Thursday Movie Picks: Best Original & Adapted Screenplay Winners (Oscars Edition)

 

For the 22nd week of 2021 as part of Wandering Through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. We return to the Oscars in the form of winners of the Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. Everything begins with an idea that is put into paper or into a computer for a writer or a bunch of writers to create something that is based on their own idea or from a book or another source. Here are my three picks as they’re all films made in the 2010s (apologies to women writers that I didn’t pick):

Best Original Screenplay

Woody Allen-Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen’s whimsical comedy about a writer who travels with his fiancée and her family to Paris is truly one of the most unexpected surprises from Allen who had spent much of the 2000s delivering a few hits but also some serious duds. This film is definitely in line with not just his best films but a story that is just full of wonder where the writer finds himself traveling in time to Paris in the 1930s and meeting all sorts of characters including T.S. Elliot, Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so much more as it just a film that is full of joy and laughs. If this is the last great movie Allen would make, then at least he made a winner.

Spike Jonze-Her

Spike Jonze’s 2013 romantic-drama is an unusual film as it explores a man dealing with divorce as he falls for an AI program with the voice of Scarlett Johansson. It is a film that plays into the idea of loneliness and heartbreak as it features Joaquin Phoenix in a career-defining performance as well as a story that plays into the soul of the machine. Especially as it showcases the world where technology begins to showcase more emotions but also this confusion into the idea of what living is.

Jordan Peele-Get Out

Before this film, Jordan Peele was known mainly for his work on the sketch-comedy TV show Key and Peele with Keegan-Michael Key as they would flirt with horror in some of their sketches. It is this film that showcases why Peele can do so much more as it is about an African-American man who meets his white girlfriend’s family and scary shit happens. It is a film about some of the dangerous aspects of racism and what some white people will do to keep black people down as it is truly an original idea that truly deserved its Oscar win for Jordan Peele.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Aaron Sorkin-The Social Network

The story about the founding of Facebook is definitely an unlikely film that plays into the work that Aaron Sorkin has done where much of his work was political-based yet it also had a lot of dialogue that often kept those films and TV programs interesting. In this film made with David Fincher at the helm, Sorkin’s writing with a non-linear script as it plays into the creation of Facebook and how its founders would fuck each other over and such as it also feature some incredible dialogue. It is definitely a creative peak for Sorkin as well as giving Fincher his most accessible film to date.

Adam McKay & Charles Randolph-The Big Short

Adam McKay is known mainly for comedies but in his collaboration with Charles Randolph about the story of the 2007-2008 financial collapse is a film with humor but it is more about the events and moves that lead to this financial collapse as it follow three different storylines. Yet, the film also feature some witty commentaries from celebrities who simplify certain language on the world of finance as there is also a richness to what McKay and Randolph have created but also with a humanistic story.

Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charles Wachtel, & Kevin Willmott-BlackKklansman

Spike Lee’s adaptation of the real-life story of Ron Stallsworth as this black police officer who pretends to be a white man via phone call in order to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1970s. The film isn’t just a drama full of wit but also a film that is timely in its initial release during a period of racial discord spurred by the then-dictator of the United States at that time. Yet, Lee and his co-writers did create a film that explores a period in its time but also in showcasing who are the people in the KKK but also the people who are just trying to do some good in the world as it is a major achievement for Lee.

© thevoid99 2021