LOS ANGELES, Feb 18, (Agencies): US film and television writers gave their top two movie awards on Sunday to “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Argo” in the final Hollywood guild awards show before next week’s Oscars. Writer Mark Boal won the Writers Guild of America award for Best Original Screenplay for “Zero Dark Thirty,” which chronicles the intense US manhunt and daring raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Asked backstage what message he hoped to send to audiences with the film, Boal said: “I think (director Kathryn Bigelow) said it best when she said she wanted to shine a light on a dark decade. I don’t know that I could put it any better than that.”
“Argo,” about the Hollywood-assisted rescue of American hostages in Iran during the 1979 revolution, earned writer Chris Terrio WGA’s trophy for Best Adapted Screenplay.
“I’ve never actually won a call-your-name award before,” an overwhelmed Terrio said backstage at the awards.
The WGA awards gave the winning films a last boost in the race for the Oscars, the world’s top film honors, because many guild members also belong to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that hands out the Oscars on Feb 24.
The guild gave a special nod to “Lincoln,” honoring screen writer Tony Kushner with a special award recognizing work that embodies the spirit of civil rights and liberties. “Lincoln,” a drama about President Abraham Lincoln’s fight to abolish slavery, was up against “Argo” for WGA’s Best Adapted Screenplay.
“Argo” and “Lincoln” are considered front-runners for this year’s Best Picture Oscar, although “Argo” recently has taken a slight edge after also nabbing the top prize from both the director and producer guilds, which each have strong records of predicting Oscar winners.
 

“Argo” racked up yet another guild victory on Saturday night, taking home the American Cinema Editors’ ACE Eddie Award for Best Edited Feature (Dramatic).
“Silver Linings Playbook” won the award for Best Edited Feature (Comedy or Musical).
The award is an unusually reliable predictor of the film-editing Oscar, and adds to a substantial guild-awards haul for “Argo” that also includes honors from the Producers Guild, Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild. The Writers Guild announces its winners on Sunday.
“Silver Linings Playbook” has less overall success this awards season, but has dominated at shows that also include separate categories for comedies.
Over the last 20 years, the group’s drama winner (including one tie) has gone on to take home the editing Oscar 16 times, while the comedy/musical winner has done so once.

In those 20 years, the ACE winner has gone on to win Best Picture 12 times.
Last year was one of the times the ACE Eddie winner and Oscar winner didn’t match: “The Descendants” and “The Artist” won ACE Eddies, while “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” won the Oscar.
This year’s ACE Eddie Awards category for Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) almost exactly matches the Oscars category for Best Film Editing, with “Argo,” “Life of Pi,” “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty” all nominated. The only difference is that Oscar voters also nominated “Silver Linings,” while ACE Eddie voters put that film in the comedy or musical category and went with “Skyfall” in the drama group.
In other film awards, Pixar’s “Brave” continued its strong guild showing by winning the honor for animated feature. “Searching for Sugar Man” won the award for documentary-feature editing, adding to its own plethora of awards.
On the television side, one of the two “Breaking Bad” episodes nominated in the one-hour commercial-TV series category won, while the pilot for “The Newsroom” was honored in the one-hour non-commercial-TV category and “Nurse Jackie” won among half-hour series.
 

“Les Miserables” has been named the best work of 2012 by the Cinema Audio Society, a non-profit organization that honors the art of sound mixing in film and television.
The film, for which director Tom Hooper recorded his actors singing live on the set, was considered the favorite for the CAS Award and for the sound-mixing Oscar. In addition to working with vocal tracks recorded in difficult circumstances, its mixers had to contend with prominent orchestral music throughout the film’s near three-hour running time.
Three of the five nominees matched the Oscar nominees in the sound mixing category. “Skyfall,” “Les Miserables” and “Lincoln” were nominated by both groups, but the CAS added “The Hobbit” and “Zero Dark Thirty” while Academy voters went for “Argo” and “Life of Pi.”
In its 19-year history, the CAS winner has matched the Oscar winner 10 times, including three of the last four years.
In the animation category, which the CAS handed out for the first time this year, Pixar’s “Brave” picked up its second award of the night, following its victory across town at the ACE Eddie Awards. Although “Wreck-It Ralph” and “ParaNorman” won many more critics’ awards, “Brave” has established itself as a clear favorite of the Hollywood guilds.
 

An Australian film about a woman in need benefiting from the kindness of others won top honors at the world’s biggest short-film festival.
“We’ve All Been There” director Nicholas Clifford received the Tropfest first-place award Sunday from judging panelist and “Avatar” actor Sam Worthington.
Worthington said earlier about judging the festival, “It’s not about budget, it’s not about box office, it’s about pure entertainment and that to me is what film should be about. Not all that other junk.”
Clifford joked later that he gets grief about resembling Worthington, so their meeting “is going to give everyone a bit more ammunition to throw at me.”
His film’s star, Laura Wheelright, was named best actress while Nick Hamilton was named best actor for the time-travel tale, “Time.”
For his first-place win, Clifford gets $10,000 cash, a trip to Los Angeles to meet with film executives and other prizes.
The outdoor film festival held since 1993 has grown to a large-scale event attracting thousands to a park near Sydney’s central business district.
The next Tropfest will be Dec 8 in Centennial Park — an advanced date and new location to accommodate larger crowds and to attract fans and VIP attendees without having to compete for attention with the Oscars and other international film events in February.