WGA Rejects

It comes about every year.  Every movie awards season as one and all is bestowing year end kudos to what individually and together one marks as the best of the year.  It's a shame of sorts the politics that rears its lousy head into the machine of nominations and awards.  All should stand for the same set of values-- what's the best in the year on terms of cinematic achievements.  One of the best of 2012 had an uphill battle from the start-- Beasts of the Southern Wild-- Benh Zeitlin's extraordinarily lush Katrina indictment\new-world cinematic experience, one which employed non-professional actors, and which stands one of the years most crowning critical achievements despite the whatever you call sense of know-how expected upon by members of the filmmaking guilds.  The film wasn't eligible was SAG awards due to it's non-union cast, and will be a castoff as the awards season enters phase two of the session when the guilds take over Academy Award bellwethers.  Expectant, but still stinging, the film was deemed ineligible from the Writers Guild Association of America, along with a slew of other films, in what is largely considered all apart of seasonal offerings at this point.  The shame in it, of course, is that the scrappy Beasts, a true indie acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures, after winning the Grand Jury Prize at last years Sundance Film Festival, politically and strategically could have used the healthy boast of exposure that nominations from SAG or WGA could have given it in terms of being a part of the celebrations of the best of year.

The same isn't so much the case for big guns in the race like Argo, Lincoln or Zero Dark Thirty, all hearty WGA and guild-eligible appointees who can coast along with a knowing that, despite ebbs and flows along the season, they are in safe places at the end of the day.  The annual list of who will be deemed ineligible from the Writers is official, courtesy of Kris Tapley of In Contention:

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Amour- Michael Haneke
• Beasts of the Southern Wild- Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
• Django Unchained- Quentin Tarantino, whose never been a member of WGA-- he can regroup with the DGA, for which he is a member of.
• The Impossible- Sergio Sanchez
• The Intouchables- Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano
• Middle of Nowhere- Ava DuVernay
• Seven Psychopaths- Martin McDonagh
• Take This Waltz- Sarah Polley
• Your Sister's Sister- Lynn Shelton

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Anna Karenina- Tom Stoppard
• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel- Ol Parker
• The Deep Blue Sea- Terence Davies
• Les Miserables- William Nicholson
• Quartet- Ronald Harwood
• Rust & Bone- Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain & Craig Davidson

Also due to union, animated films are not eligible for WGA award.