OVP: Best Original Screenplay (2010)
The Nominees Were...
Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Keith Dorrington, The Fighter
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right
David Seidler, The King's Speech
My Thoughts: There's something a bit magical about the Original Screenplay category that I don't always get in the adapted category-I think it's because there's little chance you know where the story is headed, or at least there's a chance you don't know (The King's Speech you can make a solid guess if you look at a cursory reading of history), and so I always latch onto it a bit, as it's the category that's most likely to shock-and-delight.
Though it's based on a real-life story, it was one that I was fairly unfamiliar with, and so I have to admit that The Fighter is way better than I had expected going into the film. I should have known better, coming from the man who brought us I Heart Huckabees, but there really was an inventiveness in Russell's film and in the screenplay of these four (I thought there were limits on how many people could get nominated in this category, but apparently not) men's script. The film progresses strongly-it's a traditional story structure, but I love the way that they mirror Micky and Dicky's rises and falls, and the great pickup scene with Amy Adams. The film is occasionally a bit too sports cliched (I'm always a little confused by the insistence of certain people to mix family and their careers onscreen, particularly when Micky clearly has his life together in a way his brother never has or could), but the film gets something of a pass on that part due to the "Get-Out-of-Jail-Because-It's-True-Card." Overall, though, this is one of the better sports scripts to come out in the past decade.
I personally love the story behind David Seidler almost more than I love the story he actually brought to the screen. A stutterer as a teenager, he admired George VI and as early as the 1970's wanted to write a story about him, but waited until after the death of the Queen Mother (upon her request) to finally tell the tale, and wrote the script amidst a bout of throat cancer (which thankfully is in remission). Honestly, doesn't that feel like a movie right there? You spend half your life working on a project that finally makes you the oldest person to ever win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Pretty solid, if you ask me.
That drama is there in his light and breezy pen when he handles the creation of a wartime leader during The King's Speech. Seidler knows how to keep things moving, and in particular, can use the charisma of Geoffrey Rush to make most of his jokes land. The overall movie, like I've mentioned before, doesn't hit the heights you'd normally want in calling something the best of the year, and I do have to dock points for the matter-of-fact manner of the script-it may be English, but that doesn't mean that it has to have the staid lulls that encounter the moments leading-up to our biggest sequences. That being said, this is a solid script, and it's nice to know that Julian Fellowes isn't the only man in Britain who can capture the mechanics of the upper crust.
Another Year is the film you're looking at up top and wondering how it managed to make this lineup, as it's the only writing nominee that didn't get a corresponding Best Picture nomination. Part of this is the Academy's unwavering support of Mike Leigh. Despite never having won an Academy Award, Leigh has an impressive seven nominations that he's amassed in the past sixteen years, including five in this category. This is in spite of his well-known style, letting actors ad-lib parts of their characters and work months on the back stories of whom they are bringing to the screen.
This film, as I mentioned before in our review, has a brilliant script. I love the way that Leigh doesn't exactly tell us where we are going with our characters. We just have to sit back and focus on what's onscreen, as the story may or may not be about them. Tom and Gerri, for example, are the leads in the film, but the film is really all about Mary, our drunken, lonely former party girl who has fallen upon hard times. Leigh knows how to create a beautiful symmetry between the dour difficult Janet (played by Imelda Staunton, showing how you're supposed to do a cameo) and the ill-mannered but admirable Mary, and watch as our patience and sympathies shift throughout the film to different characters. Leigh gets us to uncomfortable places with the script (he spends a large amount of time working on the one-way time line of life, on how we don't get to go back in time and fix what were clearly our biggest mistakes, perhaps the greatest injustice of life), and uses his position as both director and writer to get his points across at maximum push. While I'm still missing a couple elements of his filmography, this is my favorite of his films so far.
The Kids are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko's (and Stuart Blumberg's) story of two women and their children who come face-to-face with the biological father of their family is a story that I'm so glad got told. While in my opinion, gay-themed stories are told far too little in mainstream Hollywood (this is true of most stories about minorities, and Hollywood should really figure out a way to change this, as both the Box Office and the critics celebrate when this inequity is upended), when it comes to the films that do make it through like Brokeback Mountain or Milk, the films are predominantly centered around gay men, and not lesbians. So it's great to see Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in a loving relationship onscreen.
I think that in part Cholodenko should thank her casting director for this nomination, as Laura Rosenthal had the good sense to not just pick pitch perfect actors in Bening, Moore, and Ruffalo to accompany the script, but also cast three up-and-comers (Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, and Zosia Mamet) in significant roles as the younger set of players in this film. The movie works so well, in particular in the beginning and endings of the movie. I love the monologues that they come up with for Bening's character, and those worn conversations that come after twenty-odd years of living together. I wasn't super into the subplot about Moore's affair with Ruffalo (it calls into question some aspects of sexuality that I don't think are properly addressed in the film), but that's a small quibble with an otherwise beautiful, tight screenplay.
The final nominee is Inception, and it's definitely the nomination that people will notice years from now when they look at this lineup, as it's the one that will be the most hotly debated. The thing about Inception is that there are so many grand ideas on the screen, you want to believe that it deserved Best Screenplay. I mean, it works on such a gargantuan level, and there are great moments of dialogue to latch onto in the script-I personally loved every second that Marion Cotillard is consuming the movie, and the beautiful, capturing dialogue she has when she's seducing Leo DiCaprio. Even better is the (mildly erotic) banter that Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("you musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling") seem to have in every scene (who wants to see that sequel?).
However, the plot holes take away from the movie as a whole so much that I have to deduct serious points here, as the whole purpose of this category is the writing, and there's a myriad of inconsistencies that taint the movie. I could get into them (Arthur should have awaken when the van was in free fall, for example), but the internet is crawling with a thousand websites that chronicle them in minutia, and you can get in a nerdtastic debate over there if you want. Suffice it to say, the film suffers when it gets a little bit too in love with its own ideas, and as a result, it loses something whenever it takes away from its own reality with incongruities. It still is a high-flying concept, and I liked the movie (and loved parts of it), but the plot holes have started to eat away at that love over time, and I cannot say I would give it this trophy as a result, though part of me wants to do just that.
Though it's based on a real-life story, it was one that I was fairly unfamiliar with, and so I have to admit that The Fighter is way better than I had expected going into the film. I should have known better, coming from the man who brought us I Heart Huckabees, but there really was an inventiveness in Russell's film and in the screenplay of these four (I thought there were limits on how many people could get nominated in this category, but apparently not) men's script. The film progresses strongly-it's a traditional story structure, but I love the way that they mirror Micky and Dicky's rises and falls, and the great pickup scene with Amy Adams. The film is occasionally a bit too sports cliched (I'm always a little confused by the insistence of certain people to mix family and their careers onscreen, particularly when Micky clearly has his life together in a way his brother never has or could), but the film gets something of a pass on that part due to the "Get-Out-of-Jail-Because-It's-True-Card." Overall, though, this is one of the better sports scripts to come out in the past decade.
I personally love the story behind David Seidler almost more than I love the story he actually brought to the screen. A stutterer as a teenager, he admired George VI and as early as the 1970's wanted to write a story about him, but waited until after the death of the Queen Mother (upon her request) to finally tell the tale, and wrote the script amidst a bout of throat cancer (which thankfully is in remission). Honestly, doesn't that feel like a movie right there? You spend half your life working on a project that finally makes you the oldest person to ever win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Pretty solid, if you ask me.
That drama is there in his light and breezy pen when he handles the creation of a wartime leader during The King's Speech. Seidler knows how to keep things moving, and in particular, can use the charisma of Geoffrey Rush to make most of his jokes land. The overall movie, like I've mentioned before, doesn't hit the heights you'd normally want in calling something the best of the year, and I do have to dock points for the matter-of-fact manner of the script-it may be English, but that doesn't mean that it has to have the staid lulls that encounter the moments leading-up to our biggest sequences. That being said, this is a solid script, and it's nice to know that Julian Fellowes isn't the only man in Britain who can capture the mechanics of the upper crust.
Another Year is the film you're looking at up top and wondering how it managed to make this lineup, as it's the only writing nominee that didn't get a corresponding Best Picture nomination. Part of this is the Academy's unwavering support of Mike Leigh. Despite never having won an Academy Award, Leigh has an impressive seven nominations that he's amassed in the past sixteen years, including five in this category. This is in spite of his well-known style, letting actors ad-lib parts of their characters and work months on the back stories of whom they are bringing to the screen.
This film, as I mentioned before in our review, has a brilliant script. I love the way that Leigh doesn't exactly tell us where we are going with our characters. We just have to sit back and focus on what's onscreen, as the story may or may not be about them. Tom and Gerri, for example, are the leads in the film, but the film is really all about Mary, our drunken, lonely former party girl who has fallen upon hard times. Leigh knows how to create a beautiful symmetry between the dour difficult Janet (played by Imelda Staunton, showing how you're supposed to do a cameo) and the ill-mannered but admirable Mary, and watch as our patience and sympathies shift throughout the film to different characters. Leigh gets us to uncomfortable places with the script (he spends a large amount of time working on the one-way time line of life, on how we don't get to go back in time and fix what were clearly our biggest mistakes, perhaps the greatest injustice of life), and uses his position as both director and writer to get his points across at maximum push. While I'm still missing a couple elements of his filmography, this is my favorite of his films so far.
The Kids are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko's (and Stuart Blumberg's) story of two women and their children who come face-to-face with the biological father of their family is a story that I'm so glad got told. While in my opinion, gay-themed stories are told far too little in mainstream Hollywood (this is true of most stories about minorities, and Hollywood should really figure out a way to change this, as both the Box Office and the critics celebrate when this inequity is upended), when it comes to the films that do make it through like Brokeback Mountain or Milk, the films are predominantly centered around gay men, and not lesbians. So it's great to see Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in a loving relationship onscreen.
I think that in part Cholodenko should thank her casting director for this nomination, as Laura Rosenthal had the good sense to not just pick pitch perfect actors in Bening, Moore, and Ruffalo to accompany the script, but also cast three up-and-comers (Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, and Zosia Mamet) in significant roles as the younger set of players in this film. The movie works so well, in particular in the beginning and endings of the movie. I love the monologues that they come up with for Bening's character, and those worn conversations that come after twenty-odd years of living together. I wasn't super into the subplot about Moore's affair with Ruffalo (it calls into question some aspects of sexuality that I don't think are properly addressed in the film), but that's a small quibble with an otherwise beautiful, tight screenplay.
The final nominee is Inception, and it's definitely the nomination that people will notice years from now when they look at this lineup, as it's the one that will be the most hotly debated. The thing about Inception is that there are so many grand ideas on the screen, you want to believe that it deserved Best Screenplay. I mean, it works on such a gargantuan level, and there are great moments of dialogue to latch onto in the script-I personally loved every second that Marion Cotillard is consuming the movie, and the beautiful, capturing dialogue she has when she's seducing Leo DiCaprio. Even better is the (mildly erotic) banter that Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("you musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling") seem to have in every scene (who wants to see that sequel?).
However, the plot holes take away from the movie as a whole so much that I have to deduct serious points here, as the whole purpose of this category is the writing, and there's a myriad of inconsistencies that taint the movie. I could get into them (Arthur should have awaken when the van was in free fall, for example), but the internet is crawling with a thousand websites that chronicle them in minutia, and you can get in a nerdtastic debate over there if you want. Suffice it to say, the film suffers when it gets a little bit too in love with its own ideas, and as a result, it loses something whenever it takes away from its own reality with incongruities. It still is a high-flying concept, and I liked the movie (and loved parts of it), but the plot holes have started to eat away at that love over time, and I cannot say I would give it this trophy as a result, though part of me wants to do just that.
Other Precursor Contenders: Once again, the Golden Globes combine the writing categories, and so while the adapted The Social Network won, that still left room for The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, and Inception to make the cut. David Seidler was a mortal lock to win the BAFTA for his very British movie, but the equally British Mike Leigh was snubbed in favor of Black Swan for the fifth nomination. Another Year also missed at the WGA Awards, as did The King's Speech (this seems odd, I know, but the WGA Awards have stringent eligibility qualifications which likely cost Seidler a nomination), with Black Swan and the little seen Rebecca Hall vehicle Please Give getting the final slots. With the frontrunner out of the way, Christopher Nolan finally picked up some hardware at the WGA's.
Also, as a side note, I 'd like to point out one of the oddest aspects of this particular Oscar race-the exclusion of Black Swan. It's been a couple of years since this awards ceremony, and I don't remember being shocked by this snub (there was likely some momentum in other camps), but isn't it bizarre that the Oscars went with a little-seen British film over one of its Best Picture nominees, particularly since all nine of the other Best Picture nominees made the cut? I mean, I love Another Year, but this is such a random snub. Black Swan, as we've learned throughout this write-up, was clearly on the precipice of a huge awards haul, and was in sixth place at least three times, and possibly as high as six times. It's hard to call a film with this many nominations unlucky, but man was it close to being a big threat across-the-board.
Also, as a side note, I 'd like to point out one of the oddest aspects of this particular Oscar race-the exclusion of Black Swan. It's been a couple of years since this awards ceremony, and I don't remember being shocked by this snub (there was likely some momentum in other camps), but isn't it bizarre that the Oscars went with a little-seen British film over one of its Best Picture nominees, particularly since all nine of the other Best Picture nominees made the cut? I mean, I love Another Year, but this is such a random snub. Black Swan, as we've learned throughout this write-up, was clearly on the precipice of a huge awards haul, and was in sixth place at least three times, and possibly as high as six times. It's hard to call a film with this many nominations unlucky, but man was it close to being a big threat across-the-board.
Films I Would Have Nominated: We haven't had the opportunity to discuss it much, but Blue Valentine, with its brilliant portrayal of the beginning and ending of a marriage, has a lovely, mirrored story structure that I like better than almost any film nominated here.
Oscar's Choice: Oscar can't resist a good hook, and the David Seidler one was a doozy-that, on-top of it being the Best Picture frontrunner likely sealed the deal and kept Nolan from getting an Oscar.
Oscar's Choice: Oscar can't resist a good hook, and the David Seidler one was a doozy-that, on-top of it being the Best Picture frontrunner likely sealed the deal and kept Nolan from getting an Oscar.
My Choice: I've gone back-and-forth a bit on how I would rank spots 2-5, but the winner has seemed quite clear since I first saw the movie-Another Year is on another level when it comes to the story that it's telling and its understanding of the characters that inhabit its world. In second place is Cholodenko's story of the uprooted family, followed by Inception, The King's Speech, and The Fighter.
How about you-how many of these movies have you seen? Did you agree with the Seidler stampede, or were you more in Nolan's camp (or did you, like me, go down the road less traveled?) And what do you think caused Black Swan to miss so many big nominations (we'll be getting to its last big miss later this weekend)?
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