Oscar Nomination Predictions

Oscar nominations will be announced tomorrow, and I’m coming to realize that I haven’t seen all that many of the films that will likely be in the running for best picture. This is a very strange state of affairs, especially given how much of my budget gets chewed up by movie tickets every month. According to this educated and well-reasoned article which proposes possible nominees for best picture, I’ve only seen two out of the ten films with the best shot.

Am I that out of tune with the film industry right now, or is it actually that I’m just out of tune with the Academy? I think it’s the latter, as most of the films that have a shot at the nomination aren’t the big blockbuster films, but instead the more “respectable”, supposedly insightful, or even artistic films.

While I’m glad to see Django Unchained and Les Miz on the list, I’m curious why some of my favorite films of the year aren’t even on the Academy’s radar. The other eight films on my Top Ten of Twenty Twelve list are nowhere to be seen, including The Avengers and Looper, two of the best sci-fi films to come out in a while, in my opinion.

Come to think of it, there aren’t any sci-fi films on this list of potential Best Picture nominees. Why is it that science fiction gets such a bad rap, when in reality this genre generates some of the most thought-provoking and compelling films?

Who do you hope to see nominated?

Best Picture Power Rankings: Final Pre-Nomination Predictions
Ben Travers @ PopMatters

The time has come to put forth my final predictions for Best Picture, and never has a task been more daunting. With so many films making late surges (Skyfall on the Producers Guild List? Salmon Fishing in the Yemenwith three Golden Globe nods?) and the Academy rules allowing for up to 10 nominees, there are more movies with a legitimate shot at a nomination than ever before.

‘Deception’: Deceptively Intriguing

A new crime investigation show, Deception, premiered on NBC last night, and while the premise seems intriguing enough, I’m not sure how sustainable it will be.

After the scandal of a young socialite’s death, the intrigue of this show centers around the dark secrets of her distinguished family and the tense, complex relationships between them. Deception then deceives us into thinking it is a show about solving a murder, hooking the viewer with a “whodunit”-type mystery, but in fact reveals itself to be more about the characters—exploring their relationships and inner struggles. While the members of this wealthy family could very easily come off as one-dimensional, the secrets they hide give these archetypal rich snobs a certain depth that makes them both intriguing and believable.

However, if the pilot is any indication as to the style of the show, most of the action seems to happen in the past. As secrets continue to be uncovered and as memories begin to resurface, flashbacks are (almost over-)used to help illustrate them. In the present, then, we find the characters spending most of their time simply talking about the past. Granted, as a pilot this episode does have to deal with a lot of exposition, but, especially seeing as this show is so character-driven, it would be all too easy to let action fall by the wayside. To be sure, a lot of action is not necessarily vital to maintaining interest if the characters are compelling enough, as they seem to potentially be, but a focus on the past can keep the story from moving forward.

The pilot then begs the question: where can you go with this? The complex relationships and the many skeletons in the Bowers family closet will certainly provide enough material to last at least until the end of the season, but at some point the murder will have to be solved, thus ending the investigation. While the family’s laundry list of secrets certainly appears to be never-ending, it is doubtful that they could carry the show through multiple seasons. If Deception hopes to have a long life, then, it will have to do more. Especially if it stays mired in the past and the secrets to be found there, the series won’t be able to move into the future.

Did you catch the premiere? Tell me what you thought.

Meagan Good Goes Undercover in ‘Deception’
Liz Medendorp @ PopMatters

It opens like a standard crime investigation show: late at night, a shadowy figure follows a young woman to her car; by morning, she’s dead. But Deception isn’t just another crime procedural, as it seems to be. Instead, it’s another investigation of the dark secrets of the wealthy, who have a lot to hide.”

Improving Your Script’s Dialogue

Dialogue is one of the hardest things to write, and lucky for us screenwriters, it’s basically all we write. When I started my first script, I remember being terrified at this realization–I’m great at description, just let me do that! But in reality, the description is ultimately up to the director, so we should take full advantage of the one place writers do have control: the dialogue

I came across a couple of really interesting articles that may be useful for all the aspiring screenwriters out there in helping to improve your script’s dialogue. The first is actually useful for any kind of writing, and it talks about redundancy. Eliminating redundancy in your script is essential–every word counts when you only have a set number of pages within which to tell your story, so why say the same thing twice? Check out the article here.

50 Redundant Phrases Writers Should Avoid
Mark Nichol @DailyWritingTips

In conversation, it’s easy in the midst of spontaneous speech to succumb to verbosity and duplication. In writing, redundancy is less forgivable but fortunately easy to rectify.”

And the second article is quite fun for even non-writers. I always thought it would be fun to write a show set in a prison, but I have zero knowledge of how people really talk on the inside. This article has 50 examples of prison slang to help you write realistic dialogue for a prison setting, or to just help you sound like a tough guy. Check it out here.

50 Prison Slang Words To Make You Sound Like a Tough Guy
Matt Sniak @ mental_floss

We’ve been just a little bit obsessed with old timey and subcultural slang here at the Floss as of late, and today we’re going to mine one of the richest sources for weird slang and code-talk: criminals. Here are some choice bits of prison lingo we’ve gathered from slang dictionaries, true crime stories, prisoners’ memoirs, and correctional officers.”