Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

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Sabin
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by Sabin »

I think the rule of thumb is the more production designed the movie with an original screenplay the less likely it is to win the Oscar for its script. Which is to say that the production design can't overshadow the high concept (and it usually is high concept). To be clear: I'm not looking for a list of films that buck this trend.

The motivation behind my post wasn't to bring up a history of winners that line up behind a trend of Best Picture nominees winning or not winning in this category, but rather the two films themselves (which ironically are both up for Best Production Design, which means nothing). American Hustle is a movie with terrific dialogue. It has acting nominations in every category. It's Oscar-nominated director is its Oscar-nominated writer (well, one of them), one who was just up for two Oscars last year and is back again. And it has more nominations than any other film outside of Gravity. So, were this a lineup with just five films, I think we'd all be agreeing up and down the line that American Hustle would win this category. With an expanded roster, there is zero consensus. In 1991 or 1995 or 2004, it's very likely that Thelma and Louise, The Usual Suspects, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind would be Best Picture nominees as well and Bugsy, Braveheart, and The Aviator wouldn't get a second thought.

My main rationale for going with Her instead of American Hustle is my thinking that American Hustle could really end up a giant Oscar loser.

(Note: I forgot about Captain Phillips. It would seem I'm not the only one either. Honestly, I'm not sure if it would have made the shortlist but it's certainly possible.)
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by OscarGuy »

I think Thelma & Louise was very close to a Best Picture nomination. Ridley Scott was nominated for Best Director, so it isn't as if the film was a left-field choice (not like say Gods and Monsters which wasn't even close to Best Picture or Director nominations).

I keep shifting thoughts on this and although Her wasn't eligible at BAFTA, American Hustle did win and while that doesn't entirely trump the WGA, it gives an impetus for fans of the film to vote for it somewhere and since the number of categories where it will actively compete is diminishing, I think Hustle stands an increasingly better shot at winning. Her doesn't really have many chances either, so you have two popular films that don't have a lot of options fighting for one award.
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by Greg »

Mister Tee wrote:But then, suddenly, the metric failed me: Thelma and Louise won over Bugsy. OK -- Thelma was an especially praised script, and Bugsy was a fading best picture hopeful, so maybe it was a fluke.
I have always had a huge problem with the script for Thelma And Louise, with its use of what Roger Ebert called the Idiot Plot. I just could not believe that Thelma, as naïve as she was, would make that careless mistake in the hotel room that drove the entire rest of the plot forward.
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by Okri »

Sabin wrote:Although I'm leaning a little more towards Her these days, here's a question:
I'm not 100% sure what the Big Five would be had the roster not been expanded but likely the nominees would have included American Hustle, Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street, and either Dallas Buyers Club or Nebraska, right? Mmmmmaybe not Her. If Her wasn't nominated for Best Picture, would anybody think this category was remotely up in the air?
Drop Wolf of Wall Street, put in both Dallas Buyers Club and Nebraska.
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by Mister Tee »

Big Magilla wrote:
Sabin wrote:If Her wasn't nominated for Best Picture, would anybody think this category was remotely up in the air?
Why wouldn't we? Since Original Screenplay became a category in 1940 it has been awarded 25 out of 72 times to films that were not nominated for Best Picture, often in contention with films that were.

Her's screenplay is more inventive, more imaginative than American Hustle's. It should and will win.
I go into it more fully in my post below, but you're somewhat fudging statistics. First, the modern system -- two screenplay categories only -- didn't begin until 1957; The Great McGinty's win over The Great Dictator doesn't really figure in comparison. Second, the germane comparison to her vs. American Hustle is films not nominated for best picture triumphing over those that were, and that's a much smaller group -- in fact, from 1957 through 1990, it never happened.

I say all this even though I'd probably vote for her over Hustle myself (though I like both).
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by Mister Tee »

I was wondering what I could add to dws' pretty perfect analysis, and then the one original thought I had was brought up by Sabin.

To backtrack a bit: I agree that Blue Jasmine and Dallas Buyers seem totally out of the race. I think Nebraska might be more in the running were it not for the perception that Alexander Payne has won this category enough times already (I know, not his script this time, but still his film).

And, for the record, I'll say that any of Nebraska or the two most-competing scripts would be the best win in this category since Eternal Sunshine.

But, yeah, it's down to her and American Hustle, and it depends on how you graph the recent tendencies in the category. Or how far you go back.

I used to win pools routinely because I was the only one in my group who'd noticed that screenplay awards always went to a best picture nominee if one was available. This was true even when the choices were writer-dire -- The Exorcist, On Golden Pond, and, a grotesque two-year punch, Dead Poets Society and Ghost.

But then, suddenly, the metric failed me: Thelma and Louise won over Bugsy. OK -- Thelma was an especially praised script, and Bugsy was a fading best picture hopeful, so maybe it was a fluke. Then The Usual Suspects beat the best picture winner. And Sling Blade held off an otherwise nine-win night by The English Patient. So, I stopped betting that way, and lots more non-best-picture nominees kept winning: Gods and Monsters, Almost Famous, Talk to Her, Eternal Sunshine.

But then it stopped again. In the years since, every screenplay winner has been a best picture contender, and, to echo Sabin's query, a contender even had the old field-of-five system been in place. No one doubts that Precious, The Social Network, Midnight in Paris would have been on the best picture slate regardless. The only possible exception is last year, where Django beat Zero Dark Thirty, which, judging by the DGA, seemed closer to best picture status. Then again, it's possible last year's nominees might have been Lincoln/Argo/Pi/Silver Linings/Les Miz or Beasts -- in which case the entire original screenplay field might have been out of the best picture race, which recalls contests from the 60s and 70s, where all sorts of oddball stuff won.

I'd quibble with Sabin's ultimate five "woulda beens" this year -- I think Captain Phillips would have scored above either Wolf or Dallas -- but I'm firmly with him that her wouldn't have made it in any scenario, and American Hustle just as certainly would have.

So it becomes a question of whether you think the '91-'04 model is operative -- in which case the highly singled-out her could triumph -- or if the more traditional (both long-term and short) best-picture-centric tradition holds, in which case David O. Russell would finally go home with a trinket.

And, like dws, I simply have no idea which way it'll go.
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by Big Magilla »

Sabin wrote:If Her wasn't nominated for Best Picture, would anybody think this category was remotely up in the air?
Why wouldn't we? Since Original Screenplay became a category in 1940 it has been awarded 25 out of 72 times to films that were not nominated for Best Picture, often in contention with films that were.

Her's screenplay is more inventive, more imaginative than American Hustle's. It should and will win.
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by Sabin »

Although I'm leaning a little more towards Her these days, here's a question:
I'm not 100% sure what the Big Five would be had the roster not been expanded but likely the nominees would have included American Hustle, Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street, and either Dallas Buyers Club or Nebraska, right? Mmmmmaybe not Her. If Her wasn't nominated for Best Picture, would anybody think this category was remotely up in the air?
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Categories One-by-One: Original Screenplay

Post by dws1982 »

I'd eliminate Blue Jasmine first. Since the Best Picture category was expanded, no movie not up for Best Picture has won here. (Actually we're running up on ten years since a film--Eternal Sunshine--won a Screenplay award without a Best Picture nomination.) Plus, well, Woody Allen. I don't think the controversy is going to cost him an award that he wasn't going to win anyway, and I doubt it's going to cost him too many votes, but it may move him just a little bit deeper into fifth place.

Fourth place is probably Dallas Buyers Club. I feel like it's the type of Best Picture also-ran that frequently pulls in a screenplay nomination but never really is in contention for the win. It was never really singled out for its screenplay; I just don't see it having much of a shot here. Nebraska probably has a slightly better shot. It got more notice for its screenplay, and it definitely has some memorable dialogue, and as a small character study, it's the type of movie that wins this category on occasion. But the Original Screenplay precursors have almost entirely split between American Hustle and Her.

American Hustle is the type of movie that wins this category frequently. It's a big hit that most people tend to like. It's a Best Picture nominee with a lot of nominations, but it's not likely to win many of its other categories. I think that American Hustle is a problematic and at-times nonsensical screenplay salvaged by a really solid cast and a good direction, but it's won some awards--the New York Film Critics citied it; the BAFTAs awarded it--and I think it makes great sense as a winner. Her has probably been the dominant screenplay of the year in terms of awards. With a concept as unique and original as this one, it's not hard to understand why. (In my opinion, it takes the concept and turns it into something really moving and deeply felt.) Yeah, it hasn't done well at the box-office, but with the Best Picture nomination, and with several other nominations--none of which were sure things--I doubt the box-office is going to hurt it.

So what wins? That's the hard part. I think that American Hustle would be a definite frontrunner without Her in contention, and Her would be a clear frontrunner without American Hustle. I feel like both are about equally likely to win against other. A true crapshot. I don't really even have a gut feeling about this one. What's everyone else thinking? This is easily one of the two or three toughest categories of the night, I think.
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