News from the San Diego Becks

Sorry, Greta. Kathryn Bigelow knows how you feel.  Plus, you made history in other ways.

Well, I only got four categories completely correct in my predictions but they were major ones (Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress).  Sadly, I didn’t get Director, thinking the Academy would embrace Greta Gerwig’s triumph rather than Todd Phillips’ appalling nihilism (to spare questions in the comments, I think Joker is a bad film for reasons that will eventually be posted in the review, so please don’t ask, but have to do with its quality rather than its idiotic use of the Batman mythos and its wholesale nihilism).  Well, this is the same branch of morons who passed over Christopher Nolan when he did Batman right, Nolan again, Kathryn Bigelow when she won the Consensus and Ben Affleck when he won everything else.  So, let’s bypass the quality of the films for now and move on to the trivia. (more…)

A primer on great screenwriting: using characters as they existed in the book but doing what you have to do to compress the story and get it to come out right on scene. In other words, there is no scene like this in the book.

My Top 10

1. L.A. Confidential
2. The Sweet Hereafter
3. The Ice Storm
4. Jackie Brown
5. Oscar and Lucinda
6. The Wings of the Dove
7. Wag the Dog
8. Donnie Brasco
9. Absolute Power
10. The Winter Guest

note:  A great Top 5 and very good Top 10.  My list continues down at the bottom.

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