One Category at a Time: Adapted Screenplay

The state of the writing categories for this year's Academy Awards really is a tale of two contests; One is as competitive and over-stuffed with quality as I've ever seen it, while the other is practically a wasteland of mediocrity (with the only truly exceptional screenplay appearing courtesy of an Academy error in its favour).

Today we're looking at the latter, Best Adapted Screenplay, which is so thin on genuine contenders that they had to poach one of the surefire nominees from the Original Screenplay camp just to fill things out!

Review - American Sniper

Pulling a trigger may be the single most dehumanizing act there is. Every time one person makes the conscious decision to end the life of another, they lose a part of themselves that cannot be retrieved. Most people would grow ill at the thought of performing this act even once. What kind of person would it take to have done it 160 times? How would he/she feel?

In Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, we're introduced to the real-life figure that epitomizes the moral quandary at the root of killing for one's country; NAVY Seal Chris Kyle, who became the deadliest shot in U.S. military history over the course of four tours in Iraq, earning him the nickname 'Legend'. But an introduction is not the same as an examination, and as riveting an introduction it is at times, it does not delve deep enough into the man behind the 'legend'.