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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Thursday, January 10th, 2008 - 12 Comments »
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WGA Nods In Order, Screened, Resurected & Honest

Four things…
First, WGA website gods seem to have developed a bad habit. This is the second year that the Guild has listed nominees in order of vote total. Last year, they fixed it when it was pointed out… and here we are again.
I have adjusted the names in the previous WGA nod entry to match the WGA website… votes came in that order. Congrats to the likely winners.
Next, what did non-WGA-nominees Atonement, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Charlie Wilson’s War and Sweeney Todd have in common? No screeners for WGA members. (Sweeney did show up, but only one day before voting closed for many voters… same for many members of BFCA.)
Almost more shocking, statistically, is that there were only fourteen non-doc features sent to WGA members… and nine of the ten nominees came from that group.
The only film nominated by WGA that didn’t send a screener was Michael Clayton.
And the five screeners that didn’t draw nominations? Away From Her, Dan in Real Life, The Kite Runner, and Margot at the Wedding and 3:10 to Yuma. (In other words, Vantage sent everything, Lionsgate got nothing, and Disney’s comedy wasn’t up to Knocked Up standards – or in my mind, the Superbad screener that Sony didn’t send either.)
Third, has anyone outside of the WGA seen the top doc vote-getter, The Camden 28? The film was release by First Look in July on 1 screen and earned under $10,000. How in God’s name did this movie end up being the biggest vote getter at the Guild?
Here is the synopsis at imdb: The Camden 28 explores how and why 28 individuals intentionally placed themselves at risk of arrest and imprisonment while protesting the war in Vietnam. Featuring a treasure of archival materials and current interviews with former FBI agents involved in the case and scholars such as Howard Zinn, The Camden 28 is a story about a potent form of dissent that has special relevance to our current political climate.
And a special relevance to a guild in the midst of a strike, it seems to me.
Finally, it is nice to see Elizabeth Bentley getting her due in the nom for Nanking. As I reported almost a year ago, there was an effort to squeeze Bentley out of her credit for the film by the writer/director/producer and in most press materials, she has been a phantom. She gets her recognition here. (I only wish the movie really deserved a nod at all.)

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12 Comments »

12 Responses to “WGA Nods In Order, Screened, Resurected & Honest”

  1. bipedalist says:
    January 10, 2008 at 5:16 pm

    This is bullshit. There is no way they didn’t get screeners. I’m going to have to ask my WGA buddy which ones he got. If every asshole with an internet connection gets them surely the WGA would. I don’t buy it.

  2. Rothchild says:
    January 10, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    Mr. Poland is totally right about who got what.

  3. scooterzz says:
    January 10, 2008 at 6:30 pm

    i’m inclined to believe dp’s research…..this was a really weird year for screeners (ie: who got what and when)…..

  4. Drew says:
    January 10, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    The WGA’s typically on the shit end of the stick when it comes to screeners being sent out. No surprise there.

  5. bipedalist says:
    January 10, 2008 at 6:39 pm

    Well I don’t understand it then. I can’t believe it. Is it a finance issue because there are so many members or what?

  6. Joseph says:
    January 10, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    Were studios, by and large, less inclined to send writers screeners given the strike? Did they just not care about the guild focusing on the awards season?

  7. RDP says:
    January 10, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    I doubt it was strike-related given that we got more DVD screeners this year than last.

  8. Reginald_Applegravy says:
    January 11, 2008 at 10:15 am

    I’m in BAFTA and the screener situation has been very odd this year. I’ve NOT had copies of There Will be Blood, Sweeney Todd, Jesse James or The Bucket List amongst others yet i’m being lobbied like crazy via mailings and ads in trade press to actually vote for these movies – how?!?!
    Two of the main contenders – Blood and Todd – are not even out in the UK yet so i can’t see them on the big screen.
    Strange.

  9. Drew says:
    January 11, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Sasha…
    I’ve been in the WGAw since 1995. I’m not sure why you’d think we get many screeners in the first place. That’s never the case. The WGAw is sent very, very few screeners historically. This was actually a better-than-average year for us, and we still got basically nothing.
    Seriously… don’t act shocked about this. I guess it’s one of those things you never realized, but not everyone automatically gets the screeners. The WGA rank-and-file doesn’t. That’s just the way it is.

  10. David Poland says:
    January 11, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    Interesting, RA… my understanding is that BAFTA was sent TWBB earlier than almost anyone. But I also understand there were some shipping issues.
    The others, I don’t know. Sweeney was very late for almost everyone.

  11. PetalumaFilms says:
    January 13, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    The Online Film Critics Society gets every screener every year….and the WGA doesn’t? Wow.

  12. Reginald_Applegravy says:
    January 13, 2008 at 4:05 pm

    DP, well i found it so odd that i cheekily emailed the PR company and they said they would look into it but i’ve literally just completed second round voting and nothing arrived so no PTA/Day-Lewis action from me (not that my measly vote counts for much šŸ˜‰

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” ā€” some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it ā€” I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury ā€” he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” ā€” and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging ā€” I was with her at that moment ā€” she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy namedā€”” “Yeah, sure ā€” you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
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