OSCAR SEASON - Screenplays

Round 2: The Screenplays.

The best screenplay nominees are often a better list of the best movies of the year than the best picture nominees. At the least it's a larger list where the Academy honors films that didn't quite crack it's top 5. It certainly seems, however, that the list of screenplay nominees is where the edgier films lives, the ones that don't quite have the mass appeal of a best picture nominee. As such, sometimes the films nominated for best screenplay are really the better work, albeit harder to swallow, than the easily digestible best pictures.


Best Adapted Screenplay

5) FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS
Not one of the ten best movies in 2006, the screenplay still had much that was superb. It's a wonderful study of the power of symbols, and the power of marketing, and the power of society, in our little American Culture. It may be set in the 1940s, but things haven't changed as much as you might think.

4) LITTLE CHILDREN
At its best this was a superb bit of writing, a comic documentary-distanced look at the human animal. At its worst it was annoyingly smug in its degrading attitude toward your average suburbanite.

3) TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY
I won't call it the smartest of the 2006 scripts, but it was probably the most literate. Maybe not ground-breaking after some of the Kauffman scripts, but its still intensely creative work.

2) CHILDREN OF MEN
The best piece of science fiction in quite a while with its socio-religious themes.

1) THE DEPARTED
If I was to read a synopsis of this script I'd assume The Departed was a crap Hollywood crime drama. Scorsese is the biggest reason for the film's success, but the script took this basic crime story and filled it with incredible smarts and intensity.

Best Original Screenplay

5) THE QUEEN
The Queen is perhaps a frontrunner to win the Oscar this year in this category, and while I admit it's an intriguingly good script, I don't think it measures up to some other original screenplays. I attribute more of the film's success to the actors and director.

4) PAN'S LABYRINTH
An homage to the power, and necessity, of creativity. I liked the screeplay a lot, and loved the movie, but I wish it would have had the guts to tackle religion more directly along the way, because this story is very much about religion, and yet it's almost never mentioned.

3) BABEL
The most Oscar-like of the Oscar films this year, Babel is serious and gritty and intense. As a screenplay I liked it a lot, with it's three interweaving tales of societal and personal miscommunication. The lack of optimism was just plain depressing, though.

2) A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
I once read a negative review of this film calling it elitist, but I can't imagine a more wrongheaded observation. This story is about as universal as a story can be. My bet is that if you don't yet understand the bittersweet power of simple pleasures, you will someday, at least when you finally realize that they will be gone. A great script, and a great movie.

1) VOLVER
My favorite story of the year was the most magical and the most realistic at the same time. Pedro Almodovar's tale of women through the generations is meaningful, and sweet, and painful and fun. A great story that's absolutely absurd on some levels, and absolutely marvelous on others.