US Scripters Nominations (Gloriously) Add to the Adapted Screenplay Confusion

by Nathaniel R

Lost City of Z finally makes a precursor markOne of the funniest developments this awards season is how weirdly empty the Adapted Screenplay became in the wake of so many top contenders being "originals". The balance is way off. Even the 'true' stories, the ones adapted from history or people's lives this year were mostly originals (Some have argued in the past should be considered for the Adapted category since they're not originating the stories and characters... though we've never come to a definitive conclusion as to whether or not we agree).

Today the US Scripters chaired by USC professor and past president of the Writers Guild of America, West, Howard Rodman, and a selection committee chose the nominees from a field of 91 film and 28 television adaptations. Because of a three way tie in voting they have SEVEN film nominees this year. Which is hilarious since most people though the category "weak" in terms of Oscar candidates. In spreading their net so wide they've done little to clear up the confusion as to which five films will receive Oscar nominations. More after the jump...

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Into the Link-Verse

• Dim the House Lights a conversation about those Sondheim auditions in Lady Bird
• /Film why is Big Little Lies still competing as "Limited Series" when it has a second season order. The controversy is starting to bubble up
• Cartoon Brew I didn't even know that there was ANOTHER new awards show but come to think of it there's always another new one, isn't there? We now have the European Animation Awards and they gave their top prize to Loving Vincent. This is not to be confused with the European Film Awards which also gave Loving Vincent Best Animated Feature
• Cartoon Brew on the key points of that giant Disney/Fox deal. It's scary people. Now basically only 4 American-owned entertainment companies have control over America’s cultural identity. 

• Forbes on the teaser for Into the Spider-Verse with Miles Morales finally making it to screen...
• Indie Wire talks to the great actress Lesley Manville about Phantom Thread and Hollywood for women over 40
• The Wrap ack. I totally forgot to link to this last week. In an unprecedented move The Academy added 'Standards of Conduct' to membership details after the explosion of sexual misconduct news this past month
• Coming Soon the first poster and teaser for New Mutants
• Out January 25th is when RuPaul's Drag Race returns
• Vogue Philip Seymour Hoffman's partner Mimi pens an essay with Adam Green about living with an addict and the actor's final sad year.

List-Mania
• EW a timeline of Nicole Kidman's most iconic 2017 moments
• After Ellen a list of the best lesbian or bi movies of the year
• GQ Top ten books of the year and each author chosen gets to recommend a book, too. Fun angle! Do you have a library card? You might need one after this.
• Variety Owen Gleiberman and Peter DeBruge's top ten lists
• EW best and worst tv shows of the year
• Out most iconic looks of 2017. It's heavy on music video ladies for some reason but there's some fun surprises like "Allison Janney with a parrot on her shoulder" from I, Tonya
• CBC an A-Z guide to the year in queer: God's Own Country, Melina Matsoukas, and much more
• THR top ten movies of the year from Todd McCarthy and staff. Call Me By Your Name all over the place.

The Link and I

Link time. Here we go...

Screen
/Film Deadpool 2 and X-Men Dark Phoenix have both wrapped, both due in 2018
/Film Turns out Beyoncé was offered Plumette before Gugu in the recent Beauty & The Beast movie. Insane that they offered Beyoncé a teensy part when Belle was right there. WTF, Bill Condon?
Coming Soon Gong Li will lead Martin Campbell's next thriller Ana -- the tone is said to be similar to La Femme Nikita.  We'd be super excited because Gong Li is always welcome in leading roles but Campbell's new one The Foreigner with Jackie Chan isn't exactly winning raves
Film Society Helen Mirren named as the honoree at next spring's Chaplin Award Gala in NYC. Robert De Niro was the honoree earlier this year

 

Into Todd Haynes talks about Wonderstruck and about meeting with Barbra Streisand to talk Gypsy !!!
Variety it's official The Current War has moved to 2018 as the Weinstein Company sorts itself out
Tracking Board Sandra Bullock's Netflix thriller Bird Box casts Patti Cake$' breakout Danielle Macdonald 
Variety Alfonso Cuarón talks about the Lumière festival, The Shape of Water, his new Mexican film Roma his first since Y Tu Mama Tambien
Coming Soon the young cast of those four Avatar sequels hit Disney World (only one of them is playing a human character). 

Page Turners
The Guardian Tom Hanks has written a book of short stories
NPR there's a new book out on the ultimate screen classic Casablanca

Stage 
Playbill Sir Ian McKellen will provide the voice of the demon in a new stage adaptation of The Exorcist
Playbill Kelli O'Hara likely to reprise her Tony winning performance in the West End production of The King and I next summer in London
EW Whoopi Goldberg & Maggie Gyllenhaal to star in a Damn Yankees concert, how fun!

More Sexual Harassment Stories
NYT Sarah Polley on the switch she felt moving from actress to director in terms of respect
Variety Eva Green has joined the chorus of women who have awful Weinstein stories to tell
BBC Woody Allen reacts to the Weinstein allegations
TFE Björk's harassment story (in case you missed it)
Boy Culture model/actor Ronnie Kroell speaks about how harassment happens to men in Hollywood, too. There are gay Weinsteins out there

and something a little lighter to end with...
Medium a hack for men (using The Rock as a mental example) who dont want to be accused of sexual harassment

u know where i'm at, u know where I be, u in the blog just to linky 🎵

If you missed part one of our massive link roundup to catch up on news and such, that's here. Going a lot shorter for part two

/Film on the 20th anniversary of Boogie Nights
This is Not Porn Sigourney Weaver with a pumpkin
/i09 Jeff Goldblum riffing on the meaning of "Ragnarok" - I was personally alarmed to see this whole story this morning because I feel like I knew all this classic mythology stuff when I was in diapers and I KNOW we learned some of it in school. Is mythology not taught anymore? Weird cause kids tend to love it (since there are superpowers, monsters, etcetera)
Jezebel a fine interview with famous primatologist Jane Goodall about her work, the new documentary about her, and climate change

Film School Rejects 35 things we learned from Edgar Wright's Baby Driver commentary
AV Club Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood on filming Gerald's Game, another Stephen King adaptation that people are actually liking (what is happening?)
Coming Soon Director Taiki Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Thor Ragnarok) is very coy about whether or not he'll direct the long gestating live action remake of anime classic Akira but if he does, he won't be casting non-Asians. So if they must make this movie, let's hope he gets the job.
Playbill Idina Menzel didn't want to write a memoir so her sister wrote a book about their lives "Voice Lessons: A Sisters Story"
/Film Corey Haim & Corey Feldman, teen idols of the late 80s, are getting the Lifetime movie treatment
W Magazine Cara Delevingne is now an author ("Mirror Mirror") and a brunette
The New Yorker "Everything that I'm afraid might happen now that I've lost my headphones"

Congrats to the MacArthur Genius Grant Winners.
The 24 recipients for 2017 have been named who will each receive the grant of $625,000 which is a lot of change for most writers and artists and performers. Celebrities of course make truckloads of money but that's much different than toiling away for your craft in most arts careers. Twenty four recipients from many different kinds of field were chosen so let's just list those in the arts: Annie Baker (playwright), Rhiannon Giddens (musician), Taylor Mac (performance artist ♥︎), Yuval Sharon (opera producer), Tyshawn Sorey (composer), and Jesmyn Ward (writer)

Director Joel Edgerton's "Boy Erased" Heads to Focus, While the Author of the Memoir Addresses Concerns

By Daniel Crooke

Give or take a big, broad Black Mass or two, Aussie toughie Joel Edgerton has proven himself to be a craftsman of restraint throughout his most recent crop of work, and continues to surprise audiences by subverting their expectations of how a man of his hulking size and stature should emote on the big screen. His performance in last year’s criminally undervalued Loving buries deep currents of sensitivity beneath the protective creases of his brooding face, and he manages to say more and speak louder through the locked intensity of his body language than the volume of his voice in Trey Edward Shults’s apocalyptic downer It Comes At Night. 

However, his most compelling work as an artist to date has been behind the camera...

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