The Writers Guild of America awards will be held this Saturday. With so many of the year’s Oscar-nominated screenplays ineligible, the awards are inevitably less relevant than they might otherwise have been. So, a grain of salt is in order when considering the consequences of how they vote.
The nominees are:
Original Screenplay:
(500) Days of Summer (Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber)
Avatar (James Cameron)
The Hangover (Jon Lucas, Scott Moore)
The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
A Serious Man (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
With Inglourious Basterds ineligible here, The Hurt Locker should take this category with little trouble. If anything else wins (A Serious Man seems the only reasonable spoiler), it may be a sign of weakness and indicative of a Tarantino triumph at the impending Oscars where Tarantino and Boal will go head to head. All the signs point towards a dog fight all the way to the podium which serves as a useful barometer for the Best Picture winner on the night.
If The Hurt Locker indeed takes this, it will have taken four major guild prizes (DGA, PGA, ACE and WGA). Since the PGA first started giving out awards in 1989, no film with DGA/PGA/ACE has missed out on one of Best Picture or Best Director at the Oscars. With Bigelow seemingly primed for the win, Best Picture would also appear to be done and dusted if The Hurt Locker snatches up the win here. But Basterd’s ineligibility hangs over this category like a dark cloud, and Tarantino should never be underestimated. We’ll see how the wind blows on Saturday.
Adapted Screenplay:
Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper)
Julie & Julia (Nora Ephron)
Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher)
Star Trek (Robert Kurtzman, Roberto Orci)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)
There’s really very little to add in this space, apart from the fact that more may be needed in the trophy cabinets of Reitman and Turner.
The skinny: original goes to The Hurt Locker (spoiler A Serious Man) and adapted to Up in the Air (no spoiler).
Films in Focus 
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