Best Screenplays 2017

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Vote for the best of each Screenplay category

Best Adapted Screenplay - Call Me by Your Name
16
33%
Best Adapted Screenplay - The Disaster Artist
3
6%
Best Adapted Screenplay - Logan
1
2%
Best Adapted Screenplay - Molly's Game
3
6%
Best Adapted Screenplay - Mudbound
1
2%
Best Original Screenplay - The Big Sick
1
2%
Best Original Screenplay - Get Out
3
6%
Best Original Screenplay - Lady Bird
11
23%
Best Original Screenplay - The Shape of Water
1
2%
Best Original Screenplay - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
8
17%
 
Total votes: 48

Mister Tee
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Re: Best Screenplays 2017

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote: The Big Sick wasn’t up for any Golden Globes.
You know, normally I look this shit up to be sure, but for once I trusted my memory, and got punished for it.
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Re: Best Screenplays 2017

Post by Sabin »

Mister Tee wrote
The Big Sick certainly looks like the outlier, but, recall, it had been nominated for SAG Ensemble, Best Comedy Film at the Globes, and at WGA; it was in the best picture conversation, arguably more than Phantom Thread till the nominations came out. So, though I certainly think Phantom Thread deserved a slot that year, it was more a numbers game than considered judgment that led to it being left out.
The Big Sick wasn’t up for any Golden Globes, which I think is the first instance I’ve heard of racism being called against them. I’m not interested in having that conversation but it is pretty ridiculous (though on trend for them) to honor The Greatest Showman over Kumail Nanjiani’s of the moment romantic comedy. SAG picked up the slack in honoring it for Best Ensemble and Supporting Actress, though in retrospect it does seem like an easy pick towards a group that has a propensity for honoring films that spotlight diversity. The BAFTA’s shut it out completely. The Producers and Writers Guild gave it a boost although the latter benefited from Three Billboards not being eligible. All of which to say The Big Sick’s chances were always probably a bit inflated and it’s nomination for screenplay a bit surprising and a true testament to love for the little film. I Tonya would seem in retrospect the safer bet for inclusion for Picture and Screenplay.
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Re: Best Screenplays 2017

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote:Over the last few days, I watched Licorice Pizza and rewatched There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread. There Will Be Blood offers few new surprises. It remains a remarkable achievement. Phantom Thread didn't open up for me in different ways but instead I just found myself getting caught up in its rhythms as if it were the first time all over again. Phantom Thread is the only film in PTA's oeuvre that has quite done that for me. Isn't that the mark of a master filmmaker? When you can watch something again and again as if it's the first time? I watched with a small group of people who were viewing it for the first time and they reacted with such glee and surprise to the finale.

I write this here because it is in retrospect a bit surprising that this was the category that PTA missed out on. Yes, Phantom Thread wasn't expecting to do nearly as well as it ended up. I don't recall but I think I had it down for Best Actor, Original Score, and Costume Design. The industry clearly loved it, considering how much it over-performed with both the directors' branch and the actor's branch (curious considering it got no SAG nominations). Paul Thomas Anderson is no stranger to missing out with the writer's branch before, missing somewhat expected nominations in the past (Punch-Drunk Love and The Master) but also managed to surprise for Inherent Vice. Considering Phantom Thread's coattails elsewhere, it is a bit surprising that it didn't wind up with the nomination that went to The Big Sick. Maybe if the window of nominations was open for another week or two, it might have ended up with a Best Original Screenplay nomination. Maybe Vicky Krieps could have wound up with the nomination that went to Meryl Streep, making The Post the first Best Picture nominee with one nomination since I'd imagine the 30s. A nomination for Best Cinematography would be perhaps a bit too far considering Anderson DP-ed the film himself and how stacked the category was but maybe a nomination over Darkest Hour wouldn't be impossible

Anyway, I think had the window been open a bit wider, Phantom Thread could have easily pulled in seven or eight nominations.
It does look odd, that a PTA film that scored so well overall would have fallen short in the category where he's historically done best. A couple of reasons:

Phantom Thread was a very late arrival -- there'd been no reviews or screening reactions prior to the first awards (NBR & NYFCC); our first awareness the film was even good were the screenplay awards it got from each of those. This late showing, as is tradition, hobbled the film with the Globes, SAG and Broadcasters. They all cited Day-Lewis -- possibly sight-unseen, in a very weak year for lead actors -- but that was it. WGA and DGA were also abstainers. BAFTA gave its support to Manville, the costumes and score, but also stayed away from picture/director.

What all this meant was, the film was playing from behind the whole way (reinforcing your point that another week or two might have made more difference). The film clearly benefited from the number of best picture slots available. And I argued at the time that the best reason for predicting PTA in directing was, otherwise, the category was apt to be 5 first-timers, which almost never happens under directing (to show how far afield the directors would go to avoid all first-timers: the previous year, they'd nominated Mel Gibson).

Screenplay was a different, tougher story. The split between adapted and original was a chasm that year -- adapted saw Call Me by Your Name easily beat a bunch of mugs; original had to omit (in addition to Phantom Thread), I, Tonya and The Post -- easy gets many years. The Big Sick certainly looks like the outlier, but, recall, it had been nominated for SAG Ensemble, Best Comedy Film at the Globes, and at WGA; it was in the best picture conversation, arguably more than Phantom Thread till the nominations came out. So, though I certainly think Phantom Thread deserved a slot that year, it was more a numbers game than considered judgment that led to it being left out.
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Re: Best Screenplays 2017

Post by Sabin »

Over the last few days, I watched Licorice Pizza and rewatched There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread. There Will Be Blood offers few new surprises. It remains a remarkable achievement. Phantom Thread didn't open up for me in different ways but instead I just found myself getting caught up in its rhythms as if it were the first time all over again. Phantom Thread is the only film in PTA's oeuvre that has quite done that for me. Isn't that the mark of a master filmmaker? When you can watch something again and again as if it's the first time? I watched with a small group of people who were viewing it for the first time and they reacted with such glee and surprise to the finale.

I write this here because it is in retrospect a bit surprising that this was the category that PTA missed out on. Yes, Phantom Thread wasn't expecting to do nearly as well as it ended up. I don't recall but I think I had it down for Best Actor, Original Score, and Costume Design. The industry clearly loved it, considering how much it over-performed with both the directors' branch and the actor's branch (curious considering it got no SAG nominations). Paul Thomas Anderson is no stranger to missing out with the writer's branch before, missing somewhat expected nominations in the past (Punch-Drunk Love and The Master) but also managed to surprise for Inherent Vice. Considering Phantom Thread's coattails elsewhere, it is a bit surprising that it didn't wind up with the nomination that went to The Big Sick. Maybe if the window of nominations was open for another week or two, it might have ended up with a Best Original Screenplay nomination. Maybe Vicky Krieps could have wound up with the nomination that went to Meryl Streep, making The Post the first Best Picture nominee with one nomination since I'd imagine the 30s. A nomination for Best Cinematography would be perhaps a bit too far considering Anderson DP-ed the film himself and how stacked the category was but maybe a nomination over Darkest Hour wouldn't be impossible

Anyway, I think had the window been open a bit wider, Phantom Thread could have easily pulled in seven or eight nominations.
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Re: Best Screenplays 2017

Post by Big Magilla »

OscarGuy wrote:You need to make it so we can change our votes.
Agreed. Fixed.
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Re: Best Screenplays 2017

Post by OscarGuy »

You need to make it so we can change our votes.
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Re: Best Screenplays 2017

Post by The Original BJ »

Adapted was obviously the weaker slate, with The Lost City of Z about the only title I can offer for substitution.

Logan is a superhero movie.

I found The Disaster Artist very funny, but it’s too trivial a movie to choose.

Molly’s Game has a ton of typically zippy Sorkin dialogue, and it’s a compelling look at the world of high stakes poker, but it felt like a smaller piece than some of Sorkin’s other scripts.

Mudbound has definite pluses (nuanced character beats, an admirably large and novelistic scope), but also some limitations (too much voiceover, almost a bit too much story).

Call Me By Your Name is my easy choice — a sensitive, kind-hearted, and very moving romance, and a great (presumably last) chance to honor James Ivory’s meritorious career.

On the Original side, I’d emphatically have wanted Phantom Thread’s originality and ambition on the list. The Florida Project also would have been worth considering.

But I don’t begrudge The Big Sick writers — I think their film is a touching twist on the romantic comedy, and though too minor an effort for major consideration, a stray screenplay nod was fine.

I like The Shape of Water far more as a concept and directorial vision than for the nuts and bolts of its writing. It’s creative enough as a nominee, but its finest areas of achievement were in other categories.

In some years, Get Out might have been my choice, for its wildly inventive blend of horror, satire, and social commentary. This year, it runs third for me, but I had no real objection to Peele emerging the winner for such strong work.

Lady Bird is a lovely piece, full of insight into human relationships, deeply moving, and full of very funny dialogue. I hope Greta Gerwig gets more opportunities to compete for this prize down the line.

But I picked Three Billboards, for its gripping, twisty thriller plot, oddball gallery of characters, and McDonagh’s skill at balancing grim violence and gallows humor while making these disparate tones feel of a piece.
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Best Screenplays 2017

Post by bizarre »

This year saw a major dissonance between one of the strongest Original Screenplay categories in recent memory and one of the most barebones pools of options in any major category for years in Adapted.

In the latter, Call Me by Your Name had this sewn up since its premiere at Sundance over a year prior to the ceremony. The Disaster Artist, a campaign rocked at the eleventh hour by sexual assault allegations against director-star James Franco (thankfully for voters he didn't write the script), Molly's Game (a Sorkin™ script for a film that didn't really get anyone excited) and Mudbound (a litmus test for Netflix's ability to resonate with Academy voters and another Sundance property many wrote off after that acquisition) were the shakiest "locks" possible. And the last spot was a crapshoot - with Iannucci satire The Death of Stalin sent into 2018-TBA no-man's-land this could have gone any which way, and ultimately went to Logan for a very comic-book script some strongly admired and some disdained.

Other possibilities - none of which had much of an edge over the others or over Logan - were three of the four 'Wonder' films this year - Wonder, Wonderstruck and Wonder Woman, in addition to The Lost City of Z, The Beguiled, Blade Runner 2049, Victoria & Abdul, All the Money in the World (my final fifth-place prediction before nominations were announced), Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool and two critical flops who didn't flop quite so hard to rule out a desperation nomination - Last Flag Flying and The Leisure Seeker (which had its own bizarre eligibility intrigue).

Original Screenplay, on the other hand, was as strong a field as any. Jordan Peele's win, while I and many others predicted it, was by no means a sure thing - Three Billboards' snub in Directing may have augured its loss here, but Lady Bird was also in it to win it especially in a moment in time strongly focused on women's advancement in behind-the-camera fields. The Big Sick, another summer BO phenom and Juddland property, got a welcome nomination for its husband-and-wife writing team (writer and star Kumail Nanjiani really should have been pushed harder as a Best Actor prospect, in my opinion) and The Shape of Water beat out The Post for what was a bit of a coattails nomination.

In addition to The Post, major shut-outs were I, Tonya and Phantom Thread (which given its surge elsewhere easily could have taken The Big Sick's spot here), while beyond that the field is sparse, though The Florida Project, Beatriz at Dinner, Dunkirk, Darkest Hour and Downsizing had some champions.
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