Writers Guild of America Nominations

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 10:55pm

Borat???????????


ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

"Babel"
Guillermo Arriaga, Paramount Vantage

"Little Miss Sunshine
Michael Arndt, Fox Searchlight Pictures

"The Queen"
Peter Morgan, Miramax Films

"Stranger Than Fiction"
Zach Helm, Sony Pictures Entertainment

"United 93,"
Paul Greengrass, Universal Pictures

"ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

"Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,"
Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Peter Baynham & Dan Mazer, Story by Sacha Baron Cohen & Peter Baynham & Anthony Hines & Todd Phillips, Based on a Character Created by Sacha Baron Cohen, Twentieth Century Fox

"The Departed"
William Monahan, Based on the Motion Picture "Infernal Affairs," Written by Alan Mak and Felix Chong, Warner Bros. Pictures

"The Devil Wears Prada"
Aline Brosh McKenna, Based on the Novel by Lauren Weisberger, Twentieth Century Fox

"Little Children"
Todd Field & Tom Perrotta, Based on the Novel by Tom Perrotta, New Line Cinema

"Thank You for Smoking"
Jason Reitman, Based on the Novel by Christopher Buckley, Fox Searchlight Pictures



http://www.variety.com/awardcentral_article/VR1117957175.html?nav=news&categoryid=1985&cs=1

Updated On: 1/11/07 at 10:55 PM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 11:04pm

So much for THE HISTORY BOYS. I know. They didn't even had a shot, regardless of how brilliant the adaptation was. At least DREAMGIRLS didn't get a nomination.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 11:11pm

History Boys was a wonderful adaptation...but the script was already so great to begin with that I'm sure people thought it was easy to adapt.

The WGA has always been a little wonky. I'm not surprised at Borat, really. They gave an award for screenplay to Bowling for Columbine...I mean, really? Best screenplay?!

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 11:24pm

The Devil Wears Prada?

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 11:37pm

How is "Borat" an adapation?

[broadway86]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 12:08am

What is Borat doing here? 1) Isn't most of it improv? 2) What is it adapted from?

The Devil Wears Prada?

I'm still surprised that people can't believe this movie got nominated. It made the top ten for AFI and NBR, it got a USC Scripter nom, it was a summer hit, and it's star is a lock for a Best Actress nomination. Look for it to receive several Oscar nods.

BTW... Caroline, that wasn't directed towards you.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 12:29am

All of those films deserve the nominations except for BORAT.

And I agree with you, broadway. On everything. For once.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 1:02am

I would imagine that even though Borat was made up of improv, like reality shows, it needs writers to pull all that mostly-unscripted footage together to make some sort of coherent storyline. I haven't seen it, so I can't say whether or not it's Oscar worthy, but the writers do have a purpose.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 2:20am

I can understand the confusion over Borat getting a nomination, but every film has a script--and like the book of a musical, it isn't just the words spoken.

This is why Branaugh's Hamlet can get a screenplay nom or Bowling For Columbine. They still have screenplays.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 3:14am

Borat is adapted from a character

[Pinguin]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 5:52am

Yeah, I mostly think the Borat nom. is weird because it's odd to think of it as an "adapted screenplay." Adapted? Really?

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 7:57am

on the upside, I'm really glad to see Stranger Than Fiction get a nom. Yay!

But really. The Devil Wears Prada. i'm not surprised it got a om, I was sure it would. I just don't understand all of htis praise. It was really very run-of-the-mill comedy for me. It wasn't even very funny. Styliistically, it was a beautiful film, but it was really kind of "just okay" for me. But that's just my oopinion, I guess. There are people that know more than I do. But I felt it was kind of average.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 9:33am

So, wait...

702 people can be nominated for a WGA award for Borat...

...but 4 is one too many for a Best Song Oscar nomination?

I wonder if this Borat WGA nomination will transfer over to an Oscar nod (my hope is that it won't). If it does, will the same "cut off" rule apply after three names?

[blueroses]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 9:45am

Good point, best12.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 9:53am

Actually, rereading it, I think it's only four names that keep repeating and repeating like last night's dinner (which is still "one too many" for Oscar this year).

I guess I got distracted by that PARAGRAPH of credits.

"Based on this guy I saw walking down the street, who looked like a brother of a character I created, while I was watching another guy we based it on for this TV show, blah-blah-blah..."

What a joke.

I will say that this WGA nomination and its justification in the media today are funnier than the movie.

Updated On: 1/12/07 at 09:53 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 10:29am

Ya know I enjoyed Borat as much as the next person, but if I were a professional screenwriter this morning I'd be PISSED that a movie that was 95% improvised and unscripted gets singled out as having one of the 5 best adapted screenplays of the year. Yes, I know they probably came up with some of the various scenarios the character found himself in and maybe some of the questions Cohen asked (though I bet Cohen improvised much of that), but to me that doesn't merit a slot in the top 5.

I can see nominating Cohen for an acting award for his amazing improvisational skills and certainly the editors deserve recognition for probably chopping hundreds of hours of footage into a coherent, well-paced, consistently funny film. But, screenwriting?

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 10:39am

As mentioned before, the writers guild is a bit wonky and they like to swing for the fences--they gave blacklisted writers awards openly, they voted for COLUMBINE....it's more of a sign of their taste than for the craft of the script.

I think BORAT was one of the best films of the year, but it really shouldn't be in this category. A great deal of the BORAT-bashing is really popular taste/water cooler topic-bashing. It's the same people who hate LOST and GREY'S ANATOMY simply because everyone else likes them.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 10:41am

I hate it because I find the premise, the reason for making it, and the character to be insulting and offensive.

Not at all for the reason you say.

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 10:45am

Did you see it?

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 10:50am

I saw about 45 minutes of it before I left.

Unless you tell me the plot "thickened" I don't feel like I missed anything.

I got the gist of it in the first 30 seconds, truth be told...

He plays the European equivalent of a shuffling n*gger, and exposes the prejudice of the people he encounters as well as the movie audiences who are laughing at him and at "themselves."

If you think that's funny, good for you. I do not. I found it mostly boring, highly questionable, and VERY mean-spirited. But funny?

No.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 10:55am

I"m with you, best12. I didn't find Borat funny at all. The only funny sequences are those that highlight the ignoranace of Americans (the church scene and the party manners scene) -- which are not a significant section of the film.

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 10:59am

So you didn't really see it. That's fine. No judging here.

I rarely walk out of anything--the only one I've ever left was ERNEST GOES TO CAMP--can you blame me?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 11:00am

I'm not bashing. As I said, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and found it to be very funny -- but not because of its "screenplay." I thought that almost all of the best parts of the film were the unscripted spontaneous responses of the many unwitting participants who weren't in on the joke. Presumably, the four or five credited writers didn't feed those people their lines in advance -- and if they did then I take all of this back -- so, I don't see honoring them with a screenwriting award when they didn't write 95% of the dialogue in the film.

I could even understand honoring BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE before honoring this film since most good documentaries are heavily scripted and plotted out -- just about everything that came out of Micahel Moore's mouth (especially the voiceover narration) was scripted in advance. Documentaries generally just give the illusion of spontaneity, but are in fact planned down to the tiniest detail. The BORAT writers may have planned the general scenarios, but nearly everything else was improvised. I imagine the "shooting script" was probably little more than a multi-page outline of the various situations they could put Cohen into, they filmed hundreds of hours of these scenarios and then a terrific editing team cut all of that into an 80 minute highlight film which is what we see. Again, it's a very funny film, but not, to my mind, because of its "screenplay."

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 11:04am

People always seem to laugh at Borat, until I tell them to try, in their minds, to substitute a young black, unknown actor... shuffling super-slowly through the rural streets of Alabama, eating a giant slice of watermelon and a piece of fried chicken, barefoot, nappy hair, torn overalls, gold front tooth, spouting every perceived racial African-American cliche "enthusiastically," while white, Southern "America" smiles and nods uncomfortably...

...and suddenly, it's just not funny anymore.

Yet, it's the same exact thing.

Would they have had a hit movie with all this praise? Would people across America be applauding and attending? I don't think so. They would have had a lot of justified special interest groups up their butts to ban the film, or pan the film.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/12/07 at 11:04am

b12b, i find your attack on shuffling n*ggers completely unacceptable obviously the product of a diseased pseudo-republican-homophobic mind. it's clear that you hate europe and are one of those "america, love it or leave it types." i bet you've even got the confederate battle flag hanging in your garage. how dare you attack the single greatest piece of cinema to be produced in the last 70 years without having subjected yourself to every last minute of it's so-called humor?

and touch, i am just ashamed of you.