Writers Guild Nominations

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• (500) Days of Summer- Scott Neustradter & Michael H. Weber
• Avatar- James Cameron
• The Hangover- John Lucas & Scott Moore
• The Hurt Locker- Mark Boal
• A Serious Man- Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Crazy Heart- Scott Cooper
• Julie & Julia- Nora Ephron
• Precious- Geoffrey Fletcher
• Star Trek- Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
• Up in the Air- Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner

I'm always excited by the writing nominations here and at the Oscars because more time than not the films I'm super passionate about have to settle for screenwriting laurels, usually missing the best picture berth. The writers group tend to honor a lot of the more daring pieces of filmmaking that the Academy as a whole seems to either not fully understand or out and out reject. Which is odd this year, since the WGA eligibility requirements eliminated a lot of the best movies of 2009 in it's voting this year, something in which I hope the Academy remedies.

In the original screenplay category, it's a solid group....the writers have always been more favorable to comedy than AMPAS (hence The Hangover mention), and really the only one I feel doesn't belong is Avatar, whose visual bravura notwithstanding, could have used a tighter screenplay--- it's not raking in billions of dollars worldwide for it's dialogue. I expect the Academy will go with (500) Days of Summer, A Serious Man, The Hurt Locker, and two films not eligible for WGA: Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino is not a member of WGA) and Up (animation is disqualified here), but Pixar has overcome that obstacle many times before (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E.)

In the adapted screenplay category- again nothing is really complaint worthy, but like original is more a second-tier writing group, because so many films were overlooked for eligibility requirements also including An Education, A Single Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, District 9, and The Road. I imagine that WGA nominees Up in the Air and Precious may be the only films that make it to the Oscars. I also imagine that Star Trek will be replaced with District 9.