Monday, November 28, 2016

The FAC and Screenplays / Shorts Short Listed / Arrival's Screenplay Makes a Move

It's Monday after Thanksgiving...hope you survived the ritualistic overeating.


THE FAC AND SCREENPLAYS



The Film Awards Clearinghouse has not assessed the Oscar race for Screenplays since Oct. 20th so I thought it would be a good idea to do that as the landscape has shifted in both the Adapted and Original Screenplay races in the last five weeks as you shall see below.

I have used the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following pundits:

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire

TFF #43 films are in Bold.  The film's previous position follows its title in parentheses.


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY



1) Fences (1)
2) Arrival (4)
3) Silence (2)
4) Lion (3)
5) Sully (9)

6) Hidden Figures (6)
7) Love and Friendship (7)
8) Nocturnal Animals (10)
9) Elle (NR)
10) Live by Night (10)

Hot: Arrival, Sully and Elle
Not: Live by Night and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (which drops off the top ten completely)
On the Cusp: Hacksaw Ridge
Comment: Billy Lynn  completes the precipitous fall that had begun when we last looked these categories on 10/20. Arrival and Sully (both TFF #43 films) both got some significant boosts in the last five weeks.  I expect Silence to reassert itself as it's first trailer dropped this week to a strongly positive reception.  Fences still seems like the script to beat, though the charge by Arrival puts it close to Fences in support among the Oscar experts.


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY



1) Manchester by the Sea (1)
2) Moonlight (3)
3) La La Land (2)
4) Hell or High Water (7)
5) Jackie (6)

6) 20th Century Women (4)
7) Loving (5)
8) The Lobster (8)
9) Captain Fantastic (9)
10) Florence Foster Jenkins (10)

Hot: Hell or High Water
Not: 20th Century Women and Loving
On the Cusp: The Founder
Comment:  No additions or subtractions among the top ten in this category in the last five weeks and that seems a bit remarkable.


LOOKING AT LA LA LAND

Indiewire and Awards Daily both posted a piece this past weekend that highlighted a "behind the scenes" featurette about Damien Chazelle's perceived Oscar front runner La La Land,  It runs just shy of four and a half minutes and features Chazzelle as well as Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, John Legend and a number of others.  You can peruse it here via YouTube:



You can also take a look at the Indiewire story here.



SHORTS SHORT LISTED



The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the ten film shortlist for each of the short film categories and, as you might expect, there are a number of films that played as a part of Telluride's 2016 program.

Doc Shorts were announced last month (10/26) while Animated and Live Shorts were named this week.

On the list for Doc Shorts were three TFF #43 films: 4.1 Miles, Extremis and The White Helmets.
TFF #43 also had one film each on the two lists announced this week.  Inner Workings was on the Animated list and Nocturne in Black was on the Live Action list.

The complete list of ten for each category can be found from the Academy's press releases:






ARRIVAL'S SCREENPLAY MAKES A MOVE



As you probably noted above, Eric Heisserer's  screenplay for Denis Villenueve's Arrival has gained a good deal of traction in the Oscar race for Adapted Script since I last posted The FAC for that category back in October.  In the last week, the screenwriter has also been the focus of a large number of profile and interview pieces.

Heisserer is being lauded for adapting a story (by Ted Chiang) that was largely thought to be unadaptable.  Is an Oscar nomination on the offing for the scripter who has also penned Lights Out and The Thing (reboot in 2011).

Check out a number of the stories with these links:







That's all for this Monday.  More happening on Thursday although I am likely to post a brief addition regarding the announcement of  the National Board of Review's choices for the year's best films that are due to be announce tomorrow.



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