Making Peace With "Argo". How Many Oscars Will It Win?

When Best Picture locks up each year -- which usually happens sooner than February 2nd so we should count our blessings that this year had more drama! -- the best thing that one can do is find a way to make peace with it. I've followed the Oscars long enough to know that when your absolute favorite in a category wins you should feel rapturous but treat it like its as rare as Brigadoon since you might never see it's like again. The trick to staying sane (not that I've actually mastered this, mind you) is to enjoy the annual awards festivities without caring about the winners so much as the journey to crown them. In its better moments the awards season circus provides plenty of entertainment, delectable star-gazing, and even the occasional conversational or critical insight into what makes particularly movies great or what makes people love particular movies despite their unfortunate lack of greatness.

I've learned to enjoy it when anything in my top ten each year wins something since, in most years, actual favorites are not crowned. It's harder though to enoy your non-favorites winning when they're solidly in the middle of the pack or when a particular forthcoming win defeats something clearly masterful.

Which brings us to Argo...

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Podcast Nom Reactions Pt 1: Snubs, Squeals, Questions

A couple of days after the Oscar Nominations, I rang up Joe Reid, Katey Rich and Nick Davis to discuss the Academy's big reveal. In pt 1 of this hour long conversation we discuss:

1) The snubs that hurt us most.
2) The moments that made us squeal with delight.
3) Reader Questions. Thank you to the handful of people who were brave enough to ask them. 

Pt 1 is mostly focused on the "big eight": Picture (Amour & Beasts of the Southern Wild !), Director (Benh Zeitlin  - yes!, Ben Affleck -???), Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress (Amy Adams & Jacki Weaver mostly), Supporting Actor, and the Screenplays.

But high profile categories aside the masterful but snubbed Animated Short The Eagleman Stag gets a shout-out. And I promised I'd link up to it in this post, so here ya go. Watch it!

The Eagleman Stag. Absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately snubbed.

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post. 

Squeals, Snubs, and Sass from Oscar Nomination Morning

Screenplays of '12. Pg 12. "Lincoln"

I didn't forget about my page 12 sharing in honor of 2012 but the year slipped away from me. Let's resume, at least in brief, for a moment from LINCOLN as scripted by Tony Kushner based in part on two chapters from "A Team of Rivals" (a book I'm continually hearing great things about).

Tony Kushner speaking about Lincoln at Harvard

Two soldiers fasten a flag to the halyards. Lincoln moves into places; as the crowd applauds, he takes a sheet of paper from inside his hat and glances at it. Then he looks up.

        LINCOLN
The part assigned to me is to raise
the flag, which, if there be no
fault in the machinery, I will do,
and when up, it will be for the
people to keep it up.

He puts the paper away. The audience waits, expecting more.

        LINCOLN (CONT'D)
That's my speech.

He smiles at them. They applaud, some laughing.  As Lincoln turns the crank, hoisting the flag, a solo trumpet plays "We Are Coming Father Abra'am" and the audience joins in.

That's a really short scene in Lincoln but a telling one since it gives Daniel Day-Lewis one of many opportunities to demonstrate the President's refreshing sense of humor. A good sense of humor goes a long way in sweeping out the cobwebs from the Great Man Hagiography that so many biographical films become.

three more celebrated screenplays I'm also celebrating today

I too love this screenplay and it's one of my own nominees for BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY just posted! My ballot for BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY is also up for this year's Film Bitch Awards kick off. Click over and see what's nominated from soulful indie dramas like Aya DuVernay's Middle of Nowhere and curios like Sean Baker's Starlet through to big budget superhero epics like The Avengers (no really) and certain Oscar players like that controversial Zero Dark screenplay we already talked about. 

Congratulations to the WGA Nominees

Before approaching the Writers Guild Nominations with Oscary enthusiasmbe forewarned: only guild members are eligible for these prizes which discounts a good chunk of the movies one might otherwise expect to see honored each year. Hollywood isn't nearly as averse to working with non-guild writers as they are about non-unionized actors (Beasts of the Southern Wild was the only significant "ineligible" situation when the SAG nominees were announced a month ago). One of the reasons for this is surely the prevalence of writer/directors who are often members of the DGA without being members of the WGA.

The benefit of this is that by their script eligibility rules they are forced to award films that have been largely ignored in the grand scheme of year end hoopla. The curse is that when you are nominated from a smaller field of potentials it might not feel as notable.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY  

• Flight, Written by John Gatins; Paramount Pictures
• Looper, Written by Rian Johnson; TriStar Pictures
• The Master, Written by Paul Thomas Anderson; The Weinstein Company
• Moonrise Kingdom, Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola; Focus Features
• Zero Dark Thirty, Written by Mark Boal; Columbia Pictures (ARTICLE) 

not eligible and therefore unsnubbed so you could still see them on Oscar's list: 
Django Unchained, Seven Psychopaths, Amour, Your Sister's Sister, Take This Waltz, The Intouchables, Middle of Nowhere, Rust & Bone and The Impossible 

Typically we only here of what's been declared ineligible so it's tough to know what other films were competing although I'd feel worse for actor/screenwriter Reid Carolin's absence for Magic Mike above if he'd also played one of the Cock-Rocking Kings of Tampa. That'd be putting it all on the line for your movie!

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 

• Argo, Screenplay by Chris Terrio; Based on a selection from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez and the WiredMagazine article “The Great Escape” by Joshuah Bearman; Warner Bros. Pictures
• Life of Pi, Screenplay by David Magee; Based on the novel by Yann Martel; 20th Century Fox
• Lincoln, Screenplay by Tony Kushner; Based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincolnby Doris Kearns Goodwin; DreamWorks Pictures
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Screenplay by Stephen Chbosky; Based on his book; Summit Entertainment (LOGAN LERMAN INTERVIEW)
• Silver Linings Playbook, Screenplay by David O. Russell; Based on the novel by Matthew Quick; The Weinstein Company

not eligible and therefore unsnubbed:
Les Miz, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Anna Karenina, The Deep Blue Sea, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The nominee list for the WGA is highly plausible as the final Oscar list in this category too, don't you think?

DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY 

• The Central Park Five, Written by Sarah Burns and David McMahon and Ken Burns; Sundance Selects
• The Invisible War, Written by Kirby Dick; Cinedigm Entertainment Group
• Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Written by Alex Gibney; HBO Documentary Films
• Searching for Sugar Man, Written by Malik Bendejelloul; Sony Pictures Classics
• We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, Written by Brian Knappenberger; Cinetic Media
• West of Memphis, Written by Amy Berg & Billy McMillin; Sony Pictures Classics 

Sugar Man, Mea Maxima and The Invisible War continue to show real strength in the oncoming Oscar Best Documentary race.

Screenplays of '12. Pg 12. "The Dark Knight Rises"

New daily! I'll be sharing page 12 of every screenplay I've received for 2012 Films. With commentary! Until you get bored. Which maybe you already are? I thought y'all would love the last entry on Zero Dark Thirty but there be crickets.

The following scene is our introduction to the sole bright spot in Chris Nolan's final Batman film. That'd be Anne Hathaway as Catwoman if you were momentarily confused. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I gave the film a positive if unenthused review. It did not age well within the summer, let alone the year. I'd easily name it Chris Nolan's worst film (though I have not seen Insomnia). But anyway... PAGE 12. 

INT. SITTING ROOM. EAST WING, WAYNE MANOR - CONTINUOUS

The Maid looks at FRAMED PHOTOGRAPHS OF RACHEL, THOMAS, and MARTHA WAYNE. Some are half-burned. She notices an ARCHERY TARGET, ARROWS stuck in it. She reaches out - WHAM! AN ARROW STICKS IN THE TARGET - the Maid spins around, FLUSTERED. Wayne, at the other end of the long room lowers a COMPOSITE BOW. Picks up his cane.

                    MAID
I'm, I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Wayne.
It is Mr. Wayne, isn't it? 

Wayne nods, gently. Limps toward her.

                    MAID (CONT'D)
Although you don't have the long
nails...
(nervous laugh)
Or facial scars...

She trails off, embarrassed. Coy. She seems very young. 

                   WAYNE
Is that what they say about me?

                     MAID
It's just that... nobody sees you...

Wayne approaches, slowly. He nods at her PEARL NECKLACE...

Aren't you glad I didn't bore you with the first half of the page which is a scene with Marion Cotillard? Good Chris(t) but Nolan didn't do her any favors by casting her in that picture.

So let's all just focus on Awesome Annie (VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP)

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