127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
I guess I have to buckle down and face facts: True Grit is a true blue contender. Not that I hated the movie, I'm just surprised. I really didn't think it was going to go anywhere besides screenplay and cinematography, and yet here we are, one PGA and two SAG noms later.
Now, the surprise for me was seeing 127 Hours instead of Winter's Bone. I thought the first would be more vulnerable, but I guess not. Now, is this slate going to repeat itself at the Oscars? Probably, actually. That's fine by me: 127 Hours made it to my Top 25, after all. I'd rather see Winter's Bone in there than The Town, though.
Ok, now the WGA always manages to toss in a surprise or two, especially considering how films like The King's Speech and Winter's Bone were deemed ineligible due to Guild membership requirements and whatnot.
Original
Black Swan - Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin, story by Heinz
The Fighter - Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson, story by Keith Dorrington & Tamasy & Johnson
Inception - Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
Please Give - Nicole Holofcener
Adapted
127 Hours - Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy, from Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston
I Love You Phillip Morris - John Requa & Glenn Ficarra, from the book by Steven McVicker
The Social Network - Aaron Sorkin, from The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich
The Town - Peter Craig and Ben Affleck & Aaron Stoddard, from Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan
True Grit - Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, from the novel by Charles Portis
I mean, those inclusions for Please Give and I Love You Phillip Morris are quite the how-do, don't you think? Actually, the latter has thrown off my game, making it the only nominee here that I haven't seen. Which means that I've got to find a way to get to Boca if I want to keep things consistent. I believe there's a separate animation branch, too, which explains the absence of Toy Story 3 from the adapted list; it worries me not.
I just want to point out this: this is the second career nomination for Ben Affleck by the WGA, and he's about to get a second person an acting Oscar nom. Maybe Affleck was the brains behind Good Will Hunting after all? Because according to every spoof show I watch, there's no way Affleck and Damon could be equally talented!
3 comments:
Ooh! Please Give! Now that's a surprise I could get behind.
Your post inspired me to do more reading...
Until this year I was not aware of the rules governing the Writers Guild Awards. Some top-notch work was left out because of these by-laws. Oh well, I suppose any guild, union, or other closed group, can operate however it pleases. It's too bad they fail to make clear that they are not representative of all the work that was done this year.
Do you think the exact same "True Grit", with anyone but the Coen Brothers' names in the credits, would have received another look? Big names still wow voters more than originality, apparently...
The country club machinations of the WGA Awards are disappointing and dishonest. I think it's impossible to name a "best of" when you disqualify half the year's output because they belong to the "wrong" club.
I do think True Grit would've gotten in either way, though. People LOVE that movie.
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