86th Annual Academy Award Nominations Announced!

Nominations for the 86th Annual Oscars (which will he held March 2, 2014) have been announced. Congratulations to all nominees. Below, the nominations for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay. You can see the nominees for all categories here.

Best Picture
"12 Years a Slave"
"The Wolf of Wall Street"
"Captain Phillips"
"Her"
"American Hustle"
"Gravity"
"Dallas Buyers Club"
"Nebraska"
"Philomena"

Best Original Screenplay
"American Hustle" -- David O. Russell and Eric Warren Singer
"Blue Jasmine" -- Woody Allen
"Her" -- Spike Jonze
"Nebraska" -- Bob Nelson
"Dallas Buyers Club" -- Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack

Best Adapted Screenplay
"12 Years a Slave" -- John Ridley
"Before Midnight" -- Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater
"The Wolf of Wall Street" -- Terence Winter
"Captain Phillips" -- Billy Ray
"Philomena" -- Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope

What are your thoughts? Who got snubbed? Is anyone getting undue praise? Share your opinions in the comments!

Oscar Nominated Scripts Recap

Hollywood's big night is coming up on Sunday, and all the pundits are predicting who will win, and who will be snubbed. For those of us wishing to break in (and those in the industry, I'd imagine), the Oscars can be incredibly fun - or incredibly aggravating. 

What do you mean that was the best picture?! 
I can write better than that with my eyes closed!
How did they overlook him/her/that movie (cough Dark Knight cough)?!

Whatever your opinions may be, it's good to take a close look at the Best Screenplay Nominees - adapted and original - to see what caught the Academy's eye this year. Deadline has done a nice wrap-up of them.

You can read the Original and Adapted screenplay write ups there.

2013 Oscar Nominees Announced

You've seen some or all of them. Or none of them. You loved, hated, or felt indifferent toward them. You've sung their praises, or have no clue what all the hype is about. Well, for better or worse, whether you agree with the choices or not, here they are, folks - the 2013 Oscar Nominations!

BEST PICTURE
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Amour
Django Unchained
Flight
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

You can read all of the nominations here.

What are your predictions, favorites, and snubs?

The Oscar telecast will be Sunday, February 24, starting at 7pm EST. 

2012 Oscar Nominees Announced

Forgive the delay - it's been a busy week. After much speculation, the 84th annual Academy Award nominations were announced this past Tuesday. As you probably know, the rules were changed for this year's awards show, leaving open the possibility of there being anywhere between five and ten Best Picture candidates. Essentially, a film must earn at least 5% first-place votes in the nomination process in order to get the nod as one of the Best Picture contenders. In theory, this allows the Academy to recognize more than just five films as being potentially the "best" in a particularly strong year - a lot of people still feel it was the omission of The Dark Knight that least to the expansion back up to ten - but also affords flexibility in terms of not having to nominate ten in a weak year. (I'd argue that this was a weak year, but nine films still made it onto the list.)


The 2012 Oscar candidates for Best Picture are:


The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Glose
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
Tree of Life
War Horse


I've seen all but The Help. Of those listed - and don't worry, I won't launch into a verbose analysis of them all now - I think that The Artist is my favorite and the one I'll be rooting for. I liked Tree of Life a lot, and Hugo a healthy amount, but I don't see Tree taking it (I'd be happy if it did, though, because as a holistic work of cinema, I think it's incredibly strong). 


I'll be absolutely pissed if War Horse takes top prize. I dragged myself to that and Extremely Loud yesterday (didn't want to see either, but I felt compelled to because of the nominations). Extremely Loud didn't get great critical reception, but I loathed it less than I did War Horse, which was already cresting Top 10 lists before it even premiered. 


War Horse is utter crap. To sound like a critic - and I would bet good money that someone's said this before - it has zero horse power. It's a dull, drag of a movie where the director's hand is as visible as the fifteen hand horses. The music swells into a crescendo at the most obvious moments, and the instruments playing in the background might as well be swapped out for Spielberg's voice, urging the audience to, "cry now, please, and enjoy this touching moment." Only, the moments aren't touching. They're saccharine, phony, and strive to be manipulative. "We need to feel good here, so here's Albert's dim-witted friend cracking a joke and sharing in the Joey love." And before you get on my case, I'm not knocking the story or its sentiments. I was fortunate enough to see the play and was absolutely blown away by it - a kid watching theatre for the first time, marveling at what was unfolding before my eyes. But the movie's not the play. It's weak drivel, an example of a filmmaker relying on technical crutches (music, lighting, and a properly focused teary eye) to engender a response from the audience. Spielberg produced a sleeper here, and I'd hate to see it take the cake.


Let's take a look at the writing nominations, since we're obviously a collective of writers here (and as one of our readers, I imagine you're into that, too). 


Best Original Screenplay:
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Margin Call
Midnight in Paris
A Separation


Best Adapted Screenplay:
The Descendants
Hugo
The Ides of March
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy


I have been less proactive about seeing the nominees in the above categories as I should have been, so I can only comment from experience on six of them. For our purposes now, I want to focus on the original works primarily. I was lukewarm on Midnight in Paris - bits of it I thought were fairly predictable or easy, not that I'd ever try to tell the master how to write. Woody Allen has an incredible career and one I won't question; this film of his, though, while enjoyable, doesn't top my list.


I actually love that Bridesmaids is on there, and while The Artist is my favorite among the Best Picture nominees, I wouldn't mind seeing it lose out to Bridesmaids. For one, Bridesmaids is a welcome nod to the ever under-represented comedy genre. More so, it's also great recognition for women. Working in theater, I hear all too often about the lack of opportunities for women writers. Neither Wiig nor Annie Mumolo are exclusively writers, but their nomination pleases me in a way few others do. I hope they take it home, since Bridesmaids was both a commercial and critical success - and a last minute addition to many pre-nomination prediction lists. I think they've earned it.


What are your thoughts to the nominations?

2012 Oscar Predictions

We're in the home stretch of the year, which means that most Hollywood heavy-hitting Oscar contenders are either out, or just about to come out (with a few notables that have already come and gone - to DVD). So, out of curiosity, and because I'm really not overwhelmingly excited about anything slated to debut in the next month and a half (nor was I too jazzed about anything in the ten and a half months before now), I decided to do some research, test the waters, and take the temperature of the current Oscar race. I did some googling and came up with a list - from various sources - of which movies are likely contenders, which might be upsets, and what movies are worth watching before the Oscars.


You're probably aware that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this year yet again changed the nomination voting system for Best Picture. Now, rather than a hard and fast 5 or 10 nominees, depending on the number of first place votes a film gets in the nomination round (it must receive at least 5% of the first place votes), it will be listed as a Best Picture Contender. Among the sites I read, the common consensus seems to be that we should expect seven (7) Best Picture nominees. So, I went with that.


I read - and actually put together a little spread sheet of contenders - the top picks list from Indie Wire, Reelz,  the Awards Prophets, Entertainment Weekly, and the LA Times' blog The Insider. (It is worth noting that these lists will likely all change as more reviews come out and the climate evolves for each film. Not all articles were written around the same time, either; for example, the EW one is from August. But let's play along anyway.) With the exception of Entertainment Weekly's contributor's picks, the lists were ranked in order of most likely to take the top prize. Because so many focused on seve real competitors, I looked at the top seven from each of those to determine if there were any unanimously agreed upon choices. There were three:


The Descendants
War Horse
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close


I will make it a point to see each of those. Among other notable contenders, Moneyball, Midnight in Paris, The Artist, and The Help were in the top seven for all but one of the four lists. So those goes up there. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made two top seven lists.


When calling in the top ten, Tree of Life, appears three times, while J. Edgar and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy garner two votes each (J. Edgar was lower on many lists, just FYI). Other notables include: Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Ides of March, A Dangerous Method, Young Adult, Hugo, and occasional shout-outs for The Iron Lady, Carnage, and We Bought a Zoo. Tin Tin is looking like the potential front runner for animated, assuming it qualifies for that category.


So what are the take-aways from this little project? First, I have to eat my words with the League, because I as convinced that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 would earn a Lord of the Rings style nomination, yet it wasn't on any of the lists I looked at. Therefore, if you're trying to assemble your list of what to see before the 84th Academy Awards, as I am, then these are likely the fifteen you will want to focus on:

The Descendants
War Horse
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Moneyball
Midnight in Paris
The Artist
The Help
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Tree of Life
J. Edgar
A Dangerous Method
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Young Adult
Hugo
The Ides of March

Cake Man's 2011 Oscar Predictions (for Writing) and the Distinction Between Original and Adapted Screenplays

As you know, the nominees for the 2011 Academy Awards were released earlier this week. In case you missed it, you can view the full roster of Oscar contenders here. 

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• “127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
• “The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
• “Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
• “True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• “Winter's Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• “Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
• “The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson;
  Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
• “Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
• “The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
• “The King's Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler 

First off, a quick clarification. What designates something as adapted, versus original? In many cases, the source material is obvious - a book, comic book, newspaper article, TV show, or play. It can also be based on another film; technically, all sequels fall into this category, since the characters are from existent material (this is why Toy Story 3 is an adapted script). Interesting, or at least to me, is the fact that both The Fighter and The King's Speech, both based on documented material, are considered original works. This is because the fundamental distinction between adapted and original screenplays is whether there is previously published source material. In both cases, while the events might have been documents, there must have been no direct source from which the information is taken (i.e. the writers conducted research, but did not have to acquire rights to any one article in particular), and therefore created original scripts.

So, definitions out of the way, who do I think will win? Adapted is no question. I will be utterly floored if The Social Network's Aaron Sorkin doesn't walk home with the statuette. It is undeniably great screenwriting, and few of the other contenders even stack up against it. Maybe Winter's Bone, but I don't think it will come anywhere near close enough. And the Academy loves the Coens, but I'm still a bit surprised True Grit is gaining so much traction. Maybe in a weaker year it would have more of a chance, but I just don't get the hype. I give our buddy Zombie one free punch if I'm wrong.

As for Original Screenplay, the race is a bit closer. Kids Are All Right could take it (I don't expect it to take much else, outside of maybe acting). Same with King's Speech. In fact, King's Speech will probably take this one. I want to say Inception, because Nolan was snubbed for directing and I don't think the film will take the big award. Ultimately, as much as I want this to be inception, I will not be shocked if the award goes to David Seidler for King's Speech. I've not read either of the scripts, and I'll keep my fingers crossed for Nolan, but I have a feeling Seidler will nab it. Prove me wrong, Academy!

Finally, just for kicks, my thoughts on the top 10 picks.

Best Picture

• “Black Swan” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
• “The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
• “Inception” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
• “The Kids Are All Right” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
• “The King's Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
• “127 Hours” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
• “The Social Network” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
• “Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
• “True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
• “Winter's Bone" Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

The Academy seems to like topical films a lot, and nothing on that list is more current to me than The Social Network. It's about the biggest (or one of the leading) cultural phenomenons of today. Facebook is everywhere, and nearly everyone (except Onyx) is on it. People my age are getting hired solely to work on Facebook presence. Certain companies and corporations have even abandoned traditional websites altogether for Facebook pages. So, Social Network has current relevance going for it. In my opinion, it is also an incredibly well-made film, thoroughly engaging despite the fact that 75% of it is people sitting around various tables talking. 

For those two reasons, I'm giving the 2011 Oscar to The Social Network. 

Who do you think will win?

Entertainment Weekly's 25 Movies to See Before the Oscars, 2011

Entertainment Weekly's latest issues revealed their 25 Movies to Watch Before the Oscars. See below for a complete list.

The Social Network - on DVD Jan 11
The King's Speech - in theaters now
Inception - now on DVD
The Fighter - in theaters now
Toy Story 3 - now on DVD
True Grit - in theaters now
Black Swan - in theaters now
The Kids Are All Right - now on DVD
127 Hours - in theaters now
Winter's Bone - now on DVD
The Town - now on DVD
Rabbit Hole - goes wide Jan 14
Another Year - goes wide sometime in January
Get Low - DVD Feb 22
How to Train Your Dragon - now on DVD
Blue Valentine - goes wide sometime in January
Biutiful - goes wide Jan 28
Animal Kingdom - on DVD Jan 18
Waiting for Superman - on DVD in Feb
Alice in Wonderland - now on DVD
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - now on DVD
Inside Job - goes wide Jan 28
The Illusionist - goes wide Jan 14
Tangled - in theaters now
Burlesque - in theaters now

I was surprised by a few things when I saw this list. First, mainly, that I had only seen 12 of the 25. Granted, a few haven't gone wide yet, but it's a safe bet that if they're out there trying to sneak in for Oscar 2011, they're playing in New York City. Second, movies like Tangled, Burlesque, and Alice in Wonderland surprised me. Maybe some technical awards for Alice are possible, but I'd be surprised if it gained much more recognition than that (other, ahem, than it's epic box office). Get Low and Animal Kingdom were pleasant surprises, and the first 11 were, in my opinion, givens. 

Anything you feel they left out?

Fall and Oscar Movie Preview - 2010

Fall is here, and in movie land, that means Oscar season. The following three articles are definitely worth reading if you're trying to track what's coming out between now and the end of the year and which - if any - of the releases are potential Oscar fodder.

Ken Levine does his annual fall movie preview in two parts here and here. Always good for a laugh, Levine's previews offer a good-natured (I think), usually well-deserved mocking look at what Hollywood has lined up for the final months of the year. When he lists them all out side by side that way, it's baffling to see just how many are remakes, sequels, three-quels, and adaptations. Count the original stuff. I doubt you need more than two hands.

While Nikki Finke is on vacation, Pete Hammond sums up the potential Oscar nominees at Deadline Hollywood. Granted, you don't have to care or buy into any of this if you don't want to. But lists like these are always useful as tracking devices (at the very least) for me. Regardless of how much stock you put in the Academy's decisions each year, knowing what's getting a lot of buzz at the festivals is generally pretty important for anyone looking to break into the industry, as being able to speak about what's hot (and understand the references when producers or agents make them to you) is crucial.

The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 114 - Oscar Inspiration

Whether you love the Academy Awards or you hate them, I think it's hard to deny that there's something to be said for getting Hollywood's best together for a night celebrating achievements in filmmaking. Of course, I don't mean to imply that I think that all of the films nominated achieved something notable. (Did anyone else get a sense of unintended irony when the 10 Best Picture nominees were stacked next to the 10 Best from 1943 when CASABLANCA won? Many of the "best pictures' these days pale in comparison to truly great films from cinema's past.)

For me, the Oscars - like any award ceremony really - inspire me (at least momentarily) to create something wonderful. I don't mean that in a "I can do better" way. Award ceremonies honoring great work in film (or stage) always give me impetus to write something that could, one day, be similarly revered. How great it would be to hear my name called after someone reads, "And the Oscar goes to..." Certainly, this is a dream many of us share.

 However, I don't think that the hope of someday winning is the only inspiration for the (too often fleeting) creative surge I feel. It might be simpler and less grand than that. Watching people and films get rewarded for their accomplishments is as great a reminder as any that I won't even get a script produced if I don't dedicate myself to working hard and writing daily. Seeing people win often helps pull my head out of the clouds, plant me on my feet, and remind me to stop dreaming and start working.

This weekend, the creative juices weren't flowing, too freely. Perhaps I'm over-complicating what I need to do in my re-writes. Perhaps I just need a few more days away from the project. And as of writing this, I had a 9+ hour day at work and haven't touched my script yet today. I'm hoping that last night's telecast will light the fire under me that I need to re-write my script yet again. 

Movie Screening Alert - Oscar Nominees

New York audiences might want to clear their schedules on Saturday if they haven't seen most of the Best Picture Nominees yet. The AMC Kips Bay is doing a marathon screening of 

AVATAR

UP IN THE AIR

PRECIOUS

THE BLIND SIDE and

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (in that order).

It's $30 for the all day event - not too bad considering a regular ticket is over $12 these days - and apparently includes all you can eat popcorn. I'm sure there are screenings like this most year (unless it's a new thing due to the increase in nominees), but it's a cool idea. It might be a bit of an overwhelming movie watching experience, but if you're looking to catch up, here's a good opportunity.

New Oscar Acceptance Speech Rules

The times sure are a changing. First, the Academy will be nominating 10 films for Best Picture this year. Now, in another move away from the past, it seems that the producers of this year's Oscars have asked nominees to prepare two speeches. This first speech (to be delivered back stage post-acceptance) is the token "thank you everyone I know, beginning chronologically with..." The second, new speech is a short 45 second "what the award means to me" and will be the speech nominees ae asked to give live on camera. 

For all of us who've practiced our Oscar acceptance speech a hundred times (I can't remember how many versions I have), his might come as a blow. We want to thank people. We have to thank some. As writers, though, maybe this is an opportunity. We get 45 seconds to talk about what the Oscar means to us, followed by (I assume) a lot longer to thank everyone. Rather than thank everyone you know, you can show the world just how witty or regal or classy or quippy you really are (and why studios should hire you again). I'd like to think winners still get time to thank Mom and Dad, but I'm curious to see how this year goes. My hope, though, is that - contrary to my interpretation of the article - people who launch almost immediately into a thank you list will not get played off instantly. 

I'll have to see how this plays out - and how Oscar winners respond - in order to fully determine my stance on this. Part of me (the viewer part) likes it. The Oscar hopeful part of me feels like winners should get 45 seconds to say whatever the hell they want (especially the technical award winners - let those guys stand on stage and thank their spouses, damn it!). What are your thoughts on this development?

MTV Movies Blog has the full story here.

2010 Academy Award and Razzie Nominations Announced

Today, film lovers around the world finally got to find out what the 10 Best Picture Nominees for the 82nd annual Academy Awards are. Some of us are groaning, some are griping, and some are pleasantly surprised. I'm more curious than anything - how can up be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Animated Feature? 

Of course, the end of January doesn't just signal time to recognize the year's best cinematic accomplishments - it's also a great opportunity to look back at (or avoid) some of the most epic film failures of the past 12 months. And for that, we have the Razzies. 

If you haven't see the nominations yet - for both the year's best and worst - here is a sampling.

Best Picture

"Avatar"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
"Up in the Air"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"Up"
"The Blind Side"
"District 9"
"An Education"
"A Serious Man"

Best Original Screenplay

"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"The Messenger"
"A Serious Man"
"Up"

Best Adapted Screenplay

"District 9"
"An Education"
"In the Loop"
"Precious"
"Up in the Air"

Best Director

Quentin Tarantino, "Inglourious Basterds"
Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"
James Cameron, "Avatar"
Lee Daniels, "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
Jason Reitman, "Up in the Air"

Best Animated Feature

"Up"
"Coraline"
"Fantastic Mr. Fox"
"The Princess and the Frog"
"The Secret of Kells"

Best Foreign-Language Film

"Ajami"
"El Secreto de Sus Ojos"
"The Milk of Sorrow"
"Un Prophète"
"The White Ribbon"

And on the other side of the fence:

Worst Picture of 2009

“All About Steve”

“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”

“Land of The Lost”

“Old Dogs”

“Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen”

Worst Screenplay of 2009"All About Steve"

"G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra"

"Land of The Lost"

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"

"Twilight Saga: New Moon"

To see all Oscar nominated films, click here. 

For all Razzie candidates, click here.

EW's 25 To Watch Before the 2010 Oscars

Right around this time, I do a big push to try to catch all well-received, powerful looking films I can before they disappear for theaters, only to reappear on DVD after awards season has ended. At the very least, I like to have seen all five (now ten) Best Picture nominated films before the Academy Awards. Top 10, 25, and 50 lists from across the web always help me keep track of what I feel I should (and want) to see.

 

In case you missed it, Entertainment Weekly released their list of 25 movies to watch before the Oscars. The thinking - these are the ones likely to nab award consideration, so if you want to be in the loop, check them out. (I'm well on my way with 12/25 down - though, apologies to all talent and crew involved, I think I'll be skipping a few on the list.)

(500) Days of Summer

A Serious Man

A Single Man

An Education

Avatar

The Blind Side

Bright Star

Crazy Heart

District 9

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Hurt Locker

The Informant!

Inglorious Basterds

Invictus

It's Complicated

Julie & Julia

The Last Station

The Lovely Bones

The Messenger

Nine

Precious

Star Trek

Up

Up in the Air

The Young Victoria

Oddly absent from the list:

Broken Embraces

The Road

Where the Wild Things Are

The White Ribbon

Academy to Nominate Ten for Oscars?

I just clicked over to imdb for part of my daily work avoidance and saw the following breaking story:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has just announced in a small blurb the Oscars this year will be bumping their Best Picture nominees from five to ten beginning with the upcoming 2010 Oscars President Sid Ganis announced today at a press conference in Beverly Hills.

“After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year,” said Ganis. “The final outcome, of course, will be the same – one Best Picture winner – but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009.”

The move is an obvious response to the recent discussion concerning The Dark Knight’s absence from the nominees for more art house style films such as The Reader and I would expect we can now look at Up as a serious contender for a Best Picture nominee when previous Pixar favorites Ratatouille and WALL-E were left in the cold.

“Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize,” commented Ganis. “I can’t wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”

You can read the full article at Rope of Silicon.

Not sure how I feel about this. I guess in some ways it's appropriate, but the Academy could also just get more selective with its nominating, rather than just expand the category. Then again, I also just don't like change. What's your take on this?

And The Winner Is...

OK, I'm sure you've watched the Oscars or read a re-cap online or read this morning's paper to see who won or heard about it at the water cooler or... You get the idea. You've heard the winners. If, somehow, you've managed to avoid learning who took home statuettes at the 81st Academy Awards, here's the list of winners.

Picture: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Actor: Sean Penn, "Milk"
Actress: Kate Winslet, "The Reader"
Director: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Foreign-Language Film: "Departures," Japan
Original Song: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Original Score: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Jerry Lewis
Film Editing: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Sound Mixing: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Sound Editing: "The Dark Knight"
Visual Effects: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Documentary, Short Subject: "Smile Pinki"
Documentary Feature: "Man on Wire"
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Short Film: "Spielzeugland"
Makeup: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Costume: "The Duchess"
Art Direction: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Animated Short Film: "La Maison en Petits Cubes"
Animated Feature: "WALL-E"
Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"

No real surprises... sort of. WALL-E was a given (though part of me felt it was wise to expect a Kung Fu Panda upset). Screenplay categories contained no real shocker or disappointments. Slumdog, as Zombie just pointed out, took a TON of awards, with Curious Case of Benjamin Button taking a very large share of the remaining ones. Heath Ledger got what everyone expected to be his award for his awesome work as the Joker.

Where I got pissed, though, was with the Best Actor category. Yes, Mickey Rourke might have played Mickey Rourke, and Sean Penn's win (along with Dustin Lance Black's) provided the industry with a platform for gay rights, which is fantastic. But I was pulling for Mickey despite both of those reasons. Even if he did play himself, you know what? That takes balls. He went into some of the darkest parts of his life and his screw ups, unearthing much of what has happened behind the camera to him in his life. It takes a lot of courage to accept and reveal your own faults the way he did, and I have to give anybody who can do that major props. Maybe he didn't transform himself into a completely different person the way that Penn did, but what he did was just as emotionally charged and brave, if not more so.

You had my vote, Mickey.

Slumdog Millionaire screenplay now available

Motion Picture
Director
Adapted Screenplay
Cinematography
Sound Mixing
Original Score
Original Song
Film Editing

Congratulations to Slumdog Millionaire for cleaning house at the Oscars last night.

You can now download the screenplay for free by clicking here. (Thanks again to SimplyScripts.) Get it while you can!

What, When, Where this Weekend - Katyn, The Oscars!

What, When, Where is a weekly guide to select screenings, discussions and events in the NYC-area of interest to screenwriters. Have an event you'd like to see listed here? Give us a heads-up at info@screenwritersleague.com.


A slow week for movie openings, with only Fired Up! and Madea Goes To Jail getting any sort of wide release (did I mention this weekend was slow?), but at least we can catch up with out Netflix queue and prep for this Sunday's Academy Awards.

Haven't seen all of the nominees? You can still read many of the screenplays for free. Check out the links here, here, here and here.

Opening this weekend...

KATYN, written by Andrzej Mularczyk and Przemyslaw Nowakowski, dir. by Andrzej Wajda


Premise: An examination of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.

Playing: Film Forum

Ashes and Diamonds and Kanal are absolute classics. Far from a feel-good movie, but I'm sold.

What are you doing/seeing this weekend? Doing anything special for the Oscars?

Oscar Showdown: Kung Fu Panda versus WALL-E

Everyone has his or her favorite Oscar category, or at least one in which he/she invests the most interest. Usually, for me, that's either Best Picture or Best (Original) Screenplay. This year, though, while I am strongly rooting for certain nominees (Mickey Rourke for Best Actor, Slumdog Millionaire for Picture) come Sunday, I'll invest my most intense watching abilities in the Best Animated Feature category.

Ok, I'll come clean - I haven't seen Bolt. I don't really plan to. It just didn't capture my interest the way that the other two did. I have seen both WALL-E and Kung Fu Panda (WALL-E kept me up during past the 9th hour of and 18 hour flight I was on; I just watched KFP this past weekend).

It's hard to tell which of these will win. I say that, because though KFP is a really terrific animated movie, one which I laughed with throughout, WALL-E is (dare I say it?) ground-breaking in its accomplishments. I know that there was an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to nominate WALL-E for one of the five coveted Best Picture slots, so the industry clearly recognizes that it's an incredible film. Any writer should be able to appreciate the clear mastery of craft throughout it, with a particular focus on the wordless first act. It deserves to win, if you as this cake fan, but does that mean it will?

Unfortunately, we can all cite examples of the movie that should have won. A loss to Kung Fu Panda would not be the worst upset in Oscar history, but one that would piss me off a bit nonetheless. I was completely caught off-guard by WALL-E, which I believe I can take lessons from as a writer. I just want to see it get what it not only deserves, but has definitely earned.

What do you think - who will the Best Animated Feature Oscar go to?

The Writing Week part 25

I saw three plays this weekend. Of the League, I think it’s safe to say that I’m the one most inclined to write for live theater, in addition to film. Seeing three plays made me want to write (plays), which is good, because other than rewrites, I haven’t wanted to write much recently (it wasn’t so much the desire to write a play, but rather to have people respond to my writing that stimulated me). At all. I’m reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls right now, and there’s a passage that refers to Paul Schrader (writer, Taxi Driver), which says “He was writing like a machine, and although he didn’t know it then, he was writing himself out.”

That’s exactly what I’m worried has happened to me. I wrote at a break-neck pace for the first 4 months of this year, remember making a comment to someone about how I had so many ideas I could write forever, and then woke up one day feeling like I was all dried up. Granted, I’m quite young still and the ideas are there. I just haven’t felt that fire under me for a few months now, which is why I’ve been doing re-writes (if not a result of doing re-writes). I hope it will pass soon, but in the mean time, the going is tough. And slow.

Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning the new rule recently created regarding the Academy Awards. As I’m sure you heard, no movie will be allowed any more than two nominations for “Best Original Song” anymore. This new regulation follows triple nominations for Dreamgirls and Enchanted, neither of which landed an award in said category. Personally, I find it entertaining when a film loses a category in which it has so incredibly stacked the deck, garnering three out of the five nominations. I knew (somehow) that it was inevitable that neither of those films were going to win, and was satisfied when the awards went elsewhere. At the end of the day, though, I didn’t really care either way about the decision to limit the nominations.

However, I got to talking with someone, and they made me realize something: restricting the number of nominations penalizes a film that is truly deserving. Now, to be fair, I didn’t see either of the triple-nominated films, so the songs were out of context to me (and therefore less enjoyable than they may have been otherwise). I didn’t really like the songs, but if they were three out of five of the best original songs in their respective years, then don’t they deserve that recognition? I was trying to come up with a situation where this new regulation would affect me (should I ever receive Oscar nods), and the closest scenario I could think of for comparison would be if the Academy limited the number of, say, Best Original Screenplays a single writer could be nominated for in one year. If, by some miracle, I had three movies released in the same year, each worthy of an Oscar nomination for writing, then wouldn’t it be unfair to neglect to recognize one, simply because the other two had already received nominations?

Anyway, I’m rambling; A) this will probably never be an issue for me and B) it has next to nothing to do with what I did (or didn’t) write this week. I just wonder if it should be taken as a sign of other regulations to come, and if it is, how they’ll affect us.