Blueprints: The Nominees for Best Original Screenplay

With the Oscar nominations finally announced, Jorge takes a deep dive into the nominees for Best Original Screenplay.

We all rose to the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning to hear Tiffany Haddish give the most upbeat and energetic nomination announcements in recent memory. One of the best picked categories was Best Original Screenplay. Even though there were no real surprises, it showcases a range of diversity not often seen: among the nominees is a Pakistani, a Mexican, a black man, and three women. Three of those people were also nominated for Best Director.

So let’s do a quick roundup on the nominees, their writers, their past history with Oscar, and what scene might have helped land them that nomination... 

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The Joyful Nominations. Which were yours?

by Nathaniel R

img srcIt's part two of our Team Experience Oscar Nomination response... and then we can move on to both Oscar chart fun and back to cinema proper. The latter some of you will surely be itching for if you're not all-the-way obsessed with Oscar minutiae.

This morning we shed final tears for the snubs and now, the nominations that brought us the most joy in the acting categories and elsewhere.

WHICH (NON-ACTING) NOMINATION GAVE YOU THE MOST JOY?

CHRIS FEIL: Agnès Varda is finally a competitive Oscar nominee, which is doubly rewarding considering Faces Places will likely be her final film. (We love you too, JR.) With Jane out of the way she may even be the frontrunner, giving her Honorary Oscar a friend on its shelf - a lovely thought considering Faces Places is partly an ode to partnership.

GLENN DUNKS: Rachel Morrison becoming the first nominated woman in Achievement in Cinematography is pretty great and a major win for Netflix considering most people would have seen it on their smaller screens...

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Blueprints: "The Big Sick"

This week Jorge dives into one of the WGA Nominees and looks at how this screenplay gives its supporting characters a chance to shine.

 

At its heart, The Big Sick is the story of Kumail and Emily falling in love, falling out of love, and finding each other again. But it's more than a romantic comedy. It’s also a story about the people around Kumail, once Emily falls into a coma and the main relationship is no longer functional. It’s a movie where the supporting cast do more than merely support the lead’s love story; they actually get the chance to be developed into fully fleshed-out characters.

Let’s take a look at one of the most memorable moments in the movie, where a supporting character (Holly Hunter’s brilliantly defined Beth) takes a step into the spotlight, and grabs it...

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Father Figures, the best and worst of 2017

Each day a new "year in review" piece. Here's Ben Miller...

I’ve been a father since 2012.  It’s one of the great joys in my life.  If you classified me as a person, father would be near the top of how I would want to be described.  I want to be a good father and I strive to be. 

But, generally, I don’t look to film for guidance.

Terrible fathers are a touchtone of cinema.  From Jack Torrance to Daniel Plainview, movie dads rarely get the chance to show how great they can be for their children.  2017 surprisingly provided us with a bevy of complex relationships between parents and their progeny, and the dads actually got a chance to shine.  Check out the top ten great dads in 2017 films.  (I also included five terrible fathers, because 2017 gotta 2017.)

TOP TEN GREAT DADS IN 2017 MOVIES
Spoilers for all of these films are included

01 Larry McPherson, Lady Bird (Played by Tracy Letts)
Lady Bird and her mother, the central figures in the film, aren't the only ones to benefit from Larry's warmth (we previously discussed this characterization here). Even when faced with a fruitless job interview, he smiles in the face of adversity, opting for a big bag of Doritos.  When his son comes in for the next interview, there is no animosity.  Larry straightens his tie, pats him on the shoulder and tells him to go get ‘em.  He does this while losing his job, providing for an extra person in his house, losing his daughter to college and suffering from years of depression.  God bless Larry McPherson. 

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"Everyone is Nominated... but you!" Our annual SAG Ensemble Rules Exposé

by Nathaniel R

Betty Gabriel is not included in the Get Out ensemble nomination. For shame, SAG!The Film Experience started a tradition of exposing the Screen Actors Guild Awards unfortunate rules regarding ensemble nominations back in 2004. If you'd like a little history as to why we became advocates for change in this matter you can find the details at the bottom of the post. But for now let it suffice to say that SAG's rules for inclusion strike us as punitive for less famous actors and thus unbecoming given that they are a union and unions are ostensibly there to support the workers. The rule boils down to this: you need your own title card in a movie to be so honored - being on a shared title card or in the credits scroll won't do. With a new set of nominees for Outstanding Cast of a Motion Picture let's investigate which valuable players were unjustly left out while their (usually) more famous coworkers were honored, no matter their actual contributions to the movie in question.

2017 SAG OUTSTANDING CAST NOMINATIONS
Who was excluded this year despite their fine work?

THE BIG SICK
Nominees (in billing order): Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Anupam Kher, Zenobia Shroff, Adeel Akhtar 

Who was left out? The first shared title card belonged to Bo Burham and Aidy Bryant, with the second shared card going to Kurt Braunohler and Vella Lovell. Burnham, Braunohler and Bryant played Nanjiani's inner circle of comedian friends. Lovell was fantastic as a would-be arranged bride for Nanjiani but anyone who has seen her on Crazy Ex Girlfriend knows that she is skillful with mixing sharp comedy with dramatic undertow.

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