Posts Tagged ‘The Hurt Locker’

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zoe Deschanel in director Marc Webb's "500 Days of Summer," written by Scott Neustadler and Michael H. Weber

The Writer’s Guild of America has announced its nominees for the year’s  Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplays. The nominees for Best Original include the following:

500 Days of Summer (Scott Neustadler and Michael H. Weber), Avatar (James Cameron), The Hangover (Jon Lucas and Scott Moore), The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal), and A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen).

The nominees for Best Adapted include the following:

Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper – based on novel by Thomas Cobb), Julie and Julia (Nora Ephron – based on separate books by Julie Powell and Julia Child), Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher – based on the novel Push by Sapphire), Star Trek (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman – based on Star Trek as created by Gene Roddenberry), and Up in the Air (Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner – based on novel by Walter Kirn).

Notable films that were not eligible for the WGA awards because they were not written under the guild’s jurisdiction were: District 9, Inglourious Basterds, The Road, A Single Man, and Up.

Source: Variety

A still from "Coraline"

The American Film Institute has released their choices for the top 10 films of 2009. The list comprises the following films (in alphabetical order):

Coraline, The Hangover, The Hurt Locker, The Messenger, Precious, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Sugar, Up, and Up in the Air.

Being that Up in the Air hasn’t yet been released into theaters nationwide, its inclusion on this list might act as great promotion and cause the film to have a bigger opening weekend than it would have. The Hangover might also enjoy boosted DVD sales.

Select groups representing these respective films will receive AFI’s awards at a ceremony in Los Angeles on January 5th.

Source: Variety

Quick Opinion: What the hell is The Hangover doing on this list? Certainly there were more deserving films that could have taken its spot in AFI’s top 10 of the year, such as Star Trek or Ingloureous Basterds, to name a few. But to play Devil’s advocate for a moment, many people have been lobbying for years for comedies to get more credit from organizations like AFI because while a successful comedy may not be “artistically superior” (as not every comedy can be Annie Hall) it nevertheless may be impressively effective in garnering the reactions its genre seeks to induce. To The Hangover‘s credit its reception was surprisingly positive from critics, and since its release it has penetrated pop culture thoroughly. Is this grounds for being mentioned with films like Precious, The Messenger, and Coraline? Tell us what you think.