Blueprints: Standout sequences in Original Screenplay winners

by Jorge Molina

Last Sunday, in a ceremony filled with joyful surprises, heartbreaking disappointments, and Emma Stone’s shocked tears, Green Book won Best Original Screenplay.  Instead of driving into Peter Farrelly, Brian Currie and Nick Vallelonga’s screenplay, let’s take a look at the last ten years of winners of Best Original Screenplay (2008-2017), and a standout sequence in each. Because somehow Viggo Mortensen folding a pizza in half and Mahershala Ali learning how to eat fried chicken are now among their peers.

The King's Speech, Django Unchained, Her, Birdman and more are after the jump...

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Final Oscar Predictions !

With the Oscars nearly upon us, it's time for final predictions. I've written up a lengthy piece for Towleroad which I hope you'll read and you can also compare my predictions to the other Gurus of Gold at Movie City News. I shan't reprint the whole thing here since we have all those charts you can peruse and months of articles on these very races. 

While nearly everyone expects La La Land to be the major champion of the night, I don't think it will be record breaking. Damien Chazelle’s popular musical would need 12 Oscars to beat the record of 11 which was set by Ben-Hur back in 1959 and then tied by both Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) and Titanic (1997). West Side Story (1961), yours truly's all time favorite movie, is the runner up to "most wins" with 10. La La Land might tie West Side Story but I'm predicting 9 wins. That's still a lot mind you but it's not quite record breaking. The number of wins for a Best Picture seems to be trending downward in the modern era. The only really truly big hauls in the past twenty years have been for The English Patient (9 wins for 1996), Titanic (11 wins in 1997), Shakespeare in Love (7 wins for 1999), Return of the King which was a special case as they were obviously rewarding the whole trilogy (11 wins for 2003), and Slumdog Millionaire (8 wins for 2008). I can't see La La Land winning less than 8.

But let's divvy up the categories into sure things, probably sure things, and very unsure things...

ALL LOCKED UP AND THEY SWALLOWED THE KEY

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6 Days Until Oscar: Manchester vs Hacksaw vs Lion

With 6 days to go until the big show, let's play like we did with 8 days, and look at the Best Picture nominees with that particular number of nominations. Three movies received six nominations this time though they'll facing off less directly and only in the marquee categories at that. Nevertheless, remove the other nominees from the equation for this exercize and tell us who wins in these particular face-offs...

HACKSAW RIDGE	LION	MANCHESTER
Their six nominations
Picture	Picture	Picture
Director		Director
Actor Andrew Garfield		Actor Casey Affleck
	Supporting Actress Nicole Kidman	Supporting Actress Michelle Williams
	Supporting Actor Dev Patel	Supporting Actor Lucas Hedges
	Adapted Screenplay
		Original Screenplay
	Cinematography
Film Editing
	Original Score
Sound Mixing
Sound Editing

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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Smackdown '16: Nicole, Viola, Michelle, Naomie, Octavia

Presenting the Supporting Actresses of '16. This year's slate of nominees features a selfless adoptive mother, a doting but suddenly resentful wife, a woman whose tragic past has suddenly resurfaced, a savvvy mother hen and supervisor struggling to gain respect, and an addict who makes her sensitive son's life a nightmare of instability.

THE NOMINEES 

One long-time-coming breakthrough for an exciting actress (Get it Naomie Harris), two Oscar winners elevating their films with warmth and precision (Kidman & Spencer), and two Oscar darlings who arguably should have won already attacking tragic material (Williams and Davis). Who will be triumphant in the smackdown?

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

Though we usually arrange for special guests including actors, writers, and film critics, for the first Smackdown of the new season, we opted to do it all 'in house' with only TFE crew just to get the series back up and running: Nathaniel, Abstew, Chris, and Murtada (you can read about the team here) are discussing the nominees. And now it's time for the main event... 

2016
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN 

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Introducing... the Supporting Actress Nominees of 2016

The new Smackdown season is upon us. Before we get to the main event, which will be in a day or two depending on when we finalize it, let's look at the ways in which even movie introduces the characters that will then go on to help their supporting actresses win a nomination. We'll take them in the order in which they show up in their movies.

After the jump you can also vote to determine the reader ranking of the contenders. You know you want to do it.  Meet...

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