Posts Tagged ‘WGA’

Kathryn Bigelow accepting the DGA's award for Best Director for "The Hurt Locker"

Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, won the Director’s Guild of America’s award for Best Director, beating out ex-husband James Cameron (Avatar), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), and Lee Daniels (Precious).

She is the first woman to ever receive the award.

The DGA’s decision is seldom challenged by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as the winner of the first has won the second with only 6 exceptions since 1948 (the most recent being the DGA awarding Rob Marshall for Chicago and the Oscars awarding Roman Polanski for The Pianist).

Bigelow’s win continues The Hurt Locker‘s momentum, as it also won the Producer’s Guild of America award for Best Producing, and the National Society of Film Critic’s award for Best Picture. Mark Boal, the film’s screenwriter, is also nominated for the WGA’s Screenwriting Award (the winners will be announced Feb. 20th). The American Film Institute also listed the film among its Top 10 films of the year.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Quick Opinion: Kathryn Bigelow deserves a loud congratulations from the filming community indeed, as with any woman who breaks down a barrier in Hollywood. But even though the DGA’s pick is usually a reliable bet for the Academy Awards, I don’t think her winning the Best Director Oscar is a sure thing. James Cameron’s Avatar will surely be nominated for Best Picture, and his technical innovation for the film still makes him the front runner for the award in my opinion. Bigelow broke down social barriers, and Cameron broke down artistic and technological ones. It all depends on what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences believes is more impressive.

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