’s the complete list of nominations:

MOVIES FOR TELEVISION/MINISERIES

The nominees for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Miniseries for 2009 are (in alphabetical order):

BOB BALABAN

“Georgia O’Keeffe” (Lifetime)

THOMAS CARTER

“Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” (TNT)

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DreamWorks Studios, with plans for a Fright Night remake, have signed Mad Men writer-producer Marti Noxon to write the script about a horror-obsessed teen who thinks his neighbor means something altogether different when sipping some red.

Noxon, no stranger to vampires herself since she was a writer-producer for both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s spin-off Angel, will keep the comedy/horror vibe the original had when it was released in 1985, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film went on to be a surprise box office hit, trailing only A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge in the horror department that summer.

Producers Michael De Luca, Michael Gaeta and Alison Rosenzweig had signed onto the project back in May of this year, while overseeing the project for DreamWorks will be co-president of production Mark Sourian. No word on a potential release date or casting as of yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

We get a lot of video sent to us so we don’t always share them here at the site, mostly because in a majority of cases guests on Jimmy Fallon’s show don’t really “wow” us. But when one of our favorite stars from one of the best shows currently on TV does something awesome, we just feel compelled to bring it to you.

Case in point is last night’s appearance by the beautiful and talented January Jones (Mad Men). On the show she talked about the usual stuff as most talk show guests do. She also joined Jimmy in a little game of what we like to call beer pong and we’ve got video of that to share.

Any woman who’s as good looking as Ms. Jones, can play beer pong and comments when her beer isn’t full enough definitely deserves our respect, admiration and affection. Plus, did I mention she’s really great looking?

Check out the video after the jump. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 12:30PM on NBC. Mad Men returns to AMC for a fourth season next year. That just can’t come soon enough.

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Not many know this, but PBS’s Sesame Street has aired 4,186 episodes since it’s debut in 1969, making it one of the longest running shows since the news, and THE longest running show with Muppets. In that time, there have been some pretty impressive cameos and references from Will Arnett to President Obama.

In the past few years, the educational series has been aiming it’s programming not only at their desired child demographic, but their parents as well. With last year’s Elmo’s Christmas Countdown special, Ben Stiller hosted, with special appearances by Paulie from The Sopranos and more.

It looks like even the non-specials are getting the same cross-age treatment, as a recent episode had a parody of the hit AMC series Mad Men. The skit was obviously written for the literal jokes, (“We are MAD men!”), but there are a few funny moments, including how they worked the word “sycophants” into the script. Check it out after the jump.

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Hey, remember the Emmys last year when five different reality show hosts tackled the duties of hosting the show?  Yeah, me either. Dismal ratings required a change of course, and this year the Emmys were…dare  I say it…entertaining! Thanks in large part to Neil Patrick Harris’s impeccable charm and wit, the 2009 Emmy Awards were enjoyable start to finish.

A dapper Neil Patrick Harris (let’s call him NPH for brevity’s sake) was the perfect host.  He started off the show with a musical number that was not awful, and kept the show going at a steady clip throughout the night. His performance garnered accolades from Ricky Gervais and John Stewart, along with millions of us watching at home.  A few highlights from the evening:

Awards were presented in categories.  A genre had all its awards given out before moving on to the next.  Comedy, Drama, Miniseries, Reality and Variety were all represented.  The show producers definitely pushed a comedic theme this year. Hilarious pre-taped clips of  nominees showed them  giving advice or answering a question.

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