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Re: Best Screenplay 2003

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 5:47 am
by mlrg
voted for Lost in Translation and Mystic River

Best Screenplay 2003

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 3:25 am
by Big Magilla
For me there was no more beautiful screenplay this year or any other year this decade than the one Jim Sheridan and his daughters wrote for the semi-autobiographical family drama, In America. That it lost to Sofia Coppola's wistful but tepid screenplay for Lost in Translation was one of the great travesties of recent awards seasons, not just the by the Academy but all the other groups that awarded it over the Sheridans' timeless brilliance.

Other original screenplays that were better than Coppola's included Thomas McCarthy's WGA nominated, Oscar ignored script for The Station Agent; Steven Knight's thankfully nominated, marvelously dark script for Dirty Pretty Things and Guillermo Arriaga's non-nominated, enthralling script for 21 Grams, much better than the one he would be nominated for two years hence. Lost in Translation does get my fifth spot, if barely, over Denys Arcand's talky but often profound The Barbarian Invasions. Both were better choices than the WGA's pick of the amusing but forgettable Bend It Like Beckham and the Academy's choice of the aw, shucks cartoon, Finding Nemo.

In adapted, the WGA got it right with its award to writing, directing partners Shari Berman Springer and Robert Pulcini for the quirky American Splendor but there was no stopping the Oscar juggernaut that was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King from taking everything in sight. Of the other nominees, City of God and Mystic River were worthy contenders. Gary Ross' script for the deadly dull Seabiscuit was not. I'd have preferred the WGA's pick of Anthony Minghella's screenplay for Cold Mountain or even Peter Weir's for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.