Best Screenplay 1988

[Mister Tee]

Thanks to DVR-ed TCM and a week's vacation, I was finally able to catch up with Little Dorrit. My original viewing of Part I being a quarter-century ago, I had to start from scratch. I didn't find the first half quite as impenetrable as I had back in '89, but definitely much of it went right past me -- and there were many times when filmmaking choices (whispered conversations, loud clanging machinery obscuring words) seemed to willfully conceal plot points.

The second half did make some of it clearer, but I can't say it ever achieved total clarity. I went to the Wikipedia Little Dorrit page afterwards to read a plot synopsis, and found more than one element mentioned that I'd not grasped during my six-hour watch. It probably didn't help that my DVR-ed copy experienced HD freeze-up multiple times over those six hours, costing me words/sentences/sometimes it seemed whole scenes. But it also seemed that Edzard, in adapting the work, was aiming for some sort of narrative confusion -- rearranging a complex but straightforward story into two parts a la an episode of The Affair, where you had to watch both parts in succession for some moments to make sense. This might have been interesting had there been some value-added dramatic payoff (as there occasionally is, on The Affair), but I just found it made the whole thing a chore that vitiated even the better-told parts of the story.

What I gained from watching this again/anew: in current hindsight, a major plot development can be easily referenced as "Bernie Madoff-like"; and Alec Guinness' nomination is considerably easier to understand, as he very much dominates the second part.

[The Original BJ]

I would have chosen Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown over any of the actual Original Screenplay nominees, which aren't a bad lot (especially given that voters passed on Missisippi Burning), but which don't leave me with a hugely passionate choice either.

Rain Man is not as mawkish as say, I Am Sam, or some of the other more sentimental movies about developmentally disabled individuals -- the script does have a sense of humor that is a welcome antidote to the type of Oscar fare that practically announces its own importance. The problem for me, though, is that I felt the movie amounted to very little -- not only was the script a minor thing, but I found much of the writing fairly bland along the way. And narratively, so much of it felt so "written," like a case study you'd read about in a screenwriting textbook praising the movie for hitting all of the requisite story beats, without that much inspiration along the way. It doesn't rate consideration by me.

A Fish Called Wanda has its laughs, but it too was another nominee here that just didn't feel like it added up to anything much for me. Part of this could just be my personal taste in comedy -- I certainly didn't think the movie was funny at an outrageous level, not in the way my parents had suggested it was before I saw it. But I also felt like it lacked much in the way of insight, at least compared to the other two comedies on the ballot, which were funny as well emotionally resonant, and far more grounded in actual human behavior than a lot of the zaniness on display here.

I know we're talking screenplay here, but Running on Empty is a movie that I think so clearly illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses of Sidney Lumet's entire career. The movie is good because Naomi Foner's script is good -- it's the rare film that's both politically charged and brimming with a sense of kindness and generosity, full of insight into both the struggles of growing up as well as the challenges parents face in wanting to provide a better life for their kids than the one they had. So, thanks to Lumet for overall good taste (and for getting such strong performances out of these well-written roles). But I also think that, in the visual department, there are moments when Lumet is almost sabotaging the script -- scenes that scream for major movie close-up moments are played in long shot, sometimes with the actors barely in frame, and there's a sluggishness to the way scenes just dribble on that made me long for a director with more sense of rhythm. I know, we're judging the screenplay here and not the direction, but this is a case where I felt the writing was almost diminished by the director's inability to wring the most nuance out of it.

Bull Durham is a winning movie that ought to have done better with Oscar -- I'd have thought at least an actor or two would have placed. And it's easy to see why the film was such a screenplay favorite with critics' groups -- there's a lot of really funny dialogue and surprising inversions of sports movie tropes that make the film feel like the product of a writer's distinct voice. (I also think the simple fact that a woman is placed at the center of this baseball movie -- and a woman as complicated and well-drawn as Sarandon's Annie is -- really helps the movie feel like a look at professional sports that's coming from a fresh angle.) I don't, in the end, think the movie adds up to anything major league (yuk yuk), but the sharpness of a lot of the details along the way make it a bit more than just a pleasurable entertainment.

This isn't to say that Big was a major achievement either -- obviously when placed alongside Unbearable Lightness in the other category, it looks pretty puny. But I must say, I was quite pleasantly surprised when I got around to seeing Big (which, for some reason, I never saw as a kid.) I had expected something along the lines of a body swap comedy -- high-concept in the broadest possible way. But I found the script quite inventive and, most unexpectedly, far more dramatically tender than I'd anticipated. The scene in which Elizabeth Perkins explains that she doesn't want to go back to being thirteen again because it was hard enough once, is hugely poignant, indicative of a film with far more sensitivity toward both the difficulty of teenage years and the equal challenges of adulthood than your average Freaky Friday-style fantasy. Many popular comedies scored major Oscar nominations this year, but I think Big is the one that expands upon its premise in the most clever manner, and reaches the biggest emotional highs as well. It's my winner from this slate.

[The Original BJ]

I could come up with a lot of alternates on the Adapted side -- The Last Temptation of Christ, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Ringers, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Not saying I'd necessarily want to strike that many of the actual nominees, but there were a lot of options across genres that would have excited me more than some of those that actually placed.

I saw Little Dorrit within the past couple years, and I can't say it slipped into "How am I ever going to get through this?" territory for me. I found it to be fairly immaculately mounted, and scene-to-scene the writing had a liveliness that made it seem something other than just another dull classic lit adaptation. The structural conceit, too, was interesting...but paradoxically, I found it to be a huge liability for the movie. I, too, wasn't familiar with this Dickens beforehand, and I found large portions of the plot difficult to follow, simply because crucial story elements required to understand the first half of the movie weren't revealed until the point of view shift in the second half. I'd generally be eager to endorse a movie that requires such audience attention, but here I felt the filmmakers erred far too little on the side of narrative clarity for my taste.

Perhaps one reason why Gorillas in the Mist seems a bit more interesting than the average biopic is simply because it chronicles the experiences of a type of person who doesn't often receive this treatment. And so, the milieu of the African wild and Fossey's experiences in it (and struggles to save it) felt a bit more freshly conceived than your average biography of a great leader or entertainer. Still, it wasn't a hugely inventive piece of writing, nor does it get at all that many complicated ideas (the way A Cry in the Dark does), so it won't get me to overcome my biography resistance to vote for it here.

The Accidental Tourist is a movie that's surprisingly funny for something so melancholy, and that's one of the things I admire about the writing in it -- the way the poignancy of William Hurt's loss can resonate alongside the winning quirkiness of Geena Davis's new love interest, in a manner that makes the script feel like it runs a fairly full range of emotions. That said, I didn't think the movie always balances these elements in as gracefully a manner as it might have. There are scenes intended to get laughs that don't (like the cartoonish skateboard bit), as well as ones intended to land emotionally that just sit there (the later Kathleen Turner scenes). And on the whole, I found the movie a bit small -- in order for something this slice-of-life to get my vote, the script would had to have been executed with a lot more precision to make up for the lack of scope.

Dangerous Liaisons is a script that succeeds in execution a bit better -- once the plot kicks into gear, it handles a lot of dramatic elements and narrative reversals in an economic and engaging manner, and there's a lot of clever, witty dialogue along the way (though much of it from the stage play). Still, even beyond my usual vote-for-a-play problem, I've always had an issue with the story's set-up: the stakes just don't seem to be very high. Close and Malkovich could have just as easily NOT decided to play a trick on Pfeiffer, and then there would have been no story. There's an archness to the premise that never really goes away throughout the rest of the movie -- despite all the emotion of the proceedings, so much of it feels so distant. So, despite admiring a lot of the craft in the writing, it's hard for me to get too enthusiastic about a movie that leaves me a bit cold.

I cast my vote pretty easily for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the best movie of the year, and the best screenplay as well. This is one of the most insightful epics in film history -- with a complicated love triangle, an expert balance between the big history of the story's backdrop and the intimate human relationships the comprise its heart, and an ending that builds to a hugely emotional finale. It's a credit to all involved -- not least among them the screenwriters -- that a moment as simple as Lena Olin's "They were my best friends" lands with such heartbreaking heft, as the fates of the three richly drawn major characters have come to matter so much to the viewer by film's end. It's also a deeply philosophical movie -- the conversation that gives the movie its title resonates not only throughout the epic and personal struggles that comprise the narrative, but in a manner that makes one examine his or her own existence and choices to a more thoughtful degree. (Well, at least it did for me). I'm with Mister Tee -- once in a while, it's nice to have a pretty obvious choice one can choose with great enthusiasm.

[Big Magilla]

I have no desire to rehash Rain Man yet again, except to say, I don’t think many at the time truly saw this as any serious study of autism.

Here's an article that discusses the effect of the film on the public's awareness of Savant Syndrome in its first 101 days of release from a medical consultant on the film. It's one of several articles I've found that reference the 1983 60 Minutes interview with an autistic savant that had a profound effect on Dustin Hoffman who took the role of the savant rather than the part of the younger brother he was originally offered. I know I saw a TV program just before the film was released in which Hoffman discusses this. I could swear it was on 60 Minutes but all I can find is an IMDb. reference to a Rain Man promotional film from 1988 which is probably what I saw. It must have included the 1983 interview, which is why I always think of Hoffman and 60 Minutes together whenever I think of the film which may not be a serious study of autism but does contain a seriously researched study of the subject by its makers, particularly its star who in his own words doesn't mimic any particular savant but rather acts as he might if he were himself an autistic savant.

https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org ... real-life/

[Mister Tee]

On the original side, the big miss for me is Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Pedro’s first big leap into the semi-mainstream. Under adaptation, I’d have gone for Eight Men Out and a Cry in the Dark.

I was never that wild about Dead Ringers. I DVR-ed it recently, and will take another look, but I fear I just have overriding issues with films where characters become so drug-addled by the end that their behavior ceases being interesting in a human way.

As Sabin says, it was quite atypical of the Oscars to omit two down-the-middle best picture nominees – Working Girl and Mississippi Burning -- from screenplay competition. (Given that two other best film hopefuls, Accidental Tourist and Dangerous Liaisons, were absent from the directing slot, the race was effectively conceded to Rain Man) I shed no tears for those missing here. I thought Working Girl was a bland, routine rom-com (when a friend of mine saw Pretty Woman a year-plus later, he told me it was the first thing he’d seen since Working Girl, and the combo made him feel he hadn’t missed a thing). And Mississippi Burning was worse: a rewrite of the Civil Rights era that turned it into a Dirty Harry movie for lefties.

A Fish Called Wanda is funny, and it had the advantage at the time of coming almost completely from the blue. But I never found it so bloody hilarious as to shower it with nominations – director, especially. I think it’s an acceptable nominee here, but as a winner it’s miscast.

I have no desire to rehash Rain Man yet again, except to say, I don’t think many at the time truly saw this as any serious study of autism. This was an entertainment: a road movie about two brothers having wacky adventures (some critics at the time noted its structural similarities to Midnight Run). The best thing about the movie was it didn’t take itself seriously; it was funny. (And to me the funniest thing about it was the Hoffman performance, but I know it’s hopeless trying to persuade anyone here of that) Anyway…the film was no world-beater, but it was a huge grosser and, as best pictures in the era went, I didn’t think it was so bad. The film clearly didn’t feature the best screenplay on offer, but was a sure winner as part of its sweep.

As much as Rain Man’s extravagant Oscar haul makes people look down on it, I think Big’s relatively puny showing has caused some to overinflate its charms. It’s a nice little movie, carried along by an imaginative actor just then coming into his own. It’s nothing great.

I was writing a play centered on a radical-in-hiding when Running on Empty came out, so I stayed away from seeing it for many years; only finally got to it in the past half-decade or so. I liked the film well enough, but not to the degree some here do. There are strong elements (many revolving around Phoenix and Plimpton, though the Lahti/Steven Hill reunion is pretty sure-fire, as well), but I don’t find its totality as strong as its parts. As to why it did rather poorly in nominations: it absolutely DIED at the box-office (IMDB has it totaling $2.8 million; by comparison, Sabin, Dead Ringers did over $9 million). Audiences just didn’t want to see a movie about the 60s, and the Academy, as always, didn’t want to nominate a movie that made so little money. Foner’s nod here was actually a generous gesture – perhaps to the film’s political spirit (like the nomination for The Front 12 years earlier), or maybe to a well-liked industry regular (you do know she’s the Gyllenhaals’ mother, right?).

I’ll back up Italiano to a small extent: I went into Bull Durham having heard extravagant raves from most critics, and I didn’t think it lived up to them. I still, though, think it’s the best script in this grouping, and the best original one on offer in 1988. (I’ll defend Shelton’s full career, as well: both his earlier Under Fire, and his subsequent White Men Can’t Jump and Tin Cup) No doubt it helps to be fully acquainted with baseball – to know why Costner walking in and saying “I’m the player to be named later” is funny. But I think there’s plenty of sprightly dialogue that transcends the subject matter – Costner’s famed “I believe in…” monologue; the coaching of Tim Robbins in appropriate TV clichés; the mound conversation on appropriate wedding gifts. And there’s a sweet but not fully predictable arc to the plot that captures the spirit of living close to the big time knowing you’re never going to get there. The critics, in unanimity, had it right: Bull Durham for the win.

I’ve already tipped my hand on Little Dorrit. Given the critical response, I went into it with (forgive me) great expectations, but found it almost impenetrable. I was handicapped by being totally unfamiliar with this particular Dickens work; the sad part is, I emerged from Part I in almost the same condition. The film was, as I said below, cacophonous: like a parody of the worst Altman film, with so many people talking at once I wasn’t able to grasp what was going on half the time. Three hours of this made me less than anxious to rent Part II (and my wife had already informed me I’d be on my own for it). I suppose in some ways I’m being unfair: maybe Part II was so transcendent all my problems with Part I would be washed magically away. Mmm…doubt it. So, to be clear: I’m not voting for it.

Gorillas in the Mist was a movie I went to solely because it seemed a potential best actress candidate, but it surprised me by being surprisingly engaging. I didn’t know much about Dian Fossey (except that main word, gorillas), and I found her story engrossing in a low-key way. This is not as good a film (or script) as the omitted A Cry in the Dark, but it’s far from an embarrassing nominee.

The Accidental Tourist screenplay (name-drop: half-written by a teacher I had in college) does something I would have thought close to impossible: capturing the pixilated quality of many of Anne Tyler’s characters. Tyler’s tone is so off-center, so singular, that I’d have thought it would play too twee on screen, but pretty much every scene involving Geena Davis, or Hurt’s extended family, strikes precisely the right note. The problem? There’s also that movie Kathleen Turner’s playing in, which misses the mark to almost the same degree the other scenes succeed. This is largely fatal to the last reel of the film, a portion that led a friend of mine to declare it was the only movie she’d ever seen that had died in Paris; all that redeems the film is Geena Davis’s climactic smile. If I could vote separately for individual sections, I’d be putting Accidental Tourist at least in place position. But, alas, on the whole I can’t.

I hadn’t much enjoyed Dangerous Liaisons on stage (where it was called, like the novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses); the plot/counterplot aspect was a bit too arch, and the lead actors – Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman – while accomplished, brought little sex appeal to the project. Malkovich’s insinuating rakishness set a far more carnal tone to the film, and largely the same script played out with a good deal more life. I still have a general resistance to period films, however, so, while I can see why some are choosing the film, my vote will go elsewhere.

To, in fact, my favorite film of the 80s: the great The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Few great novels have been made into such equally great films as this. Phil Kaufman & new Oscar-winner Jean-Claude Carriere found a way to bring Kundera’s take to the screen without vulgarization or simplification, and gave us a vivid portrait of artists struggling with libidos and repression in and around the Prague Spring. I find the film (like the book) fully poetic, with unforgettable images -- the swimmers in the pool; the Tereza/Sabina peekaboo in the studio; the tanks crushing the uprising. And the last shot is so perfect it left a blissful smile on my face. How nice to be in the screenplay category; for once I don’t have to say, “Well, of the choices the Academy gave me…” The Unbearable Lightness of Being is my favorite film between Manhattan and Schindler’s List, and I’m delighted to be able to vote for it here.

[Big Magilla]

I've read the film critics in the NY Times faithfully for 50 years now, and I have no recollection of any John Gross.

John Gross was the editor of The Times Literary Supplement in London in the 1970s and a book critic for The New York Times in the 1980s . He died in London in January, 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/arts/12gross.html

[The Original BJ]

I don't know anyone who's made it all the way through this thing.

I have.

Stay tuned...

[Mister Tee]

Little Dorrit was the best reviewed film made from a Dickens novel since David Lean's 1946 version of Great Expectations. The L.A. Film Critics awarded it Best Picture and Supporting Actor (Alec Guinness). Miriam Margolyes was runner-up for Best Supporting Actress to Genevieve Bujold in Dead Ringers and The Moderns. Dead Ringers also won Best Director for David Cronenberg and was runner-up to Little Dorrit for Best Picture. Best Screenplay went to Bull Durham with The Moderns runner-up.

None of which does anything to refute Italiano's point. I don't know anyone who's made it all the way through this thing: I struggled through the endless, cacophonous first half on VHS, and never could bring myself to rent Part II. I thought, for this discussion, I ought to look at it, but Netflix has no proof of its existence (presumably for the reason you mention, that DVD versions are limited). I was shocked by the nominations it received, and wondered if they were acquired by reputation -- i.e., by people who heard it was good and never tested it for themselves.

And, for the record, I've read the film critics in the NY Times faithfully for 50 years now, and I have no recollection of any John Gross.

[Big Magilla]

Little Dorrit was the best reviewed film made from a Dickens novel since David Lean's 1946 version of Great Expectations. The L.A. Film Critics awarded it Best Picture and Supporting Actor (Alec Guinness). Miriam Margolyes was runner-up for Best Supporting Actress to Genevieve Bujold in Dead Ringers and The Moderns. Dead Ringers also won Best Director for David Cronenberg and was runner-up to Little Dorrit for Best Picture. Best Screenplay went to Bull Durham with The Moderns runner-up.

If memory serves the film's two three hour parts were shown in separate admissions and the film did not make much money at the box-office. It was released on VHS in the U.S. but the only DVD version is the 2008 U.K. release which I have.

Here's the N.Y. Times review from October, 1988:

Film; 'Little Dorrit': Fine Performances, Vivid Faces - Gaunt Cheek by Comfortable Jowl

By JOHN GROSS
Published: October 30, 1988

The new film of ''Little Dorrit,'' written and directed by Christine Edzard, must be the most ambitious movie adaptation of a Dickens novel ever made, and, setting aside David Lean's superlative 1946 version of ''Great Expectations,'' the most successful. Moreover, in ''Great Expectations'' David Lean was working with a relatively compact story, while ''Little Dorrit'' is a great urban sprawl of book, Dickens at his most profuse.

Faced with the problem of bringing this superabundance of material under control, Miss Edzard's solution has been to divide the story into two sections - each running for three hours - and to regroup the major episodes accordingly. Part 1 is called ''Nobody's Fault,'' which is the title Dickens originally planned to give the novel; Part 2 is called ''Little Dorrit's Story.''

''Nobody's Fault'' centers on Arthur Clennam, who returns to London after 20 years in China - in the first instance, to the dark family home presided over by his harsh, sternly religious mother. Intrigued by the seamstress who works for her, a diminutive young woman called Amy Dorrit, he gets to know her and her family. They have been inmates of the Marshalsea debtors' prison for many years: Amy's father, William Dorrit, is the patriarch of the place, and Amy herself was born there.

Clennam tries to help them as best he can. Then they unexpectedly come into a fortune, and leave the jail for a life of foreign travel and high society - while Clennam, after a business failure, ends up in the Marshalsea himself.

In ''Little Dorrit's Story'' we retrace the same events through Amy's eyes. We also learn about her early life, and follow her and her family abroad to Italy and back to London in their new post-Marshalsea prosperity.

In particular, we see them entering the opulent world of Merdle, a fraudulent company promoter whose eventual crash drags down thousands of investors with him (Clennam among them). It is only then that Amy and Clennam are united, never again - once Clennam has left the Marshalsea - to be separated.

The movie built around these twin narratives is fluent, intelligent and atmospheric. It abounds in pungent performances and memorable faces - gaunt cheek by comfortable jowl; it moves with equal conviction from the jostling streets to the silent gloom of the Clennam house, from the ramshackle poverty of Bleeding Heart Yard to the smooth corridors of the Circumlocution Office. The sounds of the drama are haunting, too, as haunting as the images: above all the restless noises that echo through the Marshalsea.

If you haven't read ''Little Dorrit,'' you may well find that the film makes you want to; and if you do, you will find that for the most part the film is commendably true to the spirit in which Dickens wrote. In one respect, indeed - the depiction of the two central characters - it represents a distinct improvement.

In the novel, where she isn't a blur, Amy Dorrit comes close to being an embarrassment, a stunted Dickensian child-wife of uncertain sexual status. And though the characterization of Arthur Clennam is more successful, he is only half brought to life. It is as though his heavy spirits infected the way Dickens drew him.

In the film, by contrast, both characters are fully realized. Derek Jacobi endows Clennam with the presence that Dickens was only half able to supply; Amy, as played by Sarah Pickering, has the selflessness and sweetness of temper that the novelist was aiming for, without the sentimental haze in which he enveloped her.

A convincing Clennam and Amy are essential to the two-part structure that Christine Edzard has imposed on the story. They provide a unifying principle, each in turn; they lend credibility to the central contrast between the oppression and frustration of Part 1 and the redemption of Part 2.

It says something about the peculiar nature of Dickens's genius that they don't have the same degree of importance in the novel, that their inadequacies don't prevent the book from being a major masterpiece. For many readers it may seem to confirm the view that construction was his weakest point, that his work typically consists, as George Orwell put it, of ''rotten architecture and wonderful gargoyles.''

But it would be truer to say that there are two kinds of structure in a Dickens novel. There is the plot, often melodramatic and far-fetched; and there is what you might call the poetic structure - a dense network of images and motifs, often linked by the finest verbal filaments, and an underlying narrative rhythm.

In Miss Edzard's rearrangement of ''Little Dorrit,'' some of this rhythm has undoubtedly been disrupted. The Merdles, for example - the financier and his wife - make their first appearance little more than a quarter of the way into the book; and the Merdles represent Dickens at the height of his powers. In the movie, however, Miss Edzard's scheme insures that we don't encounter them until Part 2 - which is one reason why Part 1 starts to drag.

Conversely, there is the public unmasking of Casby, the landlord of Bleeding Heart Yard: a silky-haired, hard-hearted humbug who eventually has his locks sheared and his impostures denounced by Mr. Pancks, his rent collector. This occurs far too early in the film. There isn't time for the requisite build-up, and the contrast between Casby and Pancks gets blunted.

As for the verbal energy of the book, the film can't hope to match it, by its very nature. You can show Merdle looking preoccupied (he is contemplating suicide); you can't show him looking down into his hat ''as if it were some 20 feet deep.'' You can show Pancks bustling about, but you can't show him bustling about ''like a little coaly tugboat.''

Still, all this simply means that the film must be judged on its own terms; and though it has its slow patches and its occasional lapses, they don't seriously detract from a remarkable achievement.

Who could have foretold, for example, than any film maker would have done as well as Miss Edzard does with the potentially B-movie scenes in Mrs. Clennam's house? The glimmering dark brown interiors take on an almost Rembrandtesque quality; the late Joan Greenwood invests Mrs. Clennam herself with extraordinary power.

Then there is Alec Guinness, whose career stretches back to ''Great Expectations'' and to the controversial 1948 movie of ''Oliver Twist.'' He has rarely given a more finely judged performance than he does as selfish, pathetic William Dorrit, cadging his ''testimonials'' from new arrivals in the Marshalsea, reverting to his Marshalsea self (but has he ever escaped from it?) in the unforgettable scene where he breaks down at a Merdle banquet.

But it isn't a question of one or two star performers. Even the least of the characters on screen is apt to have his or her sudden piercing moment; and it is here, in its overflowing detail, and its eye for the rejected and disregarded, that the film is at its most truly Dickensian.

[Sabin]

That means fewer than nobody saw Dead Ringers.

Huh. As I look at the WGA nominations, I see that Naomi Foner wasn't nominated. I wonder if she was not in the WGA at the time.

[ITALIANO]

I haven't seen Little Dorrit .

Nobody has seen it. I mean, even I have seen only a part of it. Watching all of it really takes A LOT of patience.

[Sabin]

I haven't seen Gorillas in the Mist or Little Dorrit so I cannot vote for Best Adapted Screenplay. A lineup without Dead Ringers is fairly ridiculous thought.

Best Original Screenplay on the other hand, I can and this is a very strong lineup. Mostly because Working Girl was not included. It's not anything great at all, but it's a Best Picture and Best Director-nominated comedy with three acting nominations as well. Surely the writing had something to do with that, right? And good call on the Academy for passing over Mississippi Burning as well.

The weakest of the bunch is the eventual winner, Rain Man, a film whose Oscar victory confuses me a bit. I certainly understand it as the socially-conscientious movie of the late 80s minute, but I think you'd have to live through it to understand. I find it a confusing winner because I think it's so funny. I haven't seen Rain Man in a while but I really like it and find everything about it aside from Dustin Hoffman's performance to be a little underrated. It doesn't deserve any nominations though. Next up would have to be Big, a totally charming movie that pretty much succeeds at everything it's trying to do. Unlike Rain Man, it at least deserves one nomination...for Tom Hanks. I think next would be A Fish Called Wanda, a film that has been terribly dismissed on this small corner of the internet and no place else on Earth. It's one of the wackiest films to ever engage me on an emotional level as well.

It's between Bull Durham and Running on Empty. That Bull Durham swept up the three major critic's groups as well as the WGA award today would likely make it unbeatable were it not a sole nominee. I find it hard to believe that anybody thought that a group of voters that ignored Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins could possibly give this wonderfully written romantic comedy an Oscar over Rain Man. But to be fair, I find it even more unbelievable that Running on Empty couldn't muscle out nominations for Best Picture and Director. How is this not up the Academy's alley? Especially after it picked up five Golden Globe nominations and a win for writing? Total flip of the coin. I didn't vote for When Harry Met Sally... last round but I will vote for Bull Durham this time.

[dws1982]

But there's Running On Empty - by the much-hated (here) Sidney Lumet - and Running On Empty is an affecting, sensitive portrayal of growing up and family relationships. It's low-key, but not superficial, and it's written with a kind of honesty, candor even, which isn't common today in American movies, but which was even more rare in the 80s - a decade of Reaganism and artificiality. The best of these five for sure.

Running On Empty is Lumet's best film, in my opinion, and the screenplay is a huge factor in that. The cast is great: Phoenix, of course, but also Lahti (would've been a sure Actress nominee, but just happened to be in a really strong year), Martha Plimpton, Judd Hirsch, and veteran character actor Steven Hill in a small role. I do think Lumet is the weak link in some ways--it still has the pacing issues and visual clunkiness that tends to show up in his movies. (Put Clint Eastwood or Jonathan Demme in the director's chair, and we'd be talking about one of the all-time greats.) But the screenplay is great, and my easy in the Original category.

[ITALIANO]

I must confess that I am one of the very few who didn't find Bull Durham such a revelatory experience. Of course I was 19 the only time I saw it, so I could change my mind if I saw it again today - but it left me cold back then, and honestly, considering its writer-director career, it's possible that I was right in thinking that it was a bit overrated at the time - and now on this board. And if it were for this and three other nominess, I'd certainly abstain for voting (A Fish Called Wanda, which back then was thought by many to be the funniest movie ever, made me smile only once or twice. Big was a shameless copy of the Italian movie Da Grande - I dont even think they admitted this in the credits. And the big winner Rain Man is a smart but quite insincere look at a serious issue). But there's Running On Empty - by the much-hated (here) Sidney Lumet - and Running On Empty is an affecting, sensitive portrayal of growing up and family relationships. It's low-key, but not superficial, and it's written with a kind of honesty, candor even, which isn't common today in American movies, but which was even more rare in the 80s - a decade of Reaganism and artificiality. The best of these five for sure.

I am the first to admire the glorious French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere. He SHOULD have an Oscar for one of his many, many movies - and I'll definitely vote for him on one of the two other times he was nominated. But then, those two other times are for his work with Luis Bunuel, so he probably won't get any vote on this board for those. Unsurprisingly, he's winning here for this movie, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which, though based on an European novel (and a best-seller of those days - it was THE book anyone had to read) it's still, well, VERY American. Very accessible. The director wasn't stupid, of course, but only a Czech or at least an Eastern-European could have done justice to such a complex, and in many ways unique, subject (Carriere himself, while a celebrated intellectual, doesn't have THAT background). It's a pretty movie, but, sadly, ultimately a bit on the "empty" side. I usually tend not to vote for film adaptation of plays, but I think that Dangerous Liaisons is a truly "filmic" version of a play which in turn (I've read it) was an intelligent, dynamic stage version of a novel (I read that, too) which belonged to that extremely specific literary genre - the epistolary novel (and one in which the letters are written by several characters, not just two). Not an easy task, believe me, Plus, there ARE interesting differences between the movie and the play. So yes, I'd say that Dangerous Liaisons deserves to be taken into serious consideration here, and especially considering the rest of the nominees, I don't think it's so unfair to give it my vote.

[Big Magilla]

I forgot that Unbearable Lightness of Being co-writer was receiving an Honorary Oscar last night along with Maureen O'Hara, Hayao Miyazaki and Harry Belafonte. No idea if the writer who also collaborated with Luis Bunuel on Belle de Jour and The Discreet charm of the Bourgeoisie among many other accomplishments was even there as the only published article thus far was more interested in Reese Witherspoon chatting with Jerry Katzenberg.