Big Magilla wrote: I'll take The Joy Luck Club over the poorly written Age of Innocence which depends on Joanne Woodward's narration to tell the story that the film otherwise doesn't. That's lazy writing and direction.
The time has come, and one of us must do it. It's a bit expensive from Milan, but ok, I will call, I guess we can't wait anymore. Who can give me the number of a psychiatric hospital close to where Big Magilla lives?
It's hard to conceive a Best Original Screenplay race that doesn't include Groundhog Day. Credit the British Academy of Film and Television for giving it pretty much its sole award. It ranked second at the The New York Film Critics Circle. This is made doubly absurd that this race instead includes Dave, an inferior but pleasant like-minded comedy, and Sleepless in Seattle, which belongs in the adapted screenplay category. Much has been written about the derided line "Now explain to me like I'm a four year old." from Philadelphia. That's Philadelphia in a nutshell. So, I'm left with two choices: In the Line of Fire and The Piano. While I have a lot of affection for the former, I struggle to remember any terribly memorable sequences that weren't elevated by strong, strong casting. And the latter? I still fall into the camp of thinking that it's Jane Campion's ability to execute what she's written that makes it what it is. When Stewart just wishes it all away, the film is intentionally anticlimactic but for what reason? I've never been able to gauge what exactly The Piano is supposed to be saying, so it plays like an erotic dream from someone drunk on Bronte, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
But I'm going with Sleepless in Seattle too, because in the field of writing it was a bit underrated then and it's a bit underrated now. We see this kind of movie get done poorly so often although less and less frequently these days as the romantic comedy continues its journey the small screen. And as a product of pre-internet days, it's full of longing and loneliness that resonates in a way that's kept it fresh. When I started writing, I didn't think this was a field with a standout winner. The more I write, the more I think maybe there is one.
For Best Adapted Screenplays, I went with Schindler's List.
Last edited by Sabin on Tue Oct 07, 2014 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
The Writer's Guild this year had the same nominees for Original Screenplay as the Academy. They differed on Adapted, with Amy Tan and Ron Bass' screenplay for The Joy Luck Club and Jeb Stuart and David Twohy's screenplay for The Fugitive making it in over The Age of Innocence and Shadowlands. I'll take The Joy Luck Club over the poorly written Age of Innocence which depends on Joanne Woodward's narration to tell the story that the film otherwise doesn't. That's lazy writing and direction.
I quite like William Nicholson's screenplay for Shadowlands and happy to say it nominated here, but my choice for the fifth slot would have been Peter Hedges' adapatation of his own What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Two that might have made it in in a weaker year would be Raphael Yglesias' adaptation of his own Fearliess and Laura Esquivel's adaptation of her own Like Water for Chocolate. There's no disputing the other three, though with Steven Zallian's script for the year's prestige film, Schindler's List making it an easy choice over the brilliantly written screenplays for both The Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father.
The most blatant omissions in Original are Ang Lee and writing partners Neil Peng and James Schamus' The Wedding Banquet and Krysztof Kieslowski and Krysztof Piesiewicz's Three Colors: Blue. Both were more deserving than Dave and In the Line of Fire and maybe even Philadelphia and Sleepless in Seattle, but here again there was an obvious pre-ordained winner, Jane Campion's feminist treatise, The Piano.
I wish that I could vote for either The Wedding Banquet or Blue here, but since I can't, rather than participate in making The Piano a likely unanimous winner, I'll throw a bone to Sleepless in Seattle which as contrived as it is, is still a reamarkably witty , if somewhat dated, comedy.
