Best Original Screenplay Oscar 2019

The Favourite
First Reformed
Green Book
Roma
Vice

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Hmmm...I would say The Favourite or Green Book.

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“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!” ~ Rocky Balboa

Want it to be First Reformed but its not going to happen.

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Letterboxd

Differences, as usual, between the WGA Award nominees and the Oscar nominees. They lined up in both nominating Green Book, Roma, and Vice. Where they differ is the Writers Guild highlighted Eighth Grade and A Quiet Place while the writer's branch of the Academy went with The Favourite and First Reformed.

The WGA hands out their awards on February 17th, the week before The Oscars.

Haven't seen Favourite or Vice. I voted for Rome. The three I have seen don't stick out for screenplay to me. Oh well.

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Letterboxd

Is it auto-correct, a typo or do you think the film is actually called Rome?

Second time I’ve seen you refer to it as Rome.

Yeah, must be auto-correct. I just didn't notice.

I think this one should go to The Favourite, but I wouldn't mind if Green Book won.

The WGA Award is no help here for the Original Screenplay category as they named writer/director Bo Burnham and Eighth Grade their winner. It did not get an Oscar nomination (though I damn well think it should have).



Vice is Adam McKay's second screenplay nom, having won with Charles Randolph for The Big Short. He made the cut again here, but his Dick Cheney biopic/satire is not going to make him two-for-two. He seems to have left the pure comedies behind as his next project is an adaptation of the non-fiction best seller Bad Blood: Secrets & Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup starring Jennifer Lawrence. Odds are he will be back at the Academy Awards.




Out of all the firsts and oddities in this year's nominations perhaps the biggest shocker was people realizing that Paul frickin' Schrader had NEVER been nominated for an Oscar. Not for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, or The Last Temptation of Christ. Not for Blue Collar, Mishima, or Affliction. To say he was overdue is obvious. Just as obvious is the brilliance of First Reformed. It should have gotten at least a Best Actor nod for Ethan Hawke too, but Schrader is now an Oscar nominee. Finally. I would LOVE to see him win, for First Reformed and for being Paul frickin' Schrader. But if he does it'll be an upset.




Green Book is based a true story. How true depends on who you talk to: Dr. Don Shirley's family, who think it is a whitewashed (pun intended) fantasy that too undercuts the issues or Tony Vallelonga's family, who find it a stirring tribute. One of Vallelonga's sons, Nick, and one of Nick's acting pals Brian Currie co-wrote the screenplay. The film's director, Peter Farrelly is also credited. Peter Farrelly of the Farrelly Brothers (There's Something About Mary, Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin). I know the people who like this movie REALLY like it, including some Academy voters, to be sure. Hollywood is a town that likes transformations and redemptions, so they may well give a former gross-out king an Oscar here for playing it straight. And that a son paid tribute to his dad, that may get some sentimental votes, too. Will it be enough to have Green Book win Best Original Screenplay?




The Favourite belongs somewhat to a tradition of films that skew the costume drama in a darker direction. Oscar nominees Dangerous Liaisons and The Madness of King George, even Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and the Best Picture winners the bawdy comedy Tom Jones and artistic jealousy gone amuck in Amadeus are subverting the historical costume pic. These tales of ladies and kings capable of depravity while wearing corsets and powdered wigs are in part a response to the likes of the very British The Lion in Winter, Beckett, Anne of the Thousand Days, and A Man for All Seasons.

Australian writer Tony McNamara, best known for television programs Down Under, and first timer Deborah Davis, who had been developing the idea for decades, had a blast torturing Queen Anne and the two women who fought for her affection and power. When Yorgos Lanthimos came aboard the creepiness and uncomfortableness was pitched even higher. It is probably too dark and twisted to win Best Picture, but here in the screenplay categories the weirder stuff can actually triumph from time to time. Get Out, Her, Django Unchained, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Talk to Her are some of the darker, unconventional scripts to win here in the past twenty years. Will The Favourite get those votes from Academy admirers who won't vote for it as Picture and Director?




Roma is Alfonso Cuarón's third screenwriting nom. His first was in this category for Y tu Mamá También and his second his adaptation of P.D. James' Children of Men, shared with four other scribes. He won for neither. But he may well win here for his soulful reminiscence of pieces of his childhood in Mexico. He is the big favorite to win Best Director, and if he adds a screenplay Oscar to go with it he will become the 13th person to accomplish both for the same film: John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), Leo McCarey (Going My Way), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who did it twice, in back-to-back years for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve), Billy Wilder (who did it twice for The Lost Weekend and The Apartment), Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather Part II), Woody Allen (Annie Hall), Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer), James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment), Bernardo Bertolucci (Terms of Endearment), Joel & Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men), Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), and Cuarón's friend and countryman Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman).

The voters may figure Best Director is enough of a reward for the triumph that is Roma and spread the wealth around a bit. Or they may decide to crown him as a total filmmaker.


We are about to find out.

The voters didn't put too much stress on the "original" part of Best Original Screenplay and went with Green Book. I guess Schrader will just have to comfort himself with the fact that he wrote a couple of the greatest films in the history of American cinema.