The WGA will announce some time tomorrow. And the Scripter too.
The following scripts are ineligible: The Artist, Shame, Martha Macy, Albert Nobbs, Drive, Margin Call, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Iron Lady and My Week with Marilyn all ineligible. That happens every year and it is the main reason you don’t have a perfect match-up with Oscar. At any rate, my predictions – Ryan will add his a bit later – Kris Tapley’s are here.
Original
Midnight in Paris
50/50
Bridesmaids
Rampart (just gonna go for it)
Super 8
Alt. Tree of Life, Young Adult
Adapted:
The Descendants
Moneyball
The Help
Hugo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Alt: The Ides of March, War Horse
Please add yours here if you feel like – we’re not running a contest.
Scripter Predictions:
Hugo
The Descendants
The Help
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
War Horse
So Cotillard winning is political? Or they had something against Julie Christie? Every year is different. Washington won because Crowe was a badboy? Or thet simply thought Washington was better that year? You can not prove it, you can only speculate. I do agree with their voting for Danzel over Russel though, so that makes me wrong? It is matter of personal opinions.
There is no logic if you can’t see grasp the notion of matter of opinion. Who says Brokeback Moutain or The Social Network had to win? I also disagree with their choices very often, but it does not bother me to a point that I have to justify their action by saying those films were “snubbed” or even “omitted”. I disagreeed with those choices they made, and I moved on. It is all about their opinion.
Yes. We are allowed to think or say what we want or what we think, but I think it is just counter productive sometimes to blame AMPAS if they disagree with us. We make it into a race, and an Olympic game. The trick is really like what Sasha has been saying for years, not minding.
It is the industry’s choice, not ours.
Liz Taylor got her first oscar because she almost died. John Wayne for being John Wayne. If Meryl wins this year, will it be because her work in IL was better than Doubt, Out of Africa, Silkwood, etc? No. The selection is subjective, but the logic behind it is not.
AHH – the lights just came on – the problem is with the word “snub”. Sometimes deliberate, more often, not. OK – “omission” is kinder, not as judgemental. But it is still a necessary reaction for the good of the industry in the long term.
Whether the selection of a winner is political or not is also subjective.
True – I think we’re saying the same thing, from different angles. We all judge based on personal taste – neither “right” nor “wrong”. My point is, that by making the “snub” outcry, we’re calling attention to something that was missed and should be remembered.
It’s not the criticism of the oscars that matters – they care what I think about as much as I care what they think. Any democratic vote is a subjective snapshot in time reflecting tastes and moods of a particular group (not right or wrong, just “is”)
Serious film buffs are not at the top of the food chain for current box office business, but we do serve a purpose to the industry, and our calling out, writing down or recording in some way what we consider a “snub” is one way of preserving forgotten fare.
Steve 50. You are missing the point. It all boils down to personal tastes. Whether it is political or not, voters at large are entitled to their opinons. The notion of “the best” is subjective. That is why different groups sometimes have different winners. Sometimes they come to a consensus, sometimes they don’ t. They don’t care whether you like it or not, nor they should care. You obviously can not accept it is only their opinion. If they select the film you like, they made the right choice, if not, they got it wrong, and it is a disgrace,right? There is no right or wrong choice, if one tries to blame the Oscars just because their tastes differ from his, that will be the evidence of not being able to handle different opinions,period. We can only agree or disagree.
Original:
Bridesmaids
50/50
Midnight in Paris
Tree of Life
The Artist
Alt. Young Adult
Adapted:
The Descendants
Moneyball
Girl/Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
Alt. Drive, Harry Potter
Documentary writing predix:
Buck
Bill Cunningham New York
The Interrupters
Pina
Project Nim
“You can’t say AMPAS voters got it wrong or right just because your favorite film did not get nominated or win awards”
Yes, you can. The purpose on this Oscar exercise is to promote the industry by rewarding the “best” with some added exposure and to create an archive of the “best” for that particular year. When something is rewarded for business or political reasons, that reasoning is forgotten in about 10 years, leaving later generations of aficionados scratching their heads. And this is usually the case – we end up with a flavour of the moment that serves as a social snapshot of tastes at a given moment.
The SNUB list starts out large and erodes down over time to contain another archive of truly brilliant achievements. It is this list, not the Oscar list, that experts, film makers and students harvest from when studying the art form. I’ll wager that anyone who is serious about movies has more favourites on the “snub” list than on the Ampas nominee/winner list. While it appears to work at cross purposes with Oscar, it actually enhances the exercise and serves a vital role in promoting and preserving the industry.
My Predix:
Best Original Screenplay
Bridesmaids — Kristen Wiig; Annie Mumolo
Margaret — Kenneth Lonergan
Midnight in Paris — Woody Allen
The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick
Win Win — Tom McCarthy; Joe Tiboni
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Descendants — Alexander Payne; Nat Paxon; Jim Rash
The Help — Tate Taylor
Hugo — John Logan
Moneyball — Steve Zaillian; Aaron Sorkin; Stan Chervin
War Horse — Lee Hall; Richard Curtis
Original SP: Hope I’m wrong with Bridesmaids. Midnight in Paris is amusing but as far as the writing goes, it’s not among Woody’s best. I’m really praying that they recognize The Tree of Life’s 10-page screenplay. Margaret and Win Win are my NGNGs.
For adapted SP, I think those 5 are just quite right.
OCO. Do you really think Harry Potter is going to be nominated for WGA?
You have to take the buzz, the momentum, the voters’ preference and tastes into account. It is not going to happen, I am afraid. As to whether it deserves a best picture nomination, I would say no. It is good for what it is, and it is the last chapter of Harry Potter series. The Academy has never nominated Harry Potter for major categories, they won’t just award this film because it’s got rave reviews from critics. Mission Impossible 4 also got rave reviews, but do you think it’s got a good shot for best picture as well? You gotta be realistic.
Best Original Screenplay
Midnight in Paris
50/50
Bridesmaids
Win/Win
The Tree of Life
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Descendants
Moneyball
Hugo
The Help
The Ides of March
USC Scripter Nominees
Hugo
The Descendants
The Help
Moneyball
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Original
Midnight in Paris
50/50
Bridesmaids
Tree of Life
Win Win
Alt. Young Adult, Rampart
NGNG: Super 8
Adapted:
The Descendants
Moneyball
The Help
Hugo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Alt: The Ides of March, War Horse
NGNG: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2
Scripter:
Hugo
The Descendants
The Help
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Moneyball
Alt: War Horse
NGNG: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Bridesmaids
50/50
Midnight in Paris
The Tree of Life
Young Adult
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Help
Moneyball
The Descendants
I think the term “snubbed” is an euphemism for Oscar bloggers or movie fans’ inability to accept the notion of “matter of opinion”. There is no right or wrong. You can’t say AMPAS voters got it wrong or right just because your favorite film did not get nominated or win awards. The voters are like you and me, they have their subjective opinions. I am just tired of seeing this term “SNUBBED”. I do feel a bit disappointed about Drive not getting a nod at PGA, but it wasn’t snubbed, the PGA voters just didn’t vote for it. It is not about being right or wrong. There are no right or wrong opinions about movies.
Original:
-Midnight in Paris
-Bridesmaids
-50/50
-The Tree of Life
-Margin Call
Adapted:
-The Descendants
-Moneyball
-The Help
-The Ides of March
-Hugo
@castle well at least it made over a billion dollars, to me or everyone else that’s either a miracle or strange
with all those snubs that it has got… I dont think so.. and it doesnt deserve it the movie is not well directed. And they made the same mistakes
@Paddy and @Ryan: OK, phew, thanks. It’s just that sometimes I hear a lot of love for The Help, but I could definitely be missing things (I don’t read everything). Thanks for your responses. Also, are you two contributors to this blog? Why are your names in red?
@Castle: if I’ve learned one thing, the people that comment a lot on this site clearly LOVE the Harry Potter films, while relying on the same pieces of evidence over and over again (OMG Metacritic 300% rating LOL …sorry, that was mean). So, be careful about your HP8 criticism. But I’ve learned over the past few days that the calmer and better minds are able to not engage the fanboys/girls about this.
And you are right, it’s not that good of a movie.
Also, are you two contributors to this blog? Why are your names in red?
I’m fortunate to be Sasha’s little helper.
Anyone can have his (or her) name in red by linking to his (or her) blog or twitter profile in the “Website” URL slot of the comment composition box.
(it makes your name a clickable link)
Original:
Midnight in Paris
Tree of Life
Bridesmaids
The Artist
Shame
NGNG: J Edgar
Adapted:
Hugo
War Horse
Moneyball
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
NGNG: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Scripter: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Castle…be very careful whom you address in this website…you might have a beginning but there will be no guarantee of an ending! 🙂
Not really, they lost all the posibilities that every fan thought it had. The movie was not so good, and everyone know it. That is the reason goldenglobes, sag, PGA. Crsitc choices, etc… have snubbed thet movie
I’m only certain about 2 films
Original
Bridesmaids
Adapted
Ides Of March
Scripter
Ides Of March
This is just yet another guild that will pick these two films instead of movies that are far superior to them.
@castle well besides those critic awards, do you think Harry Potter 8 deserves to be nominated for Best Picture?
Thanks Ryan.
oh OCO300 you cannot understand yet, Hugo won National board review, not harry Potter. They inculed it to the top 10 as they incluided others movies that didnt get any nominations before.
dont look for excuses for justifing those snubbed in awards. Gladiato was released in summer and won. So… there are not probabilities. That is the truth.. It got good reviews, that is it. As mission impossible
Original
Midnight in Paris
50/50
Bridesmaids
Tree of Life
Super 8
Adapted:
The Descendants
Moneyball
The Help
Hugo
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Why not, I mean how was it overlooked by not only those critic wards/BFCA/The Academy, however it wasn’t overlooked publicly. ALso why was it snubbed at every critic awards…was it because it was released during the summer, was it a sequel, cause it made over a billion dollars, it had kids/teens/and young adults or because it’s a british film?
Now does everyone think this movie doesn’t deserve to be nominated for Best Picture? Well let’s see not counting being dissed by those critic awards….it’s not only good financially but critically, I mean why was it recognized by only the The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures? And why was HP:DH 2 was opened to positive reviews and is among the best reviewed films of 2011? One more thing was it considered the worst movie of the year and when it was reviewed by alot of movie critics do you all think they lied about what they said about this movie?
WGA Original
50/50
Win/Win
Bridesmaids
Young Adult
Midnight in Paris
Alt. Beginners
WGA Adapted
Hugo
The Help
Moneyball
The Descendants
The Ides of March
Alt. War Horse (Yah, prob the worst Oscar script of the year, but they had no trouble nominating Avatar…)
Scripter
Drive
The Help
The Descendants
The Ides of March
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
(Is Drive eligible at the USC scripters??)
@Yashar: I believe J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call will get an Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay.
Ryan, do I just click on the FYC banners to get to the FYC site? Are the PDFs for VIPs only? is the Tree of Life script out there anywhere?
I’ll see if I can find you some links, Nate.
they’re usually open for downloading to anybody who finds them
Nate, here’s a page:
http://www.simplyscripts.com/oscar84.html
google “FYC 2011 screenplays” from time to time and I’ll bet more will turn up.
What nominating method does the Writers Guild: traditional, weighted list or preferential? Makes a difference in the outcome.
Hall and Curtis notwithstanding, I feel like the Adapted category is really full this this year and the thing that sets War Horse apart is that it was a Huge Tony winning play. Making the horse appear to emote, I think is more directing and editing that writing and I think it’s inevitable that adapted works are compared to their sources. And I think that War Horse as a stage play is more impressive than as a film epic. That might not affect it’s voting, but it also might.
I totally agree about Moneyball, it’s a really good script and fortunately there isn’t much overlap between the Academy/WGA and the MLB.
Oh, and of course the close-to-frontrunner status of Moneyball might have something to do with the fact that it IS one of the very best screenplays in 2011. I’m just saying that the big ‘names’ definitely help its case.
Whether people like the War Horse-script or not, I think it will get in because of the screenwriters. When the producers hire Lee Hall (Oscar nomination in original for ‘Billy Elliot’) AND Richard Curtis (Oscar nomination in original for ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral + he wrote a bunch of huge British-hits), they are clearly trying to buy the kind of prestige/industry support, that makes – for example – scoring a WGA-nod, relatively easy.
Just like the close-to-frontrunner status of the Moneyball-script (from the Academy Award-winning screenwriters Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) AND Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List)) is probably not a coincidence, either.
The only reason I think ‘Dragon Tattoo’ MIGHT not get in, because Zaillian already has a slot with Moneyball, and double nominations are always tricky.
Interesting fact : Sorkin won an Oscar for a Fincher-film and now worked with Zaillian who scripted the NEXT Fincher-film, and their collaboration might just knock out the script (by Zaillian) of this year’s Fincher movie AND could also knock out Spielberg’s film, although Zaillian won an Oscar for a Spielberg-film…oh, the connections, the connections 🙂
That’s interesting.
It’s really sad that films like War Horse and The Help are like locks even though they both have really bad scripts while stuff like Tinker Tailor, Margin Call and MMMM can’t even compete because of stupid rules…
Just saw Shame and The Artist the past two days and it really is too bad that neither of those are eligible for the WGA. I’d love to see the script for The Artist, and I think it has a solid chance at Original Screenplay Oscar. Of the eligible films I think Midnight in Paris will win Original for the WGA. Woody is a better writer than anything else and he’s quite good at some other things. Adapted is a little easier, Moneyball will probably win, I’d put the Descendants at a close second.
Original:
Midnight in Paris
Tree of Life
Bridesmaids
Contagion
50/50
Adapted:
Moneyball
The Descendants
Hugo
TGWTDT
The Help
Maybe the Ides of March, might sneak in if the WGA doesn’t like Fincher’s Girl. I wouldn’t say War Horse really has a shot, because it seems to me that sometimes a film is rewarded with an adapted screenplay nomination because of the perceived difficulty in adapting the work for the screen. With War Horse maybe that works in reverse because it seems to me that, as a story, it would be much easier to tell on film than on stage. Does that make sense to anybody?
Also I have a question about what voters are supposed to consider when voting on screenplays, this question might be even more appropriate for scores but it works for screenplays as well. Do the writers ever go look at the screenplay in it’s unfilmed form? Obviously things like Cinematography can’t be ‘seen’ outside the context of the film itself, but screenplays exist as artifacts independent of the films they are translated of. Would a typical (or atypical) WGA member see a movie and then go hunt down the script to better inform his/her vote? Could she/he even read a script, possibly even a year or two earlier, never manage to see the final product and yet still consider that screenplay for their vote? Do they theoretically want to rely solely on what they can see of the script in the film, the finished product without any other influence, including possibly the source material? I know that in practice voters usually just vote their gut. They might vote for moneyball because they really like The West Wing. Who knows. But is their a theoretical ideal that voters could use? Like a rubric?
Also I have a question about what voters are supposed to consider when voting on screenplays, this question might be even more appropriate for scores but it works for screenplays as well. Do the writers ever go look at the screenplay in its unfilmed form?
This time of year is in fact a cornucopia for anyone who likes to read screenplays — because studios make PDF script downloads available for most major contenders on FYC sites.
Although it is unlikely, I would LOVE to see Steve Kloves getting a nomination for his decade-long work.
AJC, you ought to come here more often. You’re hardly the only one.
Original:
The Tree of Life
Midnight in Paris
Bridesmaids
Win-Win
Margin Call
Adaptation:
Moneyball
The Descendants
The Help
The Ides of March
War Horse
My biggest problem with The Help (other than it seems like a White-feel-good film like the Blind Side) is that the tone seems very inconsistent. That scene where one character gets beaten by her husband off camera (which is never referred to again) and that silly Benefit dinner scene, which didn’t seem like it fit. In my opinion, it hurts the quality of the film for me. Regardless of what my opinion is, does poor tone fit under Direction or Screenwriting?
Also, am I the only one who thought that most of the characters were over the top and not too realistic? I’m not saying that’s a bad thing all the time, but it didn’t seem to fit this type of story.
Also, am I the only one who thought that most of the characters were over the top and not too realistic?
AJC, you’re not the only one. It’s been suggested the extremes of repulsive personalities are a device to enhance the “White-feel-good film” sensation you mention.
… because the audience is encouraged to think “Oh my goodness, look how far we’ve evolved since then.”
I hope Win Win makes it – such a great movie – deserves something!
J.-C. B. — How right you are! 🙂
Here are mine:
Original
Midnight in Paris
Bridesmaids
Tree of Life
Young Adult
50/50
Adapted
The Descendants
Moneyball
The Ides of March
Hugo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Considering all the exclusions (and the list is longer if you go to the original article), this award is totally irrelevant and does not deserve attention.
ORIGINAL
Win Win
Bridesmaids
50/50
Tree of Life
Young Adult
ADAPTED
The Help
Moneyball
The Descendents
Hugo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Original:
Bridesmaids
Super 8
50/50
Midnight in Paris
tree of life
No guts no glory: Young adult
Adapted: Moneyball
war horse
girl with the dragon tattoo
hugo
the help
No guts no glory: Harry Potter 8
Original:
Midnight In Paris
50/50
Bridesmaids
Young Adult
Weekend
Adapted:
Moneyball
The Descendants
The Help
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo