One Category at a Time: Best Original Screenplay

Just like in Best Adapted Screenplay, this race feels like a tight one, except that it comes down to two scripts instead of all five nominees. I gotta tell ya, as much fun as true suspense on Oscar night can be, I'm having a rough go of predicting Best Original Screenplay lately, batting less than 0.500 over the last seven years.

Part of it is that the two main industry precursors are doing just as poorly when it comes to prefacing the Academy (which isn't their job, of course, and thank God for that). The WGA and the BAFTA have each anticipated the eventual winner only half the time in this decade, so maybe I'm looking at the wrong precursors.

My Award Nominations: Original Screenplay

The Academy's judgment that Moonlight and Loving be considered adaptations certainly thinned things out in this field (while I normally don't hold myself to taking Oscar's cues, it appears in both cases to be have been a reasonable decision), but on the plus side it freed me up to welcome a bubble contender or two into the fray. My five favourite Original Screenplays of the year are:

My Award nominations: Foreign Film

My picks for the Best Foreign Film of the year are always subject to change because so many of them don't even get exposed in North America until much later. But as of the moment this was typed, my five are:

All That I Love (Jacek Borcuch):
Poignant coming of age for the youth of 1980s Poland as seen through the eyes of a budding punk rock music movement. Wonderfully captures the tumultuous thoughts of both the nation and the individual characters.

Biutiful (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu):
A densely depressing existential essay, told with sure-handed restraint and tact by Inarritu and his star Javier Bardem. It's beautifully shot throughout, creating a beautiful sense of place with textured, carefully composed shots.

Dogtooth (Yargos Lanthimos):
If nothing else, Dogtooth is at the very least a hard film to forget (for better or worse). Lanthimos' style is simple, intimate, gives proper focus to his actors, and features some really sumptuous cinematography.

I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino):
A fervent but ultimately pessimistic interpretation about the dangers of succumbing to your passions and exploring beyond the societal norm, framed as a stylish melodrama. Tilda Swinton owns it.

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve):
Denis Villeneuve's back-and-forth chronology may bother some, but I think it succeeds at highlighting the passage of time and the values that differ as a function thereof. Performances are strong, as is Villeneuve's confident direction, which is unafraid to jar or disturb us.

Foreign Film shortlist

Nine finalists for Best Foreign Language Film have been selected by the Academy; Six based on scores given by the general committee of volunteer voters, and three chosen by the hand-picked executive committee.

Algeria Outside the Law
Canada Incendies
Denmark In A Better World
Greece Dogtooth
Japan Confessions
Mexico Biutiful
South Africa Life Above All
Spain Even the Rain
Sweden Simple Simon

The big surprise here is the inclusion of Yargos Lanthimos' bizarre black comedy Dogtooth, which I can only guess had to be helped along by the executive committee. I'll eat my hat if ends up nominated.

The other titles are not so surprising. It certainly bodes well for Golden Globe nominees Biutiful and In A Better World, the latter of which won.

The nine films will screen this weekend for a randomly selected committee of 30 Academy members who will then determine the five nominees.