OVP: Original Screenplay (2002)

OVP: Best Original Screenplay (2002)

The Nominees Were...

Todd Haynes, Far from Heaven

Jay Cocks, Steve Zaillian, & Kenneth Lonergan, Gangs of New York

Nia Vardalos, My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Pedro Almodovar, Talk to Her

Carlos Cuaron & Alfonso Cuaron, Y Tu Mama Tambien

My Thoughts: We are moving into the Big 8 categories today, and a day after we talked about how none of 2002's Best Foreign Language film nominees got cited for any other categories, we somehow have two non-English films in contention.  The 2002 Original Screenplay category is also indicative of what this category was for a brief time in the late 1990's and early 2000's-kind of a free-for-all when it comes to films that were cited.  Only one of these movies is a Best Picture nominee, and headed into the 2002 ceremony (we are still in an era where I was actively following the Oscar race, so you're getting tidbits as much as possible from my memory until that's no longer the case!) this was something of a tossup race.

One of the films in Spanish in 2002 was Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her.  I am a huge fan of Almodovar's in general, and while I haven't seen all of his movies, I kind of wonder if this might be my favorite of the ones I've caught (give or take Bad Education).  Talk to Her is grand, shocking, and its screenplay really is the biggest star of the film.  The twists are intense, and well-structured for maximum effort-it all makes sense, but you don't always see what's coming, and the character development works well within the movie, getting to know each of our main players at just the right juncture.  A taut mystery told exceedingly well.

Equally strong is Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven.  This is a movie I recently revisited, and it's fascinating how well the story is contained, particularly given that the visuals are definitely the headliner (it's emulating Douglas Sirk...it's gonna look good).  I loved the way that we have multiple stories that are fairly similar (forbidden love, prejudice, betrayal) but they end up in different places because of what each character is willing to sacrifice.  The monologues are great too.  Think of the late-in-the-movie phone call between Dennis Quaid & Julianne Moore...the casual confessional, the cruelty of it, and the placidness with which Moore finally realizes her reality...it's devastating acting, but it's only possible because the scrip is so succinct.

Gangs of New York is the sole Best Picture nominee of the bunch, though you have to wonder if that was based on a lack of "acceptable to Oscar" options to fill up the nominees.  The dialogue in this movie, particularly early scenes between Diaz & DiCaprio, feels clunky, almost as if we're stuck in a James Cameron love scene (sorry Jim, but we all know directing is your forte), but unlike with Cameron it's meant to be thought of as grounded.  It also doesn't instill a lot of story.  Scorsese's films usually unfold so well in terms of their script (think of how The Departed is almost perfectly put into three acts), but Gangs is cheesy and even more damning, somewhat forgettable.

Y Tu Mama Tambien is a film the first time I saw it, I didn't really get.  Still in the closet the first time I saw it, I'll totally own that I was watching this less for its artistic merits and more because it was, well, hormonal.  Rewatching it later, I was struck by how knowing Cuaron's film was.  It's not as well-drawn as it should be (there should be at least one more queer scene...I feel like we should've taken this a bit further since it's crucial for the story), but I think the juxtaposition of these two young men who are struggling with their friendship (and whether it will survive into adulthood) and this older woman who knows far more than they realize is fascinating.  It's not flawless, and it's not my favorite Cuaron movie, but it works quite well as a film that carries multiple perspectives.

It's hard to instill to people today what a big deal My Big Fat Greek Wedding was when it first came out.  Everyone went to see it-EVERYONE.  It was a movie that played for multiple weeks at our single-screen theater, and I remember watching it in a completely packed audience; 23 million people watched the TV spinoff when it aired (for comparison's sake, 19 million people watched the Game of Thrones finale, which was considered a cultural phenomenon).  This plays oddly now because the movie feels so meh in retrospect.  It's cute-Vardalos & Corbett have good chemistry-but it's hardly something you'd think of as Oscar-worthy, and yet it was definitely cited for a script that relied on jokes about Windex & dozens of other stereotypes.  I'm not going to rag on it (kudos to Vardalos for pulling off something that basically has no precedent before-or-after: a blockbuster rom-com with no established stars), but, like, you really want this to compete with movies as good as Talk to Her and Far from Heaven?  Come on now.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine adapted and original into one category, so we only have one nominee that was eligible for original screenplay (Far from Heaven), which lost to About Schmidt.  The BAFTA's split theirs, so they went with Talk to Her atop Dirty Pretty Things (which was eligible the following year for Oscar & was nominated), Gangs of New York, The Magdalene Sisters, and Y Tu Mama Tambien.  WGA gave their trophy to Bowling for Columbine (what?!?) against Antwone Fisher, Far From Heaven, Gangs of New York, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  In terms of sixth place, I'm going to guess it was a film that didn't show up anywhere as none of these other films feel in Oscar's wheelhouse, so I'd wager Punch-Drunk Love given their general proclivity for Paul Thomas Anderson.

Films I Would Have Nominated: To be fair to Oscar, there's not a lot of great options here, or at least obvious ones.  But given that they were already giving Spirited Away another trophy, they should've found more room for Hayao Miyazaki's epic in this lineup.

Oscar’s Choice: This was a close threeway race between Talk to Her, Far from Heaven, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding at the time, but Oscar wisely chose to give this to Pedro, a win that looks both surprising & prescient in retrospect.

My Choice: I will also go with Talk to Her, which is an easier film to cite specifically for writing, even though it's a close contest with Far from Heaven.  Y Tu Mama Tambien is a respectable third followed by My Big Fat Greek Wedding and then Gangs of New York.

Those are my thoughts-what about you?  Do we all align to Pedro getting this, or does someone want to advocate for another movie getting the statue?  Does anyone else remember what a big deal My Big Fat Greek Wedding was when it came out?  And does anyone have a more logical option for sixth place than Punch-Drunk Love?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2002: Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2002

Past Best Original Screenplay Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

OVP: Picture (2018)

OVP: Best Picture (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Kevin Feige, Black Panther

Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele, & Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman

Graham King, Bohemian Rhapsody

Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, & Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite

Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly, & Nick Vallelonga, Green Book

Gabriela Rodriguez & Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper, & Lynette Howell Taylor, A Star is Born

Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay, & Kevin Messick, Vice

My Thoughts: We are officially at the finish line here after tackling 19 different Oscar races, so it's time for us to round the bend.  Some housekeeping for loyal readers-we'll publish this today, head into the My Ballot (who I would've nominated in each category) tomorrow, and then we'll kickoff our new season of the series on either Sunday or Monday (we're still backlogged with years, so we aren't skipping a beat), with Best Makeup for that year (I won't spoil our next featured ceremony just yet but know we're still in the 21st Century) coming up late next week.  We'll also resume more regular blog posts (including some more elections coverage, which I know we've been slacking on) as I get back from vacation-mode throughout next week, with us resuming our regular output on November 22nd.  But for now, let's sit back & grab the popcorn, as we discuss the eight films that Oscar deemed its very best in 2018.

We'll start with the movie that is going to have the longest legacy of any of these pictures, Black Panther.  Though others before it came close (The Dark Knight) or kind of skirted the line into the genre (Birdman), Black Panther was the first traditional comic book movie to get nominated for Best Picture.  The movie is solid, one of the better outputs from Marvel.  It has a self-contained story, and the acting is good.  Ultimately while this is a landmark in terms of diversity & having our first major Black superhero, the story itself doesn't elevate enough to be a truly seismic film for me (I still prefer Captain America: Winter Soldier of the Marvel pictures), but this is special for a reason.

BlacKkKlansman is in a similar boat for me when it comes to this list.  This is a solid movie-Spike Lee does not always make movies that I love, but he's consistent & distinctive enough that I always find myself intrigued by what's onscreen.  There are moments in BlacKkKlansman where it gets ahead of itself, Lee giving us too many ideas at once, particularly in the film's first half before the central story has captured us.  But that doesn't mean that it doesn't work well, taking a sharp look not just at the racist institutions of the past but also how they have bled into the constructs of the present.

Our third colorful film title, Green Book, also deals with the subject of "race in America," but it does so in a tactless way.  Green Book is not a bad movie in a normal sense-it looks good, its story structure works...it's a feel good movie that gets from Point A to Point B without needing a layover.  Its racial politics are troubling, though, as is the way that Mahershala Ali's character is approached (both by the script, and it has to be said, the actor himself).  Green Book I maintain is the sort of movie that feels more disposable than heinous...no one would give a crap about this movie had it not been nominated for (and then won) a Best Picture Oscar.

I don't know that that's the case for Vice.  This film, one of three movies with problematic politics in this list, is attempting the biggest artistic swings of the bunch, using random Shakespearean monologues & a mid-film credits sequence to feel absurd in the face of atrocities from the Bush administration.  But here's the thing-the filmmakers don't deserve credit for standing up to these men a decade after they took & left power, and the movie forcefully rubbing the American public's noise in Dick Cheney's legacy, disregarding that a vast swath of Americans (including, in 2000, a near majority of them) turned down the administration.  This is a bad movie, and quite frankly an offensive one from a director who took the worst parts of his last picture & decided to amplify them.

Since we're already on the "films that cause heartburn" section of 2018, we might as well round out with Bohemian Rhapsody.  Obviously the politics of Bohemian Rhapsody are a giant red flag-the movie is ridiculously homophobic, and the sort of hatchet job look at one man's life that should've been in the $2 bin at Wal-Mart within three months of its release rather than a gargantuan, Oscar-winning blockbuster. But it's also just a truly terrible movie.  The editing, acting, cinematography, writing-they are all pedestrian & working in the worst kinds of cliches imaginable.  I don't get the appeal of this movie beyond its soundtrack, and if you want that...just listen to your old Queen albums?  A perplexing black mark in Oscar's track record.

It feels strange to put Bohemian Rhapsody and Roma into the same hemisphere, much less into the same category for Best Picture the movies are such polar opposites.  A personal love letter to both his childhood and to cinema, Alfonso Cuaron brings a warm approach to this film, not just with rich cinematography, but also with a story that feels full without every needing a lot of exposition.  I am someone who doesn't need a film like this to be richly-plotted, since film is a visual medium & we should embrace that, and Roma is a picture that leaves you immersed in its feelings & dialogue.

A good example of a movie whose plot gets in its way is A Star is Born.  I really liked the first 30-40 minutes of this movie.  I thought it was taking a sort of abstract approach not just to the most timeless of Hollywood tales (everyone knows how this is going to start & end), but also to the concept of these two specific celebrities, not wanting to get bogged down in the trivialities of where this is headed.  The movie falls apart for me after "Shallow," though, when Lady Gaga can't handle the weight of the acting, and the movie tries to present the tale as if it's new & fresh when it's stale (we've done this five times now, this isn't a story with a lot of curves).  As a result, this is the "good movie" of the bunch that I relegate to the bad.

Our final movie is The Favourite, a movie that while it will never have the pop culture cache of Black Panther, is probably going to have some of its staying power in arthouses.  That's what happens when you get three beloved, Oscar-winning actresses (one wasn't there when it came out, but this got her the designation) at the top-of-their-game, and then give them a script to die for.  Honestly while Roma might hit different heights in terms of cinematography that are beyond Favourite, this movie is the best traditionally-structured film of the bunch, totally original despite telling a story that's been around for hundreds of years.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here.  Drama gave its top prize to Bohemian Rhapsody (I had honestly totally blocked that out) over Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, If Beale Street Could Talk, and A Star is Born, while Musical/Comedy went with Green Book against Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, & Vice.  BAFTA went with Roma for its win, besting BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, Green Book, & A Star is Born, while the PGA went with Green Book over Black Panther, BlaKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Roma, A Star is Born, & Vice.  In terms of ninth place, I know Crazy Rich Asians got the most precursor love but considering it scored in no other Oscar categories, I would assume Beale Street or Cold War, given their respective writing & directing nominations, would have been closer.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow. 😉

Oscar’s Choice: In what was considered a slight upset at the time, Green Book bested Roma and a surging Bohemian Rhapsody to take an ill-advised Best Picture trophy.

My Choice: Roma is my winner, with The Favourite shortly after, the only two films that I genuinely loved of this lineup.  Following them would be Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, A Star is Born, Vice, and Bohemian Rhapsody, in that order.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Tomorrow we'll do the My Official Ballot, but in the meantime-are you with me on Team Roma or did you prefer the Academy's Green Book?  Do you think Crazy Rich Asians had a shot at a Best Picture nomination or was it just not Oscar's jam?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2018?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2018: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Picture Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Director (2018)

OVP: Best Director (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite

Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman

Adam McKay, Vice

Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War

My Thoughts: Well, we're going to lose a little bit of time this week on our write-ups, and I would apologize for not having new articles out, but I'm on vacation & the week ahead of vacation got away from me a little bit (a busy week of both work & outside-of-work getting prepped for my first vacation in two years).  Two years without a vacation feels like something I should just enjoy, so I'm skipping apologies.  As a result, while I will probably write an article or two while I'm on vacation (the term "vacation" for me is not really a word I can handle as I'm kind of like a shark-even when I'm relaxing I need to be doing something), we'll play the next week by ear other than for sure you'll get my Saturdays with the Stars, as I've never missed one of those (and the next two weeks are already written anyway).  With that preamble, let's discuss Best Director.

It's kind of hard to grasp that this was Spike Lee's first nomination for Best Director.  Let that sink in for a second-it took until 2018 for Spike Lee to be nominated for Best Director at the Oscars.  But it's exciting that Lee's first nomination for Best Director came for a film that feels like a proper "Spike Lee Joint."  BlacKkKlansman has a raw energy to it, one that is willing to take the audience on a journey & I loved some of the provocative imagery, particularly as Lee knowingly counters the Klan meetings with the obvious modern corollaries).  I will say that there were times that Lee's direction, particularly in the first hour feels ill-served, slightly too chaotic as we're settling into the story, but Lee had earned several Oscar nominations by the time this one came about, so I'm not going to quarrel too hard with his inclusion here.

Alfonso Cuaron might be the modern filmmaker I genuinely admire the most, or whose films I consistently adore the most.  Roma is no exception to that, but it's also a film that feels so personal that there was a risk that Cuaron wouldn't make it something that we'd be able to connect with.  Cerebral films can be a challenge, sometimes becoming just "pretty pictures on the screen."  However, Cuaron takes a step back & ensures that this film feels universal not in its message, but in the hazy way that our childhoods become idealized, almost abstract constructs of what we remember.  Roma is a singular vision from start-to-finish, absorbing & challenging but never without purpose.

Cold War can claim a similar path.  Shot by genius Pawel Pawlikowski, this is the one film that won't be returning in the Best Picture field, but what an inspired choice for Oscar to nominate it here.  Pawlikowski's trick is making his short, fleeting movie feel like a bit of a cheat, the way that wrong decisions can cost people years of happiness, and the way that our tendencies to try the easier or faster way out oftentimes get in our way.  Shot in stark black-and-white, Pawlikowski never relents with his camera, but still makes the film feel smoky, romantic, & tragic.

Yorgos Lanthimos' movies have progressively grown on me.  I hated Dogtooth, quite liked The Lobster, was concerned about The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and officially fell in love with The Favourite.  The movie's genius comes from its writing & acting, so it's nice to see that even though it was getting third billing, the direction got a nod here as well.  The movie's pacing is crisp (a comedy, even a black comedy, needs that), and I also think Lanthimos is right to take a slight detour away from his typical style of "totally detached" by putting some genuine emotional stakes here (you learn to care about two of these women in a way you don't the third, unlike some of his other films where you kind of assumed everyone is doomed).  This investment pays off as the movie's jaw-dropping finale is reached.

Our final nominee is Adam McKay.  I didn't mind McKay's previous film, The Big Short, even if it wears badly in the memory as a result of Vice.  Vice takes all of the worst parts of The Big Short (the fourth-wall breaking, the clumsy story structure), and turns it up to eleven.  I think modern filmmaking sometimes confuses provocative with quality, but that's not the case.  In the same way that you can made a traditional film and make it genius, films that feel outside-the-norm if they include characters that don't feel consistent or random asides that totally take you out of the picture aren't automatically brilliant...just because it's new doesn't make it good, and Vice's kitchen sink approach to filmmaking feels lazy & like a bad episode of Family Guy more than a true movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Alfonso Cuaron, over Lee, McKay, Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born), and Peter Farrelly (Green Book).  BAFTA went with Cuaron as their winner as well, sticking to the Academy's lineup with the exception of McKay being bumped for Cooper.  And the DGA likewise picked Cuaron, with the exact same lineup as the Golden Globes.  All of this is to say that in terms of sixth place...I have no idea.  Looking at my predictions at the time I actually guessed Lanthimos & didn't go with Farrelly, and I do think that's the right play in retrospect...but Farrelly winning for writing & Green Book taking Best Picture does make you wonder in retrospect if Cooper was somehow in seventh place despite dominating the whole season.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'm going to make a point of doing the My Ballot within the next week, so you'll see later this week who I would've put here & I'm not going to spoil the surprise.  Suffice it to say, Adam McKay will not be in the running.
Oscar's Choice: Cuaron joins George Stevens (and I believe that's it) as one of only two directors to win multiple Best Director trophies but never have a film (to date) win Best Picture.

My Choice: I am going to go against-the-grain here and go with Pawlikowski over Cuaron.  Cuaron has the most obvious choice, but Pawlikowski's film so easily could falter in a way that I think Cuaron's never could, and so by the slimmest of margins I'll give it to Cold War (OVP spoiler alert: both will make My Ballot).  Lanthimos, Lee, & McKay follow.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Is everyone still on Team Alfonso or does someone want to come over to join me with Cold War?  Since he has two Oscars now, will there still be pressure to give Spike Lee a third trophy at some point for Best Director?  And was it Farrelly or Cooper who was just out-of-reach in sixth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2018: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Director Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Original Screenplay (2018)

  OVP: Best Original Screenplay (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Deborah Davis & Tony McNamara, The Favourite

Paul Schrader, First Reformed

Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, & Peter Farrelly, Green Book

Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Adam McKay, Vice

My Thoughts: We weirdly have under-discussed a few of the major contenders for Best Picture in 2018. Though some (Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born, Roma) were featured in a number of the technical categories, Green Book and Vice, two of the principle competitors for the top prize, ended up with only a smattering of conversation, and as a result we're going to start with these two films today, both of whom are going to dominate the final four weeks of our articles about Oscar's 2018 race before we get to their ultimate showdown.

Green Book is a conundrum, because on its surface (from a purely aesthetic position) it's not a bad movie.  The film is handsomely-made, it has watchable actors, it's not overly long and the script (within the confines of its own world) makes structural sense.  It's just a film that only worked forty years ago.  Green Book is what Republicans publicly profess they want conversations about race to be-simple, inelegant, and devoid of any substance.  The movie literally has the gaul to have a white man try to teach cultural stereotypes to a black man, and play it for comedy, and it has a huge second act struggle when they make one of the main characters gay...and does nothing with this turn.  It's the sort of movie that would've been discussed but ultimately forgotten were it not also the winner of the Best Picture Oscar, therefore living eternally in infamy as one of Oscar's worst choices.

That being said, I'd take Green Book over Vice in the writing department, if only because Green Book's plot makes sense.  Vice is a jumbled mess of a movie, absolutely pivoting from fourth well exposition to lazy narration without any consistency.  Green Book is a problematic movie, Vice is a bad one, though its coarse, "shame on you, not on me" style politics is also leaning toward the reprehensible. Think of the film's final moments, where a fictional Dick Cheney chastises the audience for allowing him to happen (which is rich coming from the guy who spent that era making Anchorman and Step Brothers, hardly the kind of social issue films that were going to change America's minds).  Vice is gross, a series of bad impulses from a guy who won an Oscar & suddenly thought all of his ideas were genius.

Paul Schrader, the man behind Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, & Affliction had somehow never been cited for an Oscar until 2018, when he was nominated for First Reformed.  First Reformed bears a lot of the hallmarks of Schrader's previous work: bleak, unbending, ruthlessly political while never relenting.  It's not a film to be loved, and it's occasionally a hard film to watch.  But that doesn't negate the power of his writing, and the way that he embodies the struggles individuals have with global problems (whether they be climate change, like in First Reformed, or more recently things like the pandemic or the rise of authoritarianism in the United States).  There is a level of truth in First Reformed that will make you squirm, but great film isn't always comforting, and Schrader more than anyone knows this.

The Favourite is a much easier sit, even if there's no lack of cringe within its celluloid.  All of Yorgos Lanthimos' films are brimming with shock & story, but The Favourite is my, well, favorite of his pictures precisely because of the dialogue.  The lines that are uttered by Stone, Weisz, & Colman (and what the hell, Nicolas Hoult too) are delicious-a game of cat-and-mouse while the rest of the world can simply watch from the sidelines, all of their fates made by these women.  Using a splash of modernity to keep the absurdity alive in even the darkest chapters of the movie, Davis & McNamara quickly world-build a strange, cloistered universe where only one woman can possibly come out on top (even if no one will truly win).

Roma is our final nominee, and it's a strange choice for a nomination.  No one thinks "Roma" and goes "what a great script"-the cinematography, sound, art direction...this is where Roma's calling cards lie.  But mood & ambience are things that you need a dedicated screenwriter to capture.  Roma is the story of two worlds colliding, two women's lives changing dramatically & the way that each one is allowed to handle such a situation.  That Cuaron tells that story not just through mood, but is able to convey it in his story without that plot getting lost is impressive.  No, the script in Roma is not the headliner of the picture, but that doesn't mean the script itself isn't an achievement.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine adapted and original into one category, though they almost could've skipped it here as all-but-one of the nominees was an original title, including the winning Green Book and the three losers (Roma, The Favourite, & Vice).  BAFTA splits the two categories, and went for a near carbon copy of the Oscar list, skipping only First Reformed in favor of Cold War, and giving the trophy to The Favourite.  The WGA went completely on its own, preferring Eighth Grade as its winner, and alongside Green Book, Roma, & Vice is A Quiet Place.  In terms of sixth place, I'm going to assume it was Eighth Grade, and considering Bo Burnham's level of future celebrity, this is a near-miss that's going to age poorly.  It's easier to believe it was Eighth Grade than Peter Morgan's atrocious treatment of Bohemian Rhapsody getting that fifth slot instead (though that's plausible).

Films I Would Have Nominated: We are not that far away from the My Ballot lists, so I'm not going to give away all of my cards here, but I'll just say that most (but not all) of these would disappear for me (this lineup is not representative of how good original screenplay was in 2018), and to name-check at least one picture, it's a damned shame that Oscar has no real taste when it comes to horror as Hereditary by Ari Aster would've been such a worthy inclusion in this lineup.

Oscar’s Choice: Showing that it would soon go down as one of Oscar's worst choices, Green Book takes the prize that would be its ticket to Best Picture (over Vice).

My Choice: The Favourite is everything a great screenplay should be, and it is my winner.  Behind it I'll go Roma slightly over First Reformed, with Green Book and Vice following.

Those are my thoughts-what about you?  I feel like my corner is going to be more popular here, but are you with the regal ladies of The Favourite or does someone want to cheerlead for Green Book?  Why did it take Paul Schrader so long to get an Oscar nomination (and for a film that was cited nowhere else)?  And how long before Bo Burnham joins him in that club?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2018: Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Original Screenplay Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Cinematography (2018)

 OVP: Best Cinematography (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Lukasz Zal, Cold War

Robbie Ryan, The Favourite

Caleb Deschanel, Never Look Away

Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Matthew Libatique, A Star is Born

My Thoughts: It is not unusual to have non-English films in the Cinematography category.  Of all of the craft branches, historically this is the easiest category to take on an international motif (for the Academy).  That being said, this might be the first (and only?) time that a tech category went with a majority of movies not in English.  This was driven by a truly shocking Oscar morning nomination, which in retrospect shouldn't have been shocking at all.  In recent years the Cinematography branch had success with shoveling enough Roger Deakins films at the larger voting body that Deakins finally won in 2017-just one year later, they seemed to have picked their next candidate for such treatment with the long-nominated, never-winning Caleb Deschanel.  We'll start with him today.

I will admit up-front that I am in the minority among at least "very online" film fans that genuinely enjoyed the (long) Never Look Away.  The story of one life told compellingly is an Academy mainstay, but it's one that I'm more immune to, but this one struck me as the rare 3-hour film that justifies its runtime.  Deschanel's camerawork toes the line between conventional and artistic, on occasion giving us glorious work trying to pay homage to Gerard Richter (like the grand reveal of all of the photorealist paintings), but honestly (and I mean this as a genuine compliment), the best part of Never Look Away's cinematography are the sex scenes.  Deschanel seems utterly fascinated with the flawless posteriors of the two lead actors, and is lighting them in a way that, is well, genuinely hot.  Considering the dearth of eroticism in modern cinema, I'm going to let this slightly pervy nomination slide, but let's not forget that Deschanel is getting this recognition largely because his camera was so focused on butts in Never Look Away.  Tina Belcher would be proud.

Roma also has some key scenes focusing on nudity, but it's not really what you recall from the film.  Cuaron's camera is really focused on making every shot look glorious, an absolute ode to cinema itself.  Somehow combining Ingmar Bergman with Fellini, Roma's camera captures the shifting tides of the world at-large, the pooling water on a garage floor to a panning shot of a department store as it's overrun by armed men.  Roma is not a movie with a large central plot, but more about getting the feeling of a life, and that's happening specifically through the camera-every frame of this movie feels like it was chosen specifically for that moment, and for a movie that is a mood picture, nothing ever feels extra or out-of-place.  That's a combination of fine editing & also daring camerawork, and so of course this was nominated (and won) this prize.

Cold War, like Roma, is shot in black-and-white (a crutch for this branch), but both films are more than just pretty B&W pictures.  They also say something through their camera's.  In Cold War, it's more about the passage-of-time.  Look at the way the camera lingers on our two young lovers, both at odds & making bad decisions for their own happiness, and the way it seems to almost pull back, robbing them of the life they'd have in a different situation.  I think Cold War's genius is that it knows that life is not just about regret, but choices you can't undo.  Zal shows that in the spareness of his camera, knowing to keep certain aspects of the picture at a distance because it will slip through our fingers.

There were two films in English in this category, both movies cited for Best Picture & Actress that otherwise could not have less in common.  The Favourite is the kind of movie that gets someone their first nomination mostly because they're realizing the vision of a distinctive director (who is breaking through with Oscar).  This is not to insult Ryan, whose camera is playful & adept in The Favourite.  I particularly liked how he used the clouded English sky as a backdrop to the clearest-headed moments in the script itself.  But I don't think this is using cinematography as a central stage the way that Roma and Cold War do, and I wonder if this might be as close as we got in this category to a "coattails" nomination.

A Star is Born, as we progress in the coming weeks, is going to be a frustrating experience for you, dear reader, if this was one of your favorite films of 2018.  Similar to La La Land when we did 2016, this is a movie I wish I liked but did not.  But also similar to La La Land, I am not blind to the film's strengths, one of which is its delicious camerawork.  A Star is Born, especially in its first half, is a beautiful movie, playing with natural light and authentic fake light (i.e. the way that the glow of a concert lights feels overwhelming), and I adored the movie's clear homages to past A Star is Born iterations, particularly the 1954 version in the way some of the nightclub scenes are shot.  Like most things with the movie, the film's second half doesn't have as much to lend itself as the rest, but this is a minor complaint-the music & cinematography are by-far my favorite parts of this picture.

Other Precursor Contenders: The American Society of Cinematographers goes with just five nominations and it's generally the classiest of all of the tech precursors.  Here we have Cold War taking the trophy over A Star is Born, First Man, The Favourite, and Roma (I wonder if the reason they didn't go with Roma is that generally the ASC/Cinematography branch has been reluctant to director-cinematographer hyphenates).  Roma did take the BAFTA, however, over Bohemian Rhapsody, Cold War, The Favourite, and First Man.  In terms of sixth place, let's pretend it was First Man because I actually think it was Bohemian Rhapsody, which would have been just a gigantic car wreck of a nomination (for the record, I predicted If Beale Street Could Talk at the time, but it totally bombed with Oscar so I doubt it was close in retrospect).

Films I Would Have Nominated: I'll be up-front, this is a good lineup.  Oscar resisted doing something heinous like nominate Bohemian Rhapsody, and as a result you get five thumbs ups here.  That being said, I'd have for sure thrown First Man in this group, as it has a distinctive style & I don't think that's just the special effects talking.
Oscar's Choice: Cuaron probably couldn't have won based solely on the cinematography branch's help, but lucky for him the entire Academy voters here, and so he beats out Cold War.

My Choice: I'm going to give it to Cuaron as well, just slightly over Zal, both of which proved that black-and-white cinematography can take on many moods, but be gorgeous in both cases.  Behind them would be A Star is Born, followed by The Favourite and Never Look Away.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Is everyone still behind Roma (the consensus favorite in 2018), or does someone want to strike out on their own?  Is this the only tech category with a majority non-English films?  And was it First Man or Bohemian Rhapsody nipping at this category's heels?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2018: Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Cinematography Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Adapted Screenplay (2006)

 OVP: Best Adapted Screenplay (2006)

The Nominees Were...

Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer, & Todd Phillips, Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, & Hawk Ostby, Children of Men

William Monahan, The Departed

Todd Field & Tom Perrotta, Little Children

Patrick Marber, Notes on a Scandal

My Thoughts: As I said yesterday, we are quickly entering into the final stages of the 2006 races, and with that the writing categories this week.  The 2006 Oscars was one of the final ceremonies that didn't expand the Best Picture field, and as a result we only have one Oscar nominee here.  The bigger question, though, is how many of these films would have actually been nominated for Best Picture even in an expanded field.  After all, all of these despite some clear billboards indicating they were possibilities (critical acclaim, pop culture zeitgeist, multiple acting nominations), have some debits as well that might have hurt even in an expanded race.  Let's get into these movies & their near misses with Oscar, but first, let's go with the picture at the top of Oscar's wish list in 2006: The Departed.

The movies of Martin Scorsese don't immediately invite in the script as the clear star, which is weird because Marty's movies have a lot of great dialogue ("You talking to me?" and "Do I amuse you?" being toward the top of the pantheon of iconic movie quotes).  The Departed, though, it's easy to see the appeal for Oscar.  Obviously it's a gargantuan story about two different houses, two different men of varied social situations who are thrown together through corruption and a blurred line-of-justice.  The dialogue, though, is spectacular (Mark Wahlberg owes a lot of his Oscar nomination to William Monahan), and while it might be a tad too symmetrical toward the end, that's a small quibble to make for a great picture.

Little Children is also a movie that is trying for the Shakespearean, but it doesn't reach the heights of The Departed.  Nearly forgotten fifteen years after the fact, the movie's plotting is solid (it's about two adults having an ill-advised affair, perhaps as a form of midlife crisis), and it handles the strange side story surrounding Jackie Earle Haley's Ronnie with an interesting amount of tact.  This is a very smart film, with solid, almost ethereal dialogue from Winslet giving her peak "earth goddess" performance (this was what she was best-known for at the time to audiences).  It's just a tad bit too long, and the film itself never quite gets to the places that Todd Field seems to have taken the (better) In the Bedroom.  Still solid though.

Notes on a Scandal is not the boldest film in this bunch (it's coming, don't worry), but it is the movie that maybe plays the most with our expectations.  Judi Dench as an aging teacher feels like she'll be a wizened mentor for Cate Blanchett at a crossroads, but as the movie progresses we find that she's got a bit of the devil in her.  I have complicated feelings about this film, which I think is far too campy to work properly (and I think Blanchett's performance is shooting for the rafters), so I don't gravitate toward the movie all that much even if I get there's some genius afoot in Dench's work.  That said, the script is too shock-and-awe and over-the-top for me to properly latch into what it's doing.

Children of Men is a risky film for a script.  There are easy things to criticize (it feels too recent, too smart, too detached), but as the movie continues all of this falls by the wayside.  The plotting is superb, giving us a deliberate move toward the end-of-the-world from our main character Theo, and it spends enough time giving us background on the world at-large for us to recognize ourselves in the characters we're seeing.  The monologues are breathtaking (think of Pam Ferris's "funny, what happens to a world without children's laughter"), and the twists & ending are brilliantly-executed.  Children of Men completely adapts its book in a way that feels at-home on the big-screen.

Which brings us to Borat.  I hated this movie the first time I saw it, and upon revisiting the series with Borat 2, I didn't change my mind even as the film starts to become more-and-more rehearsed.  The problem I have with this is that I don't find it funny-I don't get the appeal of a millionaire mocking poor people, even if those poor people's belief systems are anathema to me.  This feels like a cruel joke, one that doesn't have enough social commentary behind it (this isn't Michael Moore, where it's obvious who the actual enemies are, and they aren't the huddled elites but instead the power-brokers who exploit them).  As a consequence, I can't get behind this screenplay at all-it feels wrong, and I'm not onboard.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine their writing categories so there is no adapted or original distinction, and thus we have three adapted nominees in their five choices: The Departed, Notes on a Scandal, and Little Children (all three would miss & lose to The Queen).  The BAFTA's do differentiate, but they went entirely different than Oscar, only keeping around The Departed and Notes on a Scandal, with Casino Royale, The Devil Wears Prada, and the victorious The Last King of Scotland the remaining contenders.  The WGA gave its trophy to The Departed, and substituted out Notes on a Scandal and Children of Men from Oscar's lineup in favor of The Devil Wears Prada and Thank You for Smoking.  I'm going to do something atypical here and not pick any of these as my sixth place posit (despite Last King and Prada making some sense)-I think it was Letters from Iwo Jima, which was a Best Picture nominee and was based on the memoirs of a Japanese general.

Films I Would Have Nominated: There aren't a lot of great choices here (honestly, the films of 2006 are not really "writerly" pictures).  But I would definitely have put in A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman's final movie and one that has a wonderful series of quips, dialogues, & insights (as all of Altman's movies do).  I know this is considered a pretty light film in his filmography, but I've always been partial and it would've made my cut.

Oscar's Choice: The Departed by a country mile-I honestly don't know what might have even been an option for second place (Borat?).

My Choice: I'm going with Children of Men, which towers above pretty much every other option in 2006, even a film as good as The Departed, my silver place.  Behind them I'll do Little Children, Notes on a Scandal, and Borat.

Those are my thoughts-what about you?  Are you with me over with Children of Men or are you sticking with the Academy's preferred The Departed?  Why do you think that Borat has had such staying power in the culture that it literally got a 14-years-delayed sequel (that also scored with Oscar)?  And do you agree with my theory that Letters from Iwo Jima was the near miss?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2006: Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006

Past Best Adapted Screenplay Contests: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019