As others have said, the Original crop is mostly deserving. Lorenzo's Oil is the clear weak link of the batch -- it isn't grossly sentimental or anything, but it lacks much inspiration at a writing level that would elevate it beyond a generic disease movie. And I thought the pacing was a bit wonky too -- it just seemed to barrel through its story in a manner that didn't feel efficient, but like it was short-changing the drama.
I think the other nominees are all deserving. Passion Fish embodies a lot of the special aspects of John Sayles's writing, presenting a compelling cultural portrait of a unique region of America, and populating it with richly detailed characters. The relationship between McDonnell and Woodard's characters is very touching, and full of specific nuance, and I enjoyed spending time with these women in this place in the relaxed manner of Sayles's storytelling. Perhaps it's a bit too relaxed at some points -- the movie is definitely a little long for such a small, character-driven effort -- but there's a lot of strong writing throughout.
Woody Allen has made numerous types of films in his career, but Husbands and Wives definitely fits into what I'd consider the most quintessential Allen-esque portion of his filmography: the contemporary New York relationship comedy. And I think this movie feels like the next logical step after Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters -- there's a bitterness to this script, a willingness to explore even more miserable aspects of human relationships than in those earlier films, that perhaps seemed to indicate Allen was headed toward increasingly cynical territory in his work. (Oddly, the opposite happened, and much of what came after was far more lightweight.) Still, I very much admire what he accomplished here, including the real bite his humor had this go-round. But, I like the other two scripts more this year, and seeing as there are no shortages of good Allen candidates down the line, I pass on him yet again.
As I said in the Best Picture thread, by the time I got to The Crying Game, I of course knew all about The Big Twist. So the sheer level of surprise on a plot level experienced by most people watching it in '92 was an experience I didn't get to share. But I still very much enjoyed the movie, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that script is so much more than its twist, or rather, it explores the big reveal in a manner that's consistently engaging, inventive, and poignant throughout the remainder of the film's running time. A professor of mine in college liked to use the movie as an example of a filmmaker "sugarcoating the pill," taking themes of gender and sexuality and wrapping them in a twisty thriller narrative that allowed us to absorb the film's ideas without it feeling like a lecture on those topics, and I salute Neil Jordan's skill at blending an entertaining surface with real meat beneath it. But...I still wonder if I might have responded even more enthusiastically had I experienced that big plot wow as I was supposed to, though of course, that's an experience I'll never be able to replicate.
It's interesting to me that The Crying Game and Unforgiven ran neck and neck in our Best Picture poll, but so many here overwhelmingly abandoned David Webb Peoples in this category. I get that Crying Game has the big flashy plot twist -- and it's a strong choice in this category -- but I've never viewed Unforgiven as so lacking in the writing department that it shouldn't at least put up a fight in the Original Screenplay race. And, in fact, I'm one of the few who have gone so far as to vote for it here as well. I think the movie is a rich deconstruction of western myths, a fresh, dark take on the genre that's gripping throughout, both in the way Peoples crafts suspense sequences, but also for his morally complex characterizations and spare but piercing dialogue. (I love the "I guess they had it coming." / "We all have it coming, kid." exchange, such a bluntly effective summation of the film's main theme.) I don't think Unforgiven is a substantially superior achievement to its closest rival here, but it's my favorite movie of the bunch, and I'm glad I tossed a vote in its direction.
Best Screenplay 1992
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Re: Best Screenplay 1992
The writers did a mostly good job of selecting; their problem was a fallow field from which to choose. 1992 felt more like the end of the 80s than early 90s – the years that followed (where we’ve been spending our recent weeks) were far more exciting.
On the adapted side, surely Glengarry Glen Ross deserves a shout-out, and I’d also advocate for the little-seen A Midnight Clear – not a great movie even then, but in context worth praising. Under original, the voters mostly did well, but I’d stick White Men Can’t Jump in there somewhere.
Enchanted April fits in the Il Postino corner of the Academy – it’s a movie for those who like tasteful, small, preferably European stories set safely in the past and taking the barest of risks. Until BJ recapped the plot, I’d forgotten just how flat the ending had landed – I now remember my thought at the time, roughly: Whoa – where’d the plot go? A piffle of a nominee.
It’s tempting to write off Scent of a Woman as hokey hoo-ha from beginning to end, but I’ll always believe there was a decent 100 minute movie buried inside Brest’s bloated 2:40. I’d seen the (clearly much better) Gassman movie back in the 70s, so I found myself wondering through the elongated opening sequences why it was taking so long to get to the meat of the story – the city sojourn. When I got to the eventual ghastly, even more elongated trial sequence, I realized that the city adventure was never Brest’s focus – he’d been aiming toward this grossly sentimental finale all along. But the stuff in between – the trip to NY, and the events therein – was perfectly solid, and almost enough to save the picture. None of this is putting me close to voting for the script, but I give its best parts a mild salute.
I remember a New Yorker review of A River Runs Through It that went something along the lines of “It’s rich…It’s evocative…No, it’s dead dull” – which summed up all of my reactions. There’s something admirable about the taste and restraint shown in making the film – it’s immaculately made, and feels fully genuine. But the damn thing just doesn’t have much of a pulse; the main thing you end up remembering about it is how pretty it looked (an easy cinematography Oscar). No dice.
I’d chime in with BJ, that Howards End is probably my favorite of the Merchant/Ivory classics adaptations – A Room with a View is more fun, but Howards End is the richer Forster work, and the filmmakers do it justice. (And, even poised as a more serious effort, the film doesn’t suffer from the gloomy pacing of such earlier films as The Bostonians or Maurice) The complex story is beautifully woven by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and of course played out by a wonderful cast. I don’t find the film’s Oscar win an unhappy one.
But I have to go with the majority and cite The Player instead. I’ll tilt a tiny bit in Italiano’s direction by saying The Player falls well short of being a great film – it’s way too trivial, in the end, to amount to a whole lot (the film’s very coda feels like it’s telling us the film is a trifle -- much the way the closing moment of MASH did years earlier); I always thought critics were so happy to see Altman back on top, and so ravenous for him to have a huge success, that they oversold the film’s heft. But the film is extremely fast on its feet and witty as hell (watch this back to back with Argo and see what a REAL skewering of Hollywood feels like), and, if it doesn’t go anywhere major with its plot, it still moves through the narrative paces agilely and cleverly. In a truly lousy year, the one-eyed man is king: in dreary 1992, The Player was one of the year’s best films, and its screenplay takes the prize for adaptation.
Lorenzo’s Oil is the only truly weak contender under original. I thought critics at the time were incredibly generous to it; I found it a wholly unmemorable disease-of-the-week effort.
Passion Fish isn’t exactly brutally realistic – communities around New Orleans are, in my experience, nowhere near as racially open-minded as Sayles imagines – but the film has a wonderful spirit and, if the plot isn’t exactly revelatory, it’s sweetly realized in its details. Arriving mostly unheralded in December, it was one of the year’s few happy surprises, and I was very pleased by its nomination.
Husbands and Wives is, for me, the last movie Woody Allen made when he was truly in-the-zone – dealing with big issues, creating rich characters, and getting laughs by the bushelful along the way. This is not quite at the top of Woody’s achievements – Annie Hall and Manhattan remain the twin towers, with Hannah and Her Sisters a bit beneath – but the film, along with Crimes and Misdemeanors, belongs among those films that make Woody a significant film artist no matter how many mediocrities he cranks out in later years. That I’m not voting for the film – despite loving it – can be credited to two things: the fact that I have multiple times ahead when I WILL be casting a vote his way, and the other two strong films on the slate.
Unforgiven is a movie I should probably watch again sometime. I went into it with a boatload of expectation; critics had been near-euphoric in their praise. Despite that set-up, I very much LIKED the film; found it a work of real nuance, with lots of memorable dialogue and images. But it was still, at heart, a Western, a genre to which I’ve never much warmed, and I found it impossible to love in quite the way the critics had. I don’t begrudge it any of its Oscars, but I’m a little bit glad it didn’t win this one, and it’s not going to get the victory from me, either.
When Neil Jordan won his Oscar, he started his acceptance speech saying “It was a difficult script to write”…which had a lot of us who write plays/screenplays asking “Like, there’s some other kind?” I presume he was referring to maneuvering around the big “surprise” -- which is funny, because, while I was completely taken in by the secret, its presence in the film wasn’t what I found most memorable about it. What I liked about the film was its novelistic density – the richness of the themes, the way they resonated long after the plot-line had played itself out. If you describe the plot, it sounds like a spy story crossed with unexpected love story – but that doesn’t remotely convey what the film is. For providing a film that is so much more than just its story, Neil Jordan gets my vote.
On the adapted side, surely Glengarry Glen Ross deserves a shout-out, and I’d also advocate for the little-seen A Midnight Clear – not a great movie even then, but in context worth praising. Under original, the voters mostly did well, but I’d stick White Men Can’t Jump in there somewhere.
Enchanted April fits in the Il Postino corner of the Academy – it’s a movie for those who like tasteful, small, preferably European stories set safely in the past and taking the barest of risks. Until BJ recapped the plot, I’d forgotten just how flat the ending had landed – I now remember my thought at the time, roughly: Whoa – where’d the plot go? A piffle of a nominee.
It’s tempting to write off Scent of a Woman as hokey hoo-ha from beginning to end, but I’ll always believe there was a decent 100 minute movie buried inside Brest’s bloated 2:40. I’d seen the (clearly much better) Gassman movie back in the 70s, so I found myself wondering through the elongated opening sequences why it was taking so long to get to the meat of the story – the city sojourn. When I got to the eventual ghastly, even more elongated trial sequence, I realized that the city adventure was never Brest’s focus – he’d been aiming toward this grossly sentimental finale all along. But the stuff in between – the trip to NY, and the events therein – was perfectly solid, and almost enough to save the picture. None of this is putting me close to voting for the script, but I give its best parts a mild salute.
I remember a New Yorker review of A River Runs Through It that went something along the lines of “It’s rich…It’s evocative…No, it’s dead dull” – which summed up all of my reactions. There’s something admirable about the taste and restraint shown in making the film – it’s immaculately made, and feels fully genuine. But the damn thing just doesn’t have much of a pulse; the main thing you end up remembering about it is how pretty it looked (an easy cinematography Oscar). No dice.
I’d chime in with BJ, that Howards End is probably my favorite of the Merchant/Ivory classics adaptations – A Room with a View is more fun, but Howards End is the richer Forster work, and the filmmakers do it justice. (And, even poised as a more serious effort, the film doesn’t suffer from the gloomy pacing of such earlier films as The Bostonians or Maurice) The complex story is beautifully woven by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and of course played out by a wonderful cast. I don’t find the film’s Oscar win an unhappy one.
But I have to go with the majority and cite The Player instead. I’ll tilt a tiny bit in Italiano’s direction by saying The Player falls well short of being a great film – it’s way too trivial, in the end, to amount to a whole lot (the film’s very coda feels like it’s telling us the film is a trifle -- much the way the closing moment of MASH did years earlier); I always thought critics were so happy to see Altman back on top, and so ravenous for him to have a huge success, that they oversold the film’s heft. But the film is extremely fast on its feet and witty as hell (watch this back to back with Argo and see what a REAL skewering of Hollywood feels like), and, if it doesn’t go anywhere major with its plot, it still moves through the narrative paces agilely and cleverly. In a truly lousy year, the one-eyed man is king: in dreary 1992, The Player was one of the year’s best films, and its screenplay takes the prize for adaptation.
Lorenzo’s Oil is the only truly weak contender under original. I thought critics at the time were incredibly generous to it; I found it a wholly unmemorable disease-of-the-week effort.
Passion Fish isn’t exactly brutally realistic – communities around New Orleans are, in my experience, nowhere near as racially open-minded as Sayles imagines – but the film has a wonderful spirit and, if the plot isn’t exactly revelatory, it’s sweetly realized in its details. Arriving mostly unheralded in December, it was one of the year’s few happy surprises, and I was very pleased by its nomination.
Husbands and Wives is, for me, the last movie Woody Allen made when he was truly in-the-zone – dealing with big issues, creating rich characters, and getting laughs by the bushelful along the way. This is not quite at the top of Woody’s achievements – Annie Hall and Manhattan remain the twin towers, with Hannah and Her Sisters a bit beneath – but the film, along with Crimes and Misdemeanors, belongs among those films that make Woody a significant film artist no matter how many mediocrities he cranks out in later years. That I’m not voting for the film – despite loving it – can be credited to two things: the fact that I have multiple times ahead when I WILL be casting a vote his way, and the other two strong films on the slate.
Unforgiven is a movie I should probably watch again sometime. I went into it with a boatload of expectation; critics had been near-euphoric in their praise. Despite that set-up, I very much LIKED the film; found it a work of real nuance, with lots of memorable dialogue and images. But it was still, at heart, a Western, a genre to which I’ve never much warmed, and I found it impossible to love in quite the way the critics had. I don’t begrudge it any of its Oscars, but I’m a little bit glad it didn’t win this one, and it’s not going to get the victory from me, either.
When Neil Jordan won his Oscar, he started his acceptance speech saying “It was a difficult script to write”…which had a lot of us who write plays/screenplays asking “Like, there’s some other kind?” I presume he was referring to maneuvering around the big “surprise” -- which is funny, because, while I was completely taken in by the secret, its presence in the film wasn’t what I found most memorable about it. What I liked about the film was its novelistic density – the richness of the themes, the way they resonated long after the plot-line had played itself out. If you describe the plot, it sounds like a spy story crossed with unexpected love story – but that doesn’t remotely convey what the film is. For providing a film that is so much more than just its story, Neil Jordan gets my vote.
Re: Best Screenplay 1992
We are now entering territory where there are nominees that I haven’t seen, so I will need to occasionally withhold from voting. Enchanted April is the most recent nominee I’m missing, so I will stay quiet about the Adapted category for now. If I will see April later on, I will return to this thread.
In the Original category my choice is Unforgiven. I’m a big fan of that film, and I hardly need to comment more on that. The line-up is relatively good, as Husbands and Wives is one of Woody Allen’s better films from this decade and Passion Fish is a charming sentimental piece. Lorenzo’s Oil is a decent effort, but the linear, fact-based story is more the type of stuff that usually ends up on television rather than cinema. Furthermore, although it isn’t the screenplay’s fault, the film put me off because I don’t really like Nick Nolte in general and I feel he’s totally miscast in this film in particular.
There’s also The Crying Game, which is one of those film that I really have mixed feelings about. Some of the elements in it are really great. But I’m not convinced that Neil Jordan is a good enough filmmaker to really connect those elements into a really good film that it could be. Seeing it, I felt there were a lot of weak scenes in the film and some outright lazy screenwriting. Then again, I have seen the film only once, it was a long time ago and my taste has changed since then. So it’s one of those films that I should see again before delivering a final verdict (although I can’t imagine it challenging Unforgiven in any case, so I don’t feel bad about voting here).
In the Original category my choice is Unforgiven. I’m a big fan of that film, and I hardly need to comment more on that. The line-up is relatively good, as Husbands and Wives is one of Woody Allen’s better films from this decade and Passion Fish is a charming sentimental piece. Lorenzo’s Oil is a decent effort, but the linear, fact-based story is more the type of stuff that usually ends up on television rather than cinema. Furthermore, although it isn’t the screenplay’s fault, the film put me off because I don’t really like Nick Nolte in general and I feel he’s totally miscast in this film in particular.
There’s also The Crying Game, which is one of those film that I really have mixed feelings about. Some of the elements in it are really great. But I’m not convinced that Neil Jordan is a good enough filmmaker to really connect those elements into a really good film that it could be. Seeing it, I felt there were a lot of weak scenes in the film and some outright lazy screenwriting. Then again, I have seen the film only once, it was a long time ago and my taste has changed since then. So it’s one of those films that I should see again before delivering a final verdict (although I can’t imagine it challenging Unforgiven in any case, so I don’t feel bad about voting here).
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Re: Best Screenplay 1992
Given that I think Raise the Red Lantern is pretty much Best Everything this year, I'd have certainly voted for it as Best Adapted Screenplay as well. Among other alternates to fill a mostly ho-hum field, I guess I'd offer up The Last of the Mohicans, a far more insightful epic than what I'd anticipated, and what the heck, maybe Aladdin, about as witty an animated effort as any in the pre-Pixar era.
I hate to be a grouch about something like Enchanted April, which has an obvious level of taste and intelligence that's respectable enough. But I have to admit that I found the movie basically a colossal bore. I kept wondering when the story was going to kick in -- the plot essentially amounts to "let's rent a house to get away from our husbands...then they show up." It was hard for me to appreciate even the movie's scattered insights because I was so unengaged at a plot level. (Also...this sure does seem like the kind of movie actual film comedy folk get annoyed with when it shows up on the Comedy side of the Golden Globes. I think I maybe laughed once.)
A River Runs Through It definitely looks stunning, but it, too, wasn't terribly engaging as a narrative. I think it has a nice nostalgic sensibility, and by the end of the movie, I felt its ending had a certain fundamental power to it. But I didn't think there was a ton of unique incident to the story, and there was a good chunk of it in the middle that felt rather aimless to me, until it rallied to its more eventful conclusion. It's odd to me this film scored the nomination here -- I'm not outraged A Few Good Men missed in this category, but from a plot/dialogue standpoint, it seems far more up the writers' alley than A River Runs Through It.
There's an interesting, dark idea in Scent of a Woman -- the idea of a man enjoying one last hurrah before ending it all has an innate black comic appeal to it. But structurally, the movie isn't economical about its own story at all. There's just too much meandering in the first part of the narrative, and then, once it gets to the college trial portion of the story, I thought it nearly ran off the rails entirely. Anything that had seemed bleakly appealing just devolved into histrionics and sentiment. I haven't seen the Italian version to know if all of this worked better there -- though I assumed even before reading Italiano's post that the previous version at least committed to its own sense of cynicism a bit more -- but the remake definitely has too many execution problems for me to consider it.
My vote would come down to the remaining two movies, and I think either would be an acceptable choice. Unlike some here, I think Howards End is pretty clearly the peak of the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala collaborations. E.M. Forster's novel is pretty wonderfully plotted to start with, but Jhabvala adapts the material in a manner that keeps its narrative spine barreling along, preserving a lot of the sharp insight as well. Truly, seeing this on a list next to Enchanted April -- which for me just sits there -- makes me admire Jhabvala's achievement even more, for making classic lit feel so lively rather than ancient. Still, there's another very good place I can choose Jhabvala down the road for somewhat similar accomplishment.
Besides, The Player is just more my style. Italiano, with all due respect, I must disagree with your take on the movie, that it feels written by someone who had only heard about Hollywood. Obviously, the movie isn't realistic drama, but a larger-than-life skewering of the movie business, but the number of times I've heard people in Hollywood bring up real-life stories which they described as "like that scene in The Player, only more ridiculous" is too many to count. I'm definitely the obvious target audience for a send-up of behind-the-scenes Hollywood, but I think the movie has a lot of wonderfully funny dialogue, married to a pretty solid murder/suspense plot, so it doesn't ever feel like just cheeky riffing. (Though it certainly provides the most pleasurable aspects of such seemingly off-the-cuff laughs as well.) Michael Tolkin definitely wasn't writing a probing account of human behavior, but I don't think he pushes his satire too far to the point that it ever feels silly either. I think he strikes just the right blend of lovable ribbing and cynicism, and for managing this tone so skillfully from beginning to end, he gets my Adapted Screenplay vote.
I hate to be a grouch about something like Enchanted April, which has an obvious level of taste and intelligence that's respectable enough. But I have to admit that I found the movie basically a colossal bore. I kept wondering when the story was going to kick in -- the plot essentially amounts to "let's rent a house to get away from our husbands...then they show up." It was hard for me to appreciate even the movie's scattered insights because I was so unengaged at a plot level. (Also...this sure does seem like the kind of movie actual film comedy folk get annoyed with when it shows up on the Comedy side of the Golden Globes. I think I maybe laughed once.)
A River Runs Through It definitely looks stunning, but it, too, wasn't terribly engaging as a narrative. I think it has a nice nostalgic sensibility, and by the end of the movie, I felt its ending had a certain fundamental power to it. But I didn't think there was a ton of unique incident to the story, and there was a good chunk of it in the middle that felt rather aimless to me, until it rallied to its more eventful conclusion. It's odd to me this film scored the nomination here -- I'm not outraged A Few Good Men missed in this category, but from a plot/dialogue standpoint, it seems far more up the writers' alley than A River Runs Through It.
There's an interesting, dark idea in Scent of a Woman -- the idea of a man enjoying one last hurrah before ending it all has an innate black comic appeal to it. But structurally, the movie isn't economical about its own story at all. There's just too much meandering in the first part of the narrative, and then, once it gets to the college trial portion of the story, I thought it nearly ran off the rails entirely. Anything that had seemed bleakly appealing just devolved into histrionics and sentiment. I haven't seen the Italian version to know if all of this worked better there -- though I assumed even before reading Italiano's post that the previous version at least committed to its own sense of cynicism a bit more -- but the remake definitely has too many execution problems for me to consider it.
My vote would come down to the remaining two movies, and I think either would be an acceptable choice. Unlike some here, I think Howards End is pretty clearly the peak of the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala collaborations. E.M. Forster's novel is pretty wonderfully plotted to start with, but Jhabvala adapts the material in a manner that keeps its narrative spine barreling along, preserving a lot of the sharp insight as well. Truly, seeing this on a list next to Enchanted April -- which for me just sits there -- makes me admire Jhabvala's achievement even more, for making classic lit feel so lively rather than ancient. Still, there's another very good place I can choose Jhabvala down the road for somewhat similar accomplishment.
Besides, The Player is just more my style. Italiano, with all due respect, I must disagree with your take on the movie, that it feels written by someone who had only heard about Hollywood. Obviously, the movie isn't realistic drama, but a larger-than-life skewering of the movie business, but the number of times I've heard people in Hollywood bring up real-life stories which they described as "like that scene in The Player, only more ridiculous" is too many to count. I'm definitely the obvious target audience for a send-up of behind-the-scenes Hollywood, but I think the movie has a lot of wonderfully funny dialogue, married to a pretty solid murder/suspense plot, so it doesn't ever feel like just cheeky riffing. (Though it certainly provides the most pleasurable aspects of such seemingly off-the-cuff laughs as well.) Michael Tolkin definitely wasn't writing a probing account of human behavior, but I don't think he pushes his satire too far to the point that it ever feels silly either. I think he strikes just the right blend of lovable ribbing and cynicism, and for managing this tone so skillfully from beginning to end, he gets my Adapted Screenplay vote.
Re: Best Screenplay 1992
I don't remember much from The Player, but I do remember it has what I consider to be one of the funniest exchanges I have heard:
Great idea. I'll get back to you right after my AA meeting.
I'm sorry. I didn't know you had a drinking problem.
I don't, really. It's just that's where all the big deals are being made.
Great idea. I'll get back to you right after my AA meeting.
I'm sorry. I didn't know you had a drinking problem.
I don't, really. It's just that's where all the big deals are being made.
Re: Best Screenplay 1992
Huh. Well, I guess I can't vote. I haven't seen Enchanted April, A River Runs Through It, or Passion Fish. All the better, I suppose, because, while Husbands and Wives is the last Woody Allen film verging on greatness for me, choosing between The Crying Game and Unforgiven is very difficult. The Crying Game is the more original movie but Unforgiven has such a good script that the film isn't quite capable of capturing exactly what David Webb Peoples is going for. By that I mean, when Clint Eastwood first read the script, he wasn't sure who to root for, who the good guy was, who the bad guy was, and in this kind of meditation on how violence is used, the casting of Clint Eastwood in one role kinda puts the kaibosh on that. Were I to vote, likely it would be for The Crying Game.
For Best Adapted Screenplay, it's been ages since I saw The Player or Howards End, but I was fairly underwhelmed by The Player and while I recall enjoying The Remains of the Day a bit more than Howards End it would likely get my vote too. I'd go with the Academy's choices, I suppose.
For Best Adapted Screenplay, it's been ages since I saw The Player or Howards End, but I was fairly underwhelmed by The Player and while I recall enjoying The Remains of the Day a bit more than Howards End it would likely get my vote too. I'd go with the Academy's choices, I suppose.
"How's the despair?"
Re: Best Screenplay 1992
In Original, it's tough. With the exception of Lorenzo's Oil - nothing more than a dignified tv movie - all the nominees are at least interesting. Voting for The Crying Game is probably the thing to do - and I've done it - as it certainly is the most original movie of the five. I'm not sure it's a perfect script though - it starts well, it goes on great, but in the last third it seems unable to satisfyingly solve its promising story line. And Husbands and Wives is a truly good Woody Allen script - ok, it's not Manhattan, but by his standards of the 90s it's one of his best of not his best - mature, perceptive, honest (I remember my parents coming back from it and saying: "We found so much of ourselves in that movie"). But then Woody Allen has won here already, and will definitely win again, so I don't see anything wrong in picking the less perfect but in many ways more surprising Neil Jordan script.
It's tough in Adapted, too, but for the opposite reason - there's nothing REALLY great in sight. Where should I start? Scent of a Woman is embarassing - I admit that even the last part of the Italian movie it is based on, and of the Arpino novel the Italian movie was in turn based on, wasn't very strong, but in the American remake it's dreadful - you know, all that stuff at the college. And at least the Italian movie was great - and authentically cynical - in what came before - the American version is just bland, Disney-ish. Enchanted April is harmless, "cute", British in the worst sense of the word. A River Runs Through It - I don't know, I forgot all of it seconds after I finished watching it, except that the cinematography was pretty. A lethargic movie. And then what else? Oh, The Player - Altman gave us Nashville, which WAS a biting portrayal of a certain kind of entertainment world and of the society it mirrored, and now there's this pleasantly innocuous movie about Hollywood which seems to have been written by someone who only heard about the movie world, or only read about it. Bad, bad screenplay. I shouldn't have voted at all, because even Howards End isn't the best Jhabvala work, and it seems dusty in a way that had been avoided before, but at least it's intelligent - an adjective that I can't apply to the four other nominees. So ok, intelligence will be enough for me this time.
It's tough in Adapted, too, but for the opposite reason - there's nothing REALLY great in sight. Where should I start? Scent of a Woman is embarassing - I admit that even the last part of the Italian movie it is based on, and of the Arpino novel the Italian movie was in turn based on, wasn't very strong, but in the American remake it's dreadful - you know, all that stuff at the college. And at least the Italian movie was great - and authentically cynical - in what came before - the American version is just bland, Disney-ish. Enchanted April is harmless, "cute", British in the worst sense of the word. A River Runs Through It - I don't know, I forgot all of it seconds after I finished watching it, except that the cinematography was pretty. A lethargic movie. And then what else? Oh, The Player - Altman gave us Nashville, which WAS a biting portrayal of a certain kind of entertainment world and of the society it mirrored, and now there's this pleasantly innocuous movie about Hollywood which seems to have been written by someone who only heard about the movie world, or only read about it. Bad, bad screenplay. I shouldn't have voted at all, because even Howards End isn't the best Jhabvala work, and it seems dusty in a way that had been avoided before, but at least it's intelligent - an adjective that I can't apply to the four other nominees. So ok, intelligence will be enough for me this time.
Re: Best Screenplay 1992
voted for The Crying Gamen and The Player
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Best Screenplay 1992
With the exception of David Mamet's adaptation of his own Glengarry Glen Ross which the Writers Guild nominated instead of Richard Friedenberg's adaptation of A River Runs Through It, the WGA and the Academy were in sync this year. I can't argue against either choice as I liked them both. Bo Goldman's script for Scent of a Woman was probably the weakest of the nominees, but I liked it in spite of its obviousness.
Ruth Pawer Jhabvala's winning script for Howards End was clearly the most literate of the adaptations, but Peter Barnes breathed new life into the old chestnut that was Enchanted April and Michael Tolkin provided the best screenplay for a Robert Altman film in years with The Player. Choosing between them is tough, but I give a slight edge to Tolin. The Player was my favorite film of the year.
On the original side, I go along with Neil Jordan's complex winning screenplay for The Crying Game. I also liked Jordan's fellow Irishman Jim Sheridan's script for Enchanted April director Mike Newell's Into the West, which I would have nominated over Woody Allen's highly over-rated self-indulgent Husbands and Wives. The rest of the nominees were all deserved. John Sayles' screenplay for Passion Fish was one of his best. George Miller and Nick Enright gave us an impassioned sleeper with Lorenzo's Oil and David Webb Peoples provided Clint Eastwood with a screenplay that finally gave the long-time actor/director Oscar cred.
Ruth Pawer Jhabvala's winning script for Howards End was clearly the most literate of the adaptations, but Peter Barnes breathed new life into the old chestnut that was Enchanted April and Michael Tolkin provided the best screenplay for a Robert Altman film in years with The Player. Choosing between them is tough, but I give a slight edge to Tolin. The Player was my favorite film of the year.
On the original side, I go along with Neil Jordan's complex winning screenplay for The Crying Game. I also liked Jordan's fellow Irishman Jim Sheridan's script for Enchanted April director Mike Newell's Into the West, which I would have nominated over Woody Allen's highly over-rated self-indulgent Husbands and Wives. The rest of the nominees were all deserved. John Sayles' screenplay for Passion Fish was one of his best. George Miller and Nick Enright gave us an impassioned sleeper with Lorenzo's Oil and David Webb Peoples provided Clint Eastwood with a screenplay that finally gave the long-time actor/director Oscar cred.