It was a good couple of days for The Descendants, which took home an unexpected editing prize from the ACE and a less surprising USC Scripter award last night, and just this evening nabbed the Writers Guild of America's honour for Best Adapted Screenplay. It is likely on its way to the Oscar as well, and it bugs me to no end. Not to be too harsh, but lazy voice-over narration and tonal inconsistency aren't exactly qualities of a brilliant adaption. I had held out hope that the guild might opt for the dense thematic fibers of Moneyball, thus boosting its Oscar hopes, but no dice.
Meanwhile, Woody Allen collected another Original Screenplay award for Midnight in Paris to go along with his Critics Choice and Golden Globes awards. This comes to precisely nobody's surprise, especially with its chief competition for the Oscar, The Artist, out of the running on one of the guild's maddening technicalities. Here's hoping the momentum will carry over with the Academy.
As has become a trend this year, the guild's documentary category gives us absolutely no help for predicting the Oscar, as the Documentary Screenplay category went to the un-nominated Better This World. This is the first year I can remember when none of the Best Documentary nominees had a single guild win.
