A Shocking First-Time-Ever WGA Surprise!

To all the other nominees in the category, have fun at the Oscars, LOSERS!"
-Bo Burnham accepting his WGA prize for Original Screenplay

This is not common at all but last night the Writers Guild of America opted to ditch the Best Picture nominated films and instead chose Can You Ever Forgive Me? in Adapted and Eighth Grade (which was not even nominated for the Oscar *sniffle*) in Original as the year's best screenplays. Though the WGA and the Oscar winners only line up about half the time (some of that due to eligibility differences) it's pretty rare that the WGA skips Best Picture nominees if they have the option of awarding them. The last time they gave their Adapted Screenplay prize to a non Oscar Best Pic contender was American Splendor (2003) and the last time they gave their Original Screenplay to a non Oscar Best Pic contender was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) so we're talking quite a while ago. It's so uncommon that it happening in both categories simultaneously is a downright shock; it's literally never happened in the history of the WGA...

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Podcast: Oscar's Self Destruction, Guild Prizes, and Sundance Winners

with Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl 

 In this episode Murtada and Nathaniel sound off on Sundance buzz, and the current madness of the awards race and Oscar's late-life identity crisis and one shockingly ill-thought-out decision after the next, ad infinitum.

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Sundance buzz: The Farewell, Clemency, One Child Nation, Them That Follow , and The Report
17:25 Recent guild prizes: Bryan Singer & Rami Malek's Bohemian Rhapsody and how everything keeps going wrong this awards season.
22:34 Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade's surprise DGA win
26:00 Oscar's identity crisis and its increasingly terrible decisions. Murtada tries to talk Nathaniel off the ledge.
36:00 Spike Lee and Bradley Cooper at the DGAs and guilds confusion about Best Picture
45:40 Trying to survive Oscar's dwindling sense of self and we're back to Sundance to talk about next year's Oscar possibilities, especially in regards to Clemency
56:00 Annie Awards and wrap-up

Referenced in the Podcast
• Nathaniel's "Awards Season is Killing Me" Rant
• DGA winners
• Murtada's Sundance Coverage

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Sundance Glory / Oscar Doom

DGA: The Spikes (Jonze & Lee), Bradley Cooper's Loss, and the Gowns (yes, the gowns)

by Nathaniel R

The big news coming out of the weekend's DGA ceremony was not Alfonso Cuarón's second win from the Director's Guild (he previously took the DGA for Gravity and had won nearly every award of note for Roma, making a repeat a foregone deal). Instead it was Bradley Cooper's surprise loss for First Time Feature A Star is Born and Spike Lee's speeches, which inevitably have a way of shaking up a room because Spike Lee always says what he has to say, unapologetically. The best element of the non-televised DGA ceremony is that they make a big deal of the nominees and not just the winner, giving all 5 top nominees a moment at the mic and a presentation of their nomination in medal form...

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Annie Awards swing giddily into the "Spider-Verse" and might predict Oscar's Animated Short winner

by Nathaniel R

The directors of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse had a great great night at the Annie Awards

Though Disney dominated the Annie nominations with huge tallies for both Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet  it was Sony Animation's all time biggest hit that proved the ultimate champ with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hogging the big prizes at the event. Other big winners were Disney's Mickey Mouse, and two series from Netflix: Hilda  and Bojack Horseman. The winners list and commentary including a few full winning short films and notes on Oscar's animated short race after the jump...

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The 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Megan Mullaly showing one of her dad's residual checks from SAGMegan Mullally served as host for the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards with a droll, endearingly casual approach, often making Lady Gaga the brunt of good natured jokes. But as with most awards show she got out of the way very early. SAG is all awards and no frills. They even shortened the "I am an actor" intro this year, limiting it to just three people. There's no awards show that's faster than SAG but the continually nervous Oscar producers might want to consider, when trying to shorten their own ceremony,  that SAG is not even a fraction as popular as the Globes or Oscars, both of which are considerably longer! 

The winners and notes...

BEST ACTOR IN A TV COMEDY Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
Tony Shalhoub has prepared nothing because, he suggests, his category was too great to think he'd win. This seems naive since he is an awards magnet. He probably has to wear protective gear whenever entering a ceremony, lest he be pummelled with statuettes of all kinds...

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