Twelve Days of Oscar, Day 5 Redux: Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay

Well, I failed at delivering a Day 5 post on Day 5, so here we go, a dollar short, with a couple of my absolute favorite categories, the screenplays.

Adapted Screenplay:
Call Me By Your Name, James Ivory
The Disaster Artist, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber
Logan, Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green
Molly's Game, Aaron Sorkin
Mudbound, Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

Original Screenplay:
The Big Sick, Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Get Out, Jordan Peele
Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig
The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh

Oh, I do love me some writers and writing. Let's think, shall we, about which of these writerly persons will take the stage on Oscars night for a moment of glory, and, it is hoped, a clever word or two in their brief allotted speech time (broadcast director: stop playing off the winners! folks at home: stop whining that the ceremony is too long! ain't no one forcing you to watch!)

Regrettably I have not read ANY of the source material for the adapted screenplay nominees, although I have touched the four real books and contemplated reading them (as opposed to the graphic novel, which, yes, I did just judge as "not a real book" in case you're wondering). It's fun to know the source material, but it's also kind of fun this way, being in the dark, and noting which movies make me want to go read the original book, which in this case is all of them (except Logan, because I don't ever want to read graphic novels, which is not I repeat NOT a content thing but just my inability to enjoy reading books of pictures. Give me prose or give me a drawing, but not both together. I physically cannot stand reading graphic novels and comic books. It makes me uncomfortable. Do not enjoy.)

People love to praise Aaron Sorkin and Diablo Cody and other screenwriters who fill actors' mouth with long, winding phrases of snappy discourse, which is fine with me because my own writing of dialogue is decidedly in that direction sometimes, so praise away, people! Although I personally think they go a little overboard about just how complex Sorkin's writing is at times, I thought the Molly's Game screenplay was quite good. There was quite a bit of back and forth between voiceover narration and on-screen action that was well handled. Mudbbound also had to decided when to weave in and out of voiceover, and I take it from how the film was done that the book, too, had multiple first person narrators? That story had a lot going on and everything was clear. (Clear as Mudbound! There's a fun new phrase for a screenwriting standard to aspire to. Don't say I never gave ya nothin'.) Having absolutely been down the path of The Room hate/lovewatching cult madness, I was eminently curious how The Disaster Artist would be, and I thought it was remarkable. Call Me By Your Name, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is one of my favorites of this year's nominees but so much of that is from the emotions of the book itself; in fact, in recent days I've read many articles about how faithful James Ivory was to the book, with, for example, Michael Stuhlbarg's stunning monologue being evidently lifted right from the novel. Which is great - I'm just not sure that means Ivory merits an Oscar, for leaving well enough alone? Always a tough call in this category. As for Logan, sorry y'all, and it's NOT because it was a comic book that I don't want it to win but for reasons of cliche and gee-didn't-see-that-coming-except-we-all-totally-did with which the screenplay was riddled.

I really think the two best efforts here were Mudbound and The Disaster Artist. And I think either one has a chance of winning, and, to complicate matters, they both have outside factors that might influence people to vote not just on the merits. James Franco was an early favorite as a sure-nomination-thing in the Lead Actor category for playing nutso Tommy Wiseau, the not-genius behind The Room, in The Disaster Artist, and there is much speculation that late revelations about his inappropriate sexist and awful behavior are what made the #TIMESUP Academy not nominate him. So, will people be more inclined to reward what they can from the film, the writing, here, since it's the only nomination it got? Or less inclined, because it's still associated with James Franco? As for Mudbound, Dee Rees' nomination is the first for a black woman for an adapted screenplay, and it's always fun to make history. So who knows where voters minds will go?

On to Originals... well, we all know by now that Greta Gerwig wrote Lady Bird and people's minds are blown by this. I have found Lady Bird to be great and overrated. Sometimes people misunderstand me and say we shouldn't call things "overrated" because one person loves something and another person doesn't and that's just differing opinions. True that -- but that's also not what "overrated" means. I'm not saying it "wasn't that good" - then I'd say adequate or mediocre or whatever. I'm saying the frenzied reaction to it is weirdly outsized and kind of off-kilter. That can be true of reaction to something fabulous, something terrible, or something in between. In the case of Lady Bird, I've been mystified by all the people including critics who get paid to watch hundreds of movies a year saying that they've never seen anything like it because, um, what the heck have they all been watching, I wonder? But it was good. I don't think Gerwig is going to win in the Directing category, but she might win here for Writing. It was well written. Speaking of directors realizing their vision and writing it too, we've got Guillermo del Toro and the (SO WEIRD!) The Shape of Water. As I have been saying, this (weird!) movie doesn't do it for me the way it does for many, but I recognize that del Toro is creative and realizes his visions and renders them as art for many to enjoy... this doesn't necessarily make me advocate for him to win the screenplay Oscar, though. He was nominated for writing another weird fable, Pan's Labyrinth, a decade or so ago, losing then to Michael Arndt for Little Miss Sunshine. I don't think writing was The Shape of Water's main strength, and don't want it to win this. (Do I think it had strengths? Weeelll..even though it was damn weird, honestly, the directing was all right. We'll talk about that tomorrow, maybe.)

Yet ANOTHER nominee who both wrote and directed this year, Martin McDonagh, is the current recipient of backlash right now for his Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri white privilege racism. It's hard to discuss without spoilering the movie, so I won't, but I will say that he leaves some things very much up for debate and in my interpretation does not come down on the side of ever saying this or that majorly flawed character is redeemed, despite indications that maybe he's holding out hope everyone is redeemable. I think some people just generally also have an issue with Irish Guy writing about small-town, racially divided USA, which is fair on one hand, but on another hand, Irish people have in our very lifetimes lived in a place of extremely divided violence and ethno-religous strife so it's not like he's all smiles and flowers and bunnies and roses and then trying to make some commentary from a place of utter b.s.  Man, I was SUCH a huge fan of his previous movie, In Bruges, which may be affecting my understanding of what he was trying to do here ("Save the next little boy!" <--one of my all-time favorite movie moments. just go watch In Bruges, please, thanks)

And then there are the movies that are definitely written funny. Now, I know there was some consternation about Get Out  being in the Musical/Comedy category at the Golden Globes because it is addressing pretty much the most serious topic but first of all, that's just a big misunderstanding of the Globes, where part of the fun is mocking their weird Drama and Musical/Comedy categories and predicting what will inappropriately be relegated to the latter, and secondly, seriously, though, Get Out was funny. While also being serious. But it was written funny. Like VEEP. Ya know? OK, maybe not exactly like VEEP. But serious while being funny. And Jordan Peele is another person whose previous film I liked very much indeed (yay, Keanu!) I also think Kumail Nanjiani is hilarious, and while I love everything about watching Silicon Valley, he is definitely one huge part of the hilarity of that show, and I relished watching him in The Big Sick, which he co-wrote with his wife Emily V. Gordon, with whom I was unfamiliar before this. It was really good! I blew it off when it came out in theaters, despite all the good things I heard about it, and just got around to watching it recently, after the nominations came out. I really, really liked it and stayed up to watch the whole thing even though I started it at 11:30 p.m., which in itself is some kind of testament to the writing.

And so, my picks? This is hard. Way too hard. Help.

Adapted Screenplay: I want The Disaster Artist or Mudbound to win. I think Call Me By Your Name might, though.
Original Screenplay: I guess I want The Big Sick or Lady Bird, and I think it's going to be either Lady Bird or Get Out.

I really wouldn't have a problem with most of the possible outcomes here. But it's so hard to pick. I want to reward all the writers! Shower the writers with prizes and accolades!

Which screenplays are you rooting for?

My Previous Days of Oscar:
Day 4: Supporting Actor and Lead Actress
Day 3: Production Design and Costume Design
Day 2: Editing and Original Score
Day 1: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing