Best Screenplay 1990

1927/28 through 1997

What were the best original and adapted screenplaysof 1990?

Alice (Woody Allen)
0
No votes
Avalon (Barry Levinson)
5
11%
Ghost (Bruce Joel Rubin)
3
7%
Green Card (Peter Weir)
4
9%
Metropolitan (Whit Stillman)
10
22%
Awakenings (Steven Zallian)
0
No votes
Dances With Wolves (Michael Blake)
0
No votes
The Grifters (Donald E. Westlake)
9
20%
GoodFellas (Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese)
10
22%
Reversal of Fortune (Nicholas Kazan)
5
11%
 
Total votes: 46

Sabin
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by Sabin »

It's entirely valuable and insightful. It's just hard to listen to because he's an asshole.
"How's the despair?"
The Original BJ
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by The Original BJ »

Sabin wrote: Pretty much addicted to Scriptnotes. I can say from personal experience that John August is a wonderful human being, truly sweet and way kinder to me than he had any right to be. I've never met Craig Maizin and I hope to never meet Craig Maizin. Any time I skip an episode, it's because I don't want to be subjected to his voice and thoughts.
I think my favorite thing about Craig Mazin (and by favorite, I mean the opposite) is the way he has absolutely ZERO use for any kind of critical discourse (Roger Ebert didn't love Ghost...he's STUPID!) because, in his opinion, critics only seek to spread nastiness in the world. And yet he has absolutely no problem trashing the movies HE hates -- I'm not exactly sure how his rant about how much he hated the Star Wars prequels is any different than what film critics are peddling, except he's way less articulate. Sorry dude, if you can't take it, don't dish it out!

Still, despite the sometimes insane comments from Craig (remember his outrage over the fact that one of the Harry Potter movies didn't get nominated for the WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, simply because the rest of the writers in Hollywood were just jealous of the movie's success?), I think a lot of their industry advice seems extremely valuable, and their comments on the actual writing samples sent are typically insightful and very much on point.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by Sabin »

The Original BJ wrote
An in-depth analysis of Ghost's screenplay was recently featured on the John August/Craig Maizin podcast. (I don't know if anyone else listens to that -- it's more of an industry insider thing, less something for movie fans, and sometimes it definitely causes the cineaste side of my personality to groan.) Anyway, there was something they said about it that I liked, which is that the movie seems mostly uninterested in being stuffed into any one genre -- the script is a pretty unique blend of romance, comedy, and horror, and I think that's one of the things that still makes the movie quite watchable as a pop pleasure.
Pretty much addicted to Scriptnotes. I can say from personal experience that John August is a wonderful human being, truly sweet and way kinder to me than he had any right to be. I've never met Craig Maizin and I hope to never meet Craig Maizin. Any time I skip an episode, it's because I don't want to be subjected to his voice and thoughts.

I voted for Goodfellas because it's Goodfellas.

I did not vote for Best Original Screenplay because I've never seen Green Card or Alice. I'll likely never see Alice but Green Card looks like an enjoyable piece of rom com fluff and considering how much I enjoy those, I can't in good conscious vote for Metropolitan in this poll like I all but certainly would. I'm not in love with Whit Stillman but it's wonderfully atmospheric, observant, critical, and funny. I wasn't cognizant during the 1990 but I can only imagine that Ghost was a risibly received in all corners but the Academy, but could it have been that much of a surprise? It was a massive, surprise hit full of incredibly memorable scenes with a backbone of emotional romanticism. I just glanced at the list of Golden Globe nominees and I'm fairly shocked to learn it was considered a Comedy/Musical. It's funny for sure, but hardly a comedy. I wouldn't call it a smart film but August and Maizin are right that it smartly combines so many different genres that it's a very full experience. And it's one that gets better the further away you get from actually watching the thing. Which is to say it lives on in memory, which as we've learned is one of the keyest factors towards winning an Oscar.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by The Original BJ »

The pickings in Original are pretty slim this year. I wouldn't rank Miller's Crossing among my very favorite Coen efforts, but it absolutely deserved mention here -- it feels like so much more of a meal than most of this disposable slate. As for other screenwriters who would have to wait a bit for Oscar attention, how about a Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! nomination for Almodóvar?

I think a clever movie could have been made from Green Card's premise. Green Card is not that movie. I find this whole affair extremely half-hearted -- even in the opening scenes, when the movie sets up the for-convenience marriage between Depardieu and MacDowell, there's a lack of both clarity and energy to what should be a spirited start of a high-concept comedy. The whole script just sort of proceeds with a big shrug. And I think the laugh quotient for a supposed comedy is pretty low. Given the way the Golden Globes turned out, I guess the one silver lining to the actual win in this category is that it prevented Green Card from being over-rewarded yet again.

I did a quick glance through the list of Woody Allen's screenplay nominations, and I've decided that I like Alice the least of any of them. It has moments of invention, and some typically funny Allen dialogue, but it also has a lot of pretty silly stuff too -- the repeated scenes of Farrow becoming invisible, or flying through the air, feel like devices from a far less exciting writer. Or, as Mister Tee suggested, from the far less exciting movies in Allen's career. More than any other nomination, this one simply feels like default-to-Woody rather than recognition for anything creative this go-round.

An in-depth analysis of Ghost's screenplay was recently featured on the John August/Craig Maizin podcast. (I don't know if anyone else listens to that -- it's more of an industry insider thing, less something for movie fans, and sometimes it definitely causes the cineaste side of my personality to groan.) Anyway, there was something they said about it that I liked, which is that the movie seems mostly uninterested in being stuffed into any one genre -- the script is a pretty unique blend of romance, comedy, and horror, and I think that's one of the things that still makes the movie quite watchable as a pop pleasure. (I agreed far less with their celebration of the fact that it won the Screenplay Oscar -- in fact, part of me even wanted to know if they'd even seen most of the other nominees here.) As a piece of writing, I'm happy to enjoy the amusing Whoopi dialogue moments ("I signed the wrong name!"..."What the hell is ditto?"...and of course, "Molly, you in danger, girl."), but as an award candidate, it's obviously not aiming for anything artful enough for me to consider.

My vote comes down closely to the remaining two movies. I think there's a lot of good writing in Metropolitan -- unlike Italiano, I do think there's a lot of good conversation here, talk that's smart, insightful, often very funny, and illuminating of a very specific social class in a specific city at this specific age. (The discussion about the merits of reading literature vs. simply reading literary criticism without reading the actual books struck me as depressingly accurate to a hugely amusing degree.) It's not a major movie or anything, but in a very thin year, I can see voting for it. For me, though, I tend to be more drawn to material with a bit more plot -- by the time the movie ended, I wasn't quite sure why it stopped when it did. It could have just as easily ended earlier than that, or gone on for a while longer, so aimless had the narrative been up until that point.

I picked Avalon, though that, too, is a movie with a narrative that's a bit all over the place. As Mister Tee wrote, as the plot goes on, it becomes almost more and more episodic, to the point where the viewer isn't quite sure what all of this is building toward. But, along the way, there's a lot of really memorable vignettes, and I think the movie does add up to a poignant depiction of an immigrant family in America, through success, failure, and above all, survival, through the changes that affected the country and its families during the first half of the last century. And, as with much of Barry Levinson's work, there's memorable dialogue along the way, no more so than the line that epitomizes the film's heartfelt sense of time slipping away: "If I had known things would no longer be, I would have tried to have remembered better." Add to all of this the fact that I'm more inclined to throw a career Oscar toward Levinson than Whit Stillman, and I ultimately side with Avalon.

And now, welcome to the '80's, folks!
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by ITALIANO »

Mister Tee wrote: (So there you are, Italiano: I didn’t vote for either of your betes noires.)

Grazie :)
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by Heksagon »

I haven’t seen Alice or Metropolitan, so I won’t comment on the Original category except to say that Ghost is my choice as the worst screenwriting winner of the 90s.

The Adapted category is an easy choice with GoodFellas. Although, once again, I will admit that I like Dances with Wolves a lot more than most people here and it would be my runner-up here.

The remaining three films are all respectable nominees, but I’m not enthusiastic about any of them. I’m a bit surprised to see Grifters getting so many votes. I have only seen it as a teenager, and it’s probably one of those films I should see again because my taste has changed. I would probably like it more than I did back then, although certainly not sufficiently to have it compete for my vote here.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by Mister Tee »

1990 was a godawful year – an inauspicious beginning to what turned out a pretty decent decade. So, the voters can’t be fully faulted for assembling a mediocre slate. However: they can be called to task for omitting the best original script of the year, Miller’s Crossing (like Woody Allen, the Coens were a slowly acquired taste for the writers’ branch). I’d also tweak their adapted slate to include Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, and I even like The Russia House better than some of the weaklings served up here.

Awakenings is the kind of film for which the term Oscar bait was coined. It’s not a bad movie or anything -- it’s perfectly watchable – but it seems to have been constructed in a lab somewhere for the sole purpose of getting Oscar nods in a lean year.

Dances with Wolves is the epitome of the kind of movie the Oscar seemed to settle for in the 80s – big and epic in a fully bland way. It’s less bad than Braveheart, certainly, but for me even less exciting than Out of Africa. You’d have hoped that, even in the teeth of a best picture sweep, there might have been a glance at the more cleverly written scripts on the slate – but, no: screenplay had to go along with all those other trophies, making for a dreary evening.

I’ve recounted in the past my singularly odd experience with seeing The Grifters (a threatening-looking derelict sat too close to my wife and me during the final reel, fatally distracting me). Perhaps I should see the film again to make a fairer evaluation. But, truth be told, I wasn’t enjoying the film all that much even earlier on. I prefer my noir 40s-ish and swank; 50’s writers like Jim Thompson made the genre a bit too down and dirty/ugly for my taste. Like BJ, I’m quite surprised it’s scoring as well here as it is.

Good Fellas has a lot of terrific narration – most of it lifted from Pileggi’s book – but I still think of it as primarily a directorial achievement; I don’t remember all that much memorable dialogue. I also think the film’s structure isn’t as strong as it could be: for me, the film sags quite a bit once we get past the Lufthansa heist. It’s far from a bad choice – I can understand why many are picking it. But it doesn’t get my checkmark.

Yeah, the scenes with Dershowitz’s students in Reversal of Fortune are a bit wan, but I can’t believe anyone would latch onto that as the most representative part of the script. This film takes subject matter that might have made a TV docudrama but approaches it from so many bizarre angles that it feels totally fresh. Above all it creates a rich screen character in von Bulow -- a role that gives Jeremy Irons acting opportunities he’s never come close to matching). His scenes sparring with Dershowitz offer all sorts of memorable dialogue; the film felt more clearly WRITTEN than anything else I saw that year. So, a vote for the Kazan fellow.

Original is mostly from hunger. I can’t believe people are advocating/voting for Green Card – I think it’s easily the worst of the lot. WGA candidate Pretty Woman was nothing to crow about, either, but, as romantic comedies go, it was at least halfway amusing, and knew how to use its busting-to-explode new star. Green Card to me was totally without distinction – and since I can barely tolerate Andie McDowell in good comedies (like Groundhog Day and Four Weddings), I find her insufferable here.

Ghost making it into the best picture category was a stunner, but turning up here, courtesy of the more discerning writers, was perhaps an even greater shock. I guess writers can occasionally be susceptible to Surprise-Hit Syndrome. Ghost at least has Whoopi Goldberg being funny much of the time, and a plot that, while contrived, was a bit out of the ordinary. But it’s a joke as a winner here.

By this point the writers were marking down Woody for most anything, including weak tea like Alice. It’s not an embarrassment of a movie, but it may be his only nomination in the 1977-1992 period that feels closer to the stuff he’s turning out these days. Mia Farrow’s fairly good, but the picture itself is pretty bland.

The only possible choices are the remaining two films, though neither is without its issues, and it’s not easy making the final pick.

Metropolitan was the indie critics settled on as the deserving low budget item to redeem the year (much the way they chose The Squid and the Whale 15 years later). The film was a rather wee thing, on a subject – the trials of the debutante set – that was of minimal importance to most. But it was a reasonably witty thing, and it felt freshly conceived, so the nomination, for sure, was merited. I soured on Stillman when I found he was a bit of a right-winger (churning out articles for the loony American Spectator), and it’s true his career pretty much folded after The Last Days of Disco. But I found his Damsels in Distress surprisingly enjoyable; he wouldn’t be the worst to ever win this award.

Avalon, much the opposite of Metropolitan, was a highly anticipated film: Levinson’s follow-up to his Oscar success, set in the Baltimore he’d so memorably characterized in Diner. For much of the way, Avalon is a very solid film: an immigrant’s chronicle filled with cranky humor and sharp observation about family. But the story seemed to lose its way in the final reel: it got sort of generically depressing as it chronicled the bland 50s, and it was hard to tell by the end just what the film was meant to be about. But…those early portions were good enough to maybe get my vote anyway -- particularly since I’ll be unable to vote for Levinson’s earlier wonderful script. It’s a compromised choice, but I’m going for Avalon. (So there you are, Italiano: I didn’t vote for either of your betes noires.)
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by The Original BJ »

1990 was a pretty dull year, but I think most of the better efforts were recognized in the Adapted Screenplay race, so I view this field overall as a respectable one. (Original is a different story.) Of adapted scripts that missed, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in Mr. & Mrs. Bridge.

Awakenings is the nominee I'd lose first. I think the true-life story at its core is pretty amazing, but I don't think there's very much that's special about the writing of this script. It's a mostly sentimental treatment of a subject that's long been catnip to Oscar voters -- medical handicaps -- and I view it as no more inventive or singular than plenty of other fine but mostly bland movies on the same subject.

I like Dances With Wolves more than many here -- it's not a groundbreaking or edgy movie, but I think it's a genuinely sensitive one about different races finding common ground, and its portrait of kindness is quite touchingly realized. (The "Dances With Wolves! Do you see that I am your friend?" finale just kills me.) Usually when I think a movie is solidly in awards territory, I'm not bothered by victories for it, even if it wouldn't be my choice -- I generally save my outrage for Oscars that go to movies I flat-out disdain. And yet, this prize would be an exception, because I think the difference in quality between this script and my favorite of the year is so giant, it's hard not for me to view this as a depressing case of a time when truly bracing screenwriting lost to something far more square.

The Grifters is a nifty neo-noir, full of colorful characters, witty dialogue, and appealingly twisty plotting. I don't share Italiano's annoyance with the movie or its ending -- I felt like the entire script was operating at a heightened, slightly satirical level, and it carried this tone through from beginning to end. That said, I am surprised it's gotten so many votes here. Although I think the film is one of the better efforts of the year, it struck me as enjoyable mostly as a lark -- I didn't see any tremendous depth to the material beneath the snarky surface. I find the other two films have considerably more weight to them.

Reversal of Fortune has tv-movie elements (the lawyer/assistant scenes have already been cited as the portions of the movie that most exemplify this), but I feel like the script overall is considerably more inventive than the average lawyer/mystery plot. There's a wittiness to the writing -- from Glenn Close's beyond-the-grave voiceover to Jeremy Irons's blackly comic bon mots -- that make the film seem almost playful in a devilish way, a perfect approach for a film with such a suave yet malevolent character at its center. So I guess I'd say that even though there are structural elements that feel more traditional, the overall treatment of the subject matter was far more off-center than I'd anticipated, in pleasing ways.

But I vote with ease for Goodfellas, one of the great movies of the '90's and a superlative writing achievement. Structurally, the film is totally exciting (it probably deserves as much credit as Pulp Fiction for inspiring the wave of time-jumping movies that popped up later in the decade), the plot barrels along with thrilling energy, and the dialogue crackles with biting humor. And thematically, the whole movie is a great deconstruction of the genre, with Henry Hill basically posturing as the image of gangsters from other media, and realizing that this career path is a whole lot more horrific and less glamorous than he anticipated. I think Scorsese losing Best Director to Costner was hugely alarming, but Goodfellas losing here to Wolves was almost even more outrageous. This is by far the most ambitious script of the bunch, and it succeeds in achieving its aims in a manner that's innovative and wildly exciting. I couldn't vote for anything else.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote: True, but omitting that scene from The Grifters would be like having Rhett stay with Scarlett at the end of Gone With the Wind - it would be a complete betrayal of the novel..

They could have preserved that character's death (and even the unintentional responsible for his death) - but changed the (honestly absurd) way he dies.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by Big Magilla »

ITALIANO wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:I don't know why one would cite the shocking climax of The Grifters without noting you are revealing a spoiler but beyond that, what does that have to do with the adaptation? It was in Jim Thompson's original novel.

I do agree that the scenes with Ron Silver as the egomaniacal Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune are annoying, but this is an adaptation of Dershowitz's book. For all we know it was in the contract that those scenes had to be in the movie. We're talking about the man, who in addition to defending Claus von Bulow, Leona Hemsley, O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson, has said he would defend Hitler.

Shocking?! I'd rather say absurd. Anyway, anyone who hasn't seen The Grifters in the last 24 years (and who's into the Oscars) will never see it, trust me, Big Magilla.

And who cares if a certain aspect WAS in the book a certain movie is based on? Films are a different medium, and adapting isn't a blind excercise in copying.
True, but omitting that scene from The Grifters would be like having Rhett stay with Scarlett at the end of Gone With the Wind - it would be a complete betrayal of the novel. As for Reversal of Fortune, the film, like the book, was about von Bulow as seen through the eyes of Dershowtiz so even if we roll our eyes at the Dershowitz chest-thumping scenes we can still appreciate the overall screenplay.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by mlrg »

Green Card and Goodfellas
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote:I don't know why one would cite the shocking climax of The Grifters without noting you are revealing a spoiler but beyond that, what does that have to do with the adaptation? It was in Jim Thompson's original novel.

I do agree that the scenes with Ron Silver as the egomaniacal Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune are annoying, but this is an adaptation of Dershowitz's book. For all we know it was in the contract that those scenes had to be in the movie. We're talking about the man, who in addition to defending Claus von Bulow, Leona Hemsley, O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson, has said he would defend Hitler.

Shocking?! I'd rather say absurd. Anyway, anyone who hasn't seen The Grifters in the last 24 years (and who's into the Oscars) will never see it, trust me, Big Magilla.

And who cares if a certain aspect WAS in the book a certain movie is based on? Films are a different medium, and adapting isn't a blind excercise in copying.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by Big Magilla »

I don't know why one would cite the shocking climax of The Grifters without noting you are revealing a spoiler but beyond that, what does that have to do with the adaptation? It was in Jim Thompson's original novel.

I do agree that the scenes with Ron Silver as the egomaniacal Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune are annoying, but this is an adaptation of Dershowitz's book. For all we know it was in the contract that those scenes had to be in the movie. We're talking about the man, who in addition to defending Claus von Bulow, Leona Hemsley, O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson, has said he would defend Hitler.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by ITALIANO »

Oh mamma mia. Now I have to destroy The Grifters. I mean, I just want to ask to all those who voted for it - has ANYONE ever died the way John Cusack's character die at the end of the movie? If you don't remember that scene, watch the movie again and tell me. Ah, but this is postmodernism, it SHOULDN'T be taken realistically... Yes, well, then anything is allowed, true. I'll just save Anjelica Huston's castrating mother from that mess - but that's maybe more for the actress than for the script. Even in this category there aren't too many alternatives (Reversal of Fortune, before one votes for it, has all those dreadful scenes with the progressive lawyer and its tv-style young assistants - remember!) - but Goodfellas IS an excellent screeplay, and I don't know how one can NOT vote for it.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1990

Post by ITALIANO »

I must admit that I smiled when I got to this thread. Before, I said to myself - "they will all vote, like sheep, for Metripolitan and The Grifters" - and well, sure enough, here they are! I know this board so well my God...

Metropolitan was the independent movie one HAD to like in 1990. Because it was set in a "chic", elegant social environment, it was mistaken for a "chic", elegant movie. Because it had LOTS of talk in it, that was mistaken for GOOD talk - but Whit Stillman wasn't Woody Allen, and that became painfully evident in his following movies. What can I say about this certainly overrated movie - and script? Its approach to the golden, high bourgeoisie youth of New York is somehow interesting - it treats most of its characters as humans rather than caricatures. But there's nothing else beyond that - and the writer-director can only resort to tiresome devices (in a typically American puritanical way, the chaste "good" girl, in case we haven't understood that she's good and chaste, is shown in one scene, during a sort-of orgy with semi-naked people, fully dressed and READING A BOOK! I dont know you, but I personally would have joined the orgy). It's all just too obvious, really - but if this is a good screenplay for you, I don't know what I can say.
There's nothing truly great in sight in this category, I know. But except for Ghost, I'd pick any of the other nominees - yes, even Avalon, which is far from perfect but, unlike Metropolitan, you feel that it REALLY knows the people and the place it's set in - over Stillman's "chef d'oeuvre". I've voted for Green Card - nothing more than a "cute" screenplay, maybe, but with a nice central idea, well (if not suprisingly) executed, and rather entertaining as far as romantic comedies go (especially by 90s standards).
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