The Hurt Locker has a good chance at grabbing quite a few of the awards it's nominated for. I don't think Original Screenplay is one of them. The Messenger just edged it's way into the list a few weeks before nominations were announced. Up's nomination came from the long following that Pixar has amassed over the years and its subsequent Best Picture nomination. Sad to say its chances aren't too likely. The Coen Brothers' film A Serious Man only got two nomination so it doesn't have much to back up the decision.
The film I believe has the best chance is Inglourious Basterds. The Hurt Locker is pretty inventive and all, but Tarantino's script is so exact and meticulous. Where other writers would give simple instructions, Quentin adds his own emotionally invested touch. He needs to know how it's happening and what affect it has. His knack for knowing what works on an audience in a packed theatre puts him ahead of Mark Boal's Hurt Locker script.
There's quite a bit of originality in the Adapted Screenplay race, in some ways more than the Original Screenplay category. District 9, though based on the director's short film Alive in Joburg, sports one of the most original science fiction story lines in years. In the Loop had me rolling on the floor laughing multiple times at some of its jokes. Jason Reitman took Walter Kirn's novel Up in the Air and made it completely his own film, adding whole new subplots and much more emotion that couldn't be found in the book it's based on.
An Education and Precious obviously had great screenplays, but I can't comment on either of those because I haven't seen them yet (I'm catching the last showing of Precious in my area before the Academy Awards on saturday). It won't matter though because if all of the precursors' choices hold up then Up in the Air will leave the night with that award, and perhaps only that award.
No comments:
Post a Comment