Best Adapted Screenplay: 2007

“And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.” (final lines)

My Top 10

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Atonement
3. There Will Be Blood
4. Away from Her
5. Gone Baby Gone
6. Charlie Wilson’s War
7. A Mighty Heart
8. Persepolis
9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
10. 3:10 to Yuma

note:  An excellent Top 5 but not nearly as strong Top 10.  It’s worth noting that thanks mostly to Harry Potter and the MCU this is the last year until 2020 where none of my Top 10 are franchise films.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2006

Nothing Wahlberg says in the film is anything like the dialogue in the original film but damn it’s brilliant.

My Top 10

1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
4. The Prestige
5. Perfume
6. Casino Royale
7. Army of Shadows
8. The Painted Veil
9. Thank You for Smoking
10. Notes on a Scandal

note:  An excellent Top 5 and Top 10.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2005

When it came—thirty cents—he pinned it up in his trailer, brass-headed tack in each corner. Below it he drove a nail and on the nail he hung a wire hanger and the two old shirts suspended from it. He stepped back and looked at the ensemble through a few stinging tears. “Jack, I swear—” he said, though Jack had never asked him to swear anything and was himself not the swearing kind.

My Top 10

1. Brokeback Mountain
2. Munich
3. Pride & Prejudice
4. The Constant Gardener
5. The History of Violence
6. Batman Begins
7. Downfall
8. Capote
9. Proof
10. King Kong

note:  An excellent Top 5 and Top 10.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2003

“Then Merry heard of all the sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like a ring of steel. ‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter.” (p 823)

My Top 10

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2. Mystic River
3. City of God
4. American Splendor
5. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
6. Nowhere in Africa
7. Whale Rider
8. Big Fish
9. Bubba Ho-Tep
10. Matchstick Men

note:  A strong Top 5 but the second 5 is fairly weak.  But it does still have several (weaker) films on my complete list down at the bottom, minus the #13 (Cold Mountain) and #16 (The Secret Lives of Dentists) which are reviewed because of awards.

 

Great Read: The Night Circus

The Night Circus

• Author:  Erin Morgenstern
• Published:  2011
• Publisher:  Doubleday
• Pages:  387
• First Line:  “The circus arrives without warning.”
• Last Lines:  “You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.”
• Film Version:  none yet
• First Read:  Spring 2011

 

Great Read: The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles

• Author:  Madeline Miller
• Published:  2012
• Publisher:  HarperCollins
• Pages:  378
• First Line:  “My father was a king and the son of kings.”
• Last Lines:  “In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk.  Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
• Acclaim:  Orange Prize for Fiction
• Film Version:  none
• First Read:  Spring 2018 / Spring 2020

 

Great Read: Astonishing X-Men

Astonishing X-Men

(4 volumes or two larger volumes or one omnibus)

• Author:  Joss Whedon
• Artist:  John Cassaday
• Published:  2004-2007
• Publisher:  Marvel Comics
• Pages:  656
• First Line:  “Mommy is screaming.”
• Last Lines:  “You take what you can get.  Cause it’s here, and then gone.”
• Film Version:  none, although elements from the first volume were used in X-Men: The Last Stand
• First Read:  Winter 2006 and then ongoing until it ended

Back in 2007, I wrote a piece entitled “Whedon, You Stupid Bastard” with the intention of sending it to one of a couple of websites that I occasionally contributed pieces to, but in the end, I didn’t.  But I still have the piece sitting on my computer and parts of the piece below are straight from that piece (the parts in red), written back when things in my life were a lot different.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2001

“There was a hush, and all turned their eyes on Frodo. He was shaken by a sudden shame and fear; and he felt a great reluctance to reveal the Ring, and a loathing of its touch. He wished he was far away. The Ring gleamed and flickered as he held it up before them in his trembling hand.” (p 240-241)

My Top 10

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. In the Bedroom
3. Ghost World
4. Vanilla Sky
5. Last Orders
6. Shrek
7. Ocean’s Eleven
8. A.I.
9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
10. The Pledge

note:  Not a great Top 5 or Top 10.  It’s another of those years which is balanced by a fantastic group of original scripts (Amelie, Memento, Gosford Park, Monster’s Ball, Amores Perros, Royal Tenenbaums, Others, Man Who Wasn’t There).  My #11 (Black Hawk Down), 13 (Iris) and 14 (Bridget Jones) are reviewed down below because of nominations while the rest of my list (which reached 19) is down at the bottom.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2000

“I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul, than enter heaven without you.” Because the book has never been translated, I have no idea if that brilliant line exists there in any way.

My Top 10

1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2. Traffic
3. Wonder Boys
4. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5. High Fidelity
6. Thirteen Days
7. The Virgin Suicides
8. Quills
9. The Claim
10. Aimee and Jaguar

note:  A truly fantastic Top 7 though it drops a bit after that.  My list continues down below though my #18 (Chocolat) and #19 (All the Pretty Horses) aren’t on that list because they’re reviewed as nominees.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1999

“So I said, I love him and I’ll do anything if you make him alive. I said very slowly, I’ll give him up for ever, only let him be alive with a chance, and I pressed and pressed and I could feel the skin break, and I said, People can love without seeing each other, can’t they they, they love You all their lives without seeing You, and then he came in at the door, and he was alive, and I thought now the agony of being without him starts, and I wished he was safely back dead again under the door.” (p 95)

My Top 10

1. The End of the Affair
2. Eyes Wide Shut
3. Toy Story 2
4. The Talented Mr. Ripley
5. The Insider
6. Election
7. Metroland
8. Felicia’s Journey
9. My Son the Fanatic
10. The Cider House Rules

note:  A solid Top 5 but not so much for the Top 10.  But of course that’s balanced, as if often is, by a truly incredible original group of original scripts (American Beauty, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, Three Kings, Topsy Turvy, Sixth Sense, Sweet and Lowdown, Following, Run Lola Run, Princess Mononoke, Abre Los Ojos).  This list is a bit different from the Nighthawk Awards because I saw Metroland since then and Fight Club dropped a bit when I re-watched it for the project – I still reviewed it because I had already gone through the effort of writing it, so it’s down at the bottom.  The rest of my list is shorter than usual and Fight Club (#11) is reviewed below as are my #16 (An Ideal Husband) and #17 (October Sky) because of award nominations.