WGA winners!

While the Annies drag on, I have more than enough time to mention that the Writers Guild of America have awarded Her, Captain Phillips, and Stories We Tell in their feature film categories. This is an odd scenario in that I can see none of these winners repeating on Oscar night.

One Category at a Time: Adapted Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenplay was the only category I guessed 100% correctly for nominations this year, but given the how thin the field of contenders was, that's hardly worth bragging about. That being said, I think the final five are a perfectly respectable lineup; Naturally I would think that, having myself nominated all of them for my awards for writing. Still, it would have been nice to see the writing branch look outside the box at contenders like Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now, or Blue is the Warmest Color (The latter two of which I haven't seen yet, but have heard good things).

Anyway, on to the actual nominees, from whom the eventual winner looks to be fairly obvious.

My Award nominations: Adapted Screenplay

I hate to be a downer (the whole reason I blog at all is to celebrate the movies), but I gotta admit: weak year for Adapted Screenplays. I struggled to find five that I felt merited awards consideration. And in a normal year, my "Just missed" titles wouldn't even be third tier contenders.

But it is what it is, and the five that I did decide on are still fine works. Read about them after the cut.

Review - Captain Phillips

For freight liner captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks), the day starts with a mundane drive to the airport with his wife, casually discussing the challenges their children will face in the modern workforce. “It's tough out there these days,” he ruefully acknowledges. “... 50 guys competing for the same job.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in impoverished Somalia, 50 men are competing for a job as well; hoping to be selected to a pirate crew just to stay fed and pay off their warlord oppressors for another week.

The disparity between these two worlds – one of affluence and one with no opportunity at all – is made sharply visible when men from each clash violently on the high seas in Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips. Based on harrowing true events that unfolded off the horn of Africa in 2009, Greengrass depicts in straight-faced detail how a band of four Somali pirates armed with automatic weapons pursued and boarded the Maersk Alabama and held its captain hostage in a confined lifeboat until the military intervened.