Writers and "Letters"

Members of the WGA handed out their trophies this weekend and, not so surprisingly, the screenplay awards went to The Departed (adaptation) and Little Miss Sunshine (original), thus giving both pictures a little more clout in preparation for their big showdown on Oscar night. It’s important to remember that the WGA awards are not the best precursors for the Academy’s best picture. A lot of WGA winners may go on to win gold in the screenplay categories, but fall short in the final Best Picture. Still, this year, from all reports, it is looking like these two are the major contenders.

It really is an odd year. Although the majority of soothsayers are settling on Scorsese, Mirren and Hudson at this point, the major categories still seem to have some mild quibbling over Supporting Actor (Murphy is the favorite but Arkin and Wahlberg are stil in the running) and Actor (despite Whitaker’s incredible sweep of all other awards, several longtime Oscar watchers are suggesting a surprise and sentimental victory for O’Toole). As far as Best Picture goes, it is still anyone’s guess. This is at least keeping things mildly interesting until the big night, now less than two weeks away.

As for yours truly, I cannot claim a solid, unflagging allegiance to any of the BP contenders this year. Personal favorite of the bunch? Little Miss Sunshine, without a doubt. Movie I most admire? Letters From Iwo Jima. Best acted? The Queen. Eventually I’ll need to make my prediction if I hope to win any of the numerous guess-the-Oscar-winner sweepstakes to which I am so easily drawn. I’ll probably go with LMS. And as soon as I do, The Departed will emerge as champ. Just watch. It happens every time.

A lot has been written this past month about Iwo Jima and I will agree with the praise and admiration heaped upon this very fine film. It is one of the best anti-war films ever made and perhaps the crowning achievement in Clint Eastwood’s career. Yet its surprisingly scant number of nominations (four) and the fact that it is in a foreign language hinder, I think, it’s chances of ultimate Oscar glory. Too bad, too, that the Academy failed to recognize with nominations for two of the year’s best performances (Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya) as well as Tom Stern’s cinematography and the fine editing courtesy of Joel Cox and Gary Roach. Cox has edited most of Eastwood’s movies and won a much-deserved Oscar for Unforgiven back in ’92. And Stern just won the 2006 Satellite for his work on the director’s other WW2 epic Flags of Our Fathers.

I’m not saying there isn’t strong competition in these fields already this year (and of those in the running, I’d go for Children of Men in Cinematography and United 93 for Editing,) It’s just too bad there isn’t room for a few more nominations here.

If you haven’t seen this one, do so NOW. It is easily the best of Oscar’s Big Five and demands (and deserves) to be seen on the big screen.