Best Adapted Screenplay, 2004
(Click on the linked film titles for reviews of the corresponding films.)
|
Nominee Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, and Kim Krazin Before Sunset 30:1 |
A charming script dexterously contrived by the participants in the earlier film... |
...which, I rush to add, is not the same as "adapting" anything. Small box office + category fraud = no dice. |
|
David Magee Finding Neverland 6:1 |
It's hard for me to understand why Finding Neverland has any fans, but insofar as it apparently does, people seem to
be grooving on the whole notion of peeking behind the curtain at the man who invented Peter Pan, and on all of the rosy
paeans to the power of imagination that flowed out of Magee's pen.
|
Still, even Neverland's fans seem divided between folks who think it's a middling script magically directed, a solid
script sentimentally directed and dully played, or a badly written, middlingly directed affair that is saved by its tony cast.
This lack of consensus means that Neverland won't get enough of a boost to triumph in any major category. (Huzzah!)
|
|
Paul Haggis Million Dollar Baby 3:1 |
Frontrunners in the major categories tend to do well here, and Million Dollar Baby is perfectly positioned for a mini-sweep.
Since the film is missing from most of the technical rosters, Screenplay is a logical place to begin the momentum, and for
everyone pulled in by the anachronistic, old-fashioned Warner Bros. narration, Haggis will look like a major reason for the
film's success.
|
Still, Eastwood's direction and the performances of the cast have won most of the credit for making M$B as memorable
as it is, and this is the best chance for Hollywood to anoint Sideways for something and soothe their consciences re:
the Giammati snub. A win for Haggis is too possible to be an "upset," really, but it's still gonna take some doing.
|
|
José Rivera The Motorcycle Diaries 30:1 |
An engaging script deftly devised from the memoirs of a leftie-liberal hero...
|
...which, I rush to add, isn't nearly enough cachet to trounce the wiry sentiment of Baby or the literate good humor
of Sideways. Isn't this whole shindig a little upper-bourgeois for Ché, anyway?
|
|
Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor Sideways 2:1 |
A front-runner since it opened, Sideways has ceded a lot of ground in the Best Picture race and some of the acting competitions, but the writing category is still its major bastion. Payne and Taylor all but swept the critics' awards, and as with Almost Famous, Lost in Translation, and The Cider House Rules, this film looks like exactly the kind of project that deserves a Writing trophy to apologize for its also-ran status elsewhere. The SAG Ensemble prize is proof of actors' enthusiasm. |
Still, like its title character, Million Dollar Baby has come on awfully strong lately, and the Screenplay races have
recently encompassed more upsets than you'd think (The Return of the King over Mystic River, The Pianist
over Adaptation and The Hours, Sling Blade over The English Patient).
|