Maggie Gyllenhaal wins the Scripter for 'The Lost Daughter'

by Nathaniel R

Gyllenhaal at a screeing for The Lost Daughter in December

The USC Scripter Awards are an annual event that is a gala fundraiser for the USC Libraries. This year Maggie Gyllenhaal was the big winner in what some might regard as an upset over Jane Campion. We think it's less than surprising though since the Scripters also recognize the author of the source material and Elena Ferrante would hold much more appeal to current voters than Thomas Savage for a book that isn't as famous as its cinematic counterpoint. Whether Gyllenhaal can upset at the Oscars is a different story...

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Oscar Volley: Adapted Screenplay - a wealth of good choices, but will the Academy make the right ones?

The Oscar volleys continue. Today Lynn Lee, Mark Brinkerhoff, and Eurocheese sound off on this year’s Adapted Screenplay race.

a wealth of options for Oscar voters

Lynn: Gentlemen, I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, Adapted Screenplay is an embarrassment of riches this year. There are at least three contenders that tackle the incredibly difficult task of illuminating their characters’ inner lives and psychology (The Power of the Dog, Passing, and The Lost Daughter) with minimal to no voice-over narration and they all do it brilliantly. Then there are the play adaptations – everything from Shakespeare via Coen (The Tragedy of Macbeth) to Shakespeare / Sondheim / Laurents via Kushner (West Side Story) to Jonathan Larson via Lin-Manuel Miranda (tick, tick …BOOM!) to Stephen Karam doing Stephen Karam (The Humans) – where each manages to pull off a bold departure from previous iterations while retaining basic fidelity to the source text. And then there’s my personal favorite, Drive My Car, which manages to be at once an ambitious expansion of a Murakami short story and a spectacularly moving adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at once.

That said, we can’t realistically expect most Oscar voters to be familiar with the underlying material for these screenplays. It’s a safer bet the nominations will align pretty closely with the Best Picture nominees or almost-nominees that don’t have original screenplays...

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Podcast: Being Macbeth's Lost Daughter (Who Has No Time To Die)

Nick and Nathaniel reunion part two (of three!). This past weekend we had a mammoth talk trying to cover everything we've been catching up with or watching again. So we've split this podcast into two. Apologies that it ends on an ellipses but we live in franchise culture so you're used to it by now!

62 minutes
00:01 Indie critical darling Test Pattern
07:40 The ensemble work in Mass with a shout-out to Martha Plimpton's revelatory work
15:50 Admiring The Tragedy of Macbeth ...especially Kathryn Hunter
24:20 Nick is obsessed with The Lost Daughter and tells us why. We particularly dig into Maggie Gyllenhaal's direction and how hot smart people are
42:00 An unexpected defense (albeit with several reservations) of Being the Ricardos. We both love Nicole Kidman in it (sorry haters) but we wish Aaron Sorkin would stop directing his own stuff
49:23 No Time To Die... franchise culture, changing times, and the Daniel Craig era.
1:01:30 To be continued...

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify or download the attachment below. If you missed our previous recent discussion covering a full dozen 2021 movies, that's here. 

Being Macbeth's Lost Daughter

The Link Boat

• The Guardian goes on a long stroll with Tilda Swinton and her dogs. She remains a fascinating conundrum
• AV Club Rooney Mara to play Audrey Hepburn in a biopic
• Vogue a profile of Squid Game's key actress Hoyeon Jung
• Cartoon Brew interesting stats piece about the very active European animation industry but the small audiences for the films. Did you know that Russia is second only France in the number of animated films produced (outside of the US/Japan obviously) 

More after the jump including Oscar's crowdpleasing trouble, Jonathan Majors, the alliterations of The Lost Daughter, Gal Gadot's Cleopatra, and Zendaya in Valentina...

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Contemporary Costume Design - an FYC overview

by Nathaniel R

We don't get "finalist" lists for half of the craft categories so theoretically everything is still in the running for the visual categories of Cinematography, Editing, Costume, and Production Design. Today let's focus on Best Costume Design options for awards voters. While two-time winner Jeanny Beavan's work on Cruella has been looking like a potential Oscar-winner since way back in May, plenty of competition has arrived since. Our first clue as to what the industry might go for here will be on January 26th with the CDGA (Costume Designers Guild Awards) nominations which divide movies up into period, sci-fi/fantasy, and contemporary. That's a handy way to do it, since it's too easy to fall into "Most Costuming" otherwise and entirely ignore the breadth of what is possible in this field. 

What follows are NOT predictions as to what the Guild or the Oscars might choose (craft predictions are here) but FYCs if you will, highlighting six options we think are interesting in the realm of "contemporary" (mostly)...

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