Statuesque: Writer’s Guild Awards 2011 – ‘Social Network’ and ‘Inception’ Win Something!

If you’ve noticed a theme to these Statuesque posts, I’m very sad at the apparent lack of Academy heat around ‘The Social Network’. Not only was its total nomination count dwarfed by ‘The King’s Speech’ (8 compared to 12 nominations), but ‘Speech’ has picked up two substantial awards in the past couple of weeks: the SAG and DGA prizes… But all is not lost for my favorite movie of 2010. No! It actually won something this past weekend! ‘Inception’ did too!

This weekend, Aaron Sorkin’s script for ‘The Social Network‘ won Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writer’s Guild of America, to which I only have to say: “Duh.” In the Original Script category, Christopher Nolan’s mind-pretzel work on ‘Inception‘ took home the prize. This bodes well for both films’ Academy Award chances. If there’s one thing that Nolan will possibly grab, it’s the Best Original Screenplay trophy. Even if you don’t understand the film, you have to admit that it’s damn good.

Whether or not these awards will prove any kind of boost to the movies’ Oscar chances remains to be seen. I was just eating dinner with another critic and we couldn’t get over the fact that ‘The King’s Speech’, with its crowd-pleasing platitudes and simplistic plot, will undoubtedly triumph over the more morally thorny themes and technologically advanced storytelling of ‘The Social Network’. It’s sad, for sure. But anything could happen… Right?

Right?

In the somewhat odder Documentary Screenplay category, Charles Ferguson, Chad Beck and Adam Bolt took home a deserved prize for their vivisection of the financial crisis in ‘Inside Job’.

Since this column is about movies, I’m hesitant to talk about the television categories, although I think it’s weird that the ‘Mad Men’ episode the WGA chose to single out was ‘The Chrysanthemum and the Sword‘ instead of the clearly superior ‘The Suitcase‘. I guess ‘Sword’ had those big, weighty “themes” and stuff, while ‘The Suitcase’ was more painterly and stripped down? Who knows? I’m pretty sure an episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ should have won anyway.

In the Animation category, the fantastic ‘Futurama’ episode ‘The Prisoner of Benda‘ won. That’s good because, well, it’s one of the best ‘Futurama’ episodes ever. There, I said it.

2 comments

  1. Jane Morgan

    This is a nice win for Aaron Sorkin, but he has to be thinking, “Yeah, but, these are the same people who in 2009 nominated ‘Avatar’ for Best Original Screenplay…”

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