In Contention

Tag: Tony Roche

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

    Peter Capaldi in In the LoopIn most cases, the adapted screenplay category of a given Oscar race is packed with Best Picture nominees or contenders. This year, however, there was a nice balance of adapted and original screenplays in the Best Picture category, and in fact, of the “top five” films that trickled down throughout the season, three were original and two were adapted, a rarity.

    Regarding the adaptations, things seemed to firm up for a while, but with the various WGA ineligibilities, one couldn’t shake the feeling that a surprise was in the works. At the end of the day, Scott Cooper’s run on “Crazy Heart” came to an unfortunate end, while a fan-fave British comedy found support.

    The nominees are:

    “District 9” (Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell)
    “An Education” (Nick Hornby)
    “In the Loop” (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche)
    “Precious” (Geoffrey Fletcher)
    “Up in the Air” (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)

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  • Nominated screenwriters convene in Hollywood

    Terri TatchellCreative Screenwriting senior editor, Jeff Goldsmith, always bites off a lot when he lines up a massive panel of the year’s screenplay nominees to discuss the evolution of their work each year, which leads to any number of publicists grumbling in the shadows about the time overage.  Last night’s panel was supposed to run until 8:30 but Goldsmith was still hammering away at 8:45.  But he always asks well-considered, engaging questions and writers being writers, they have plenty to say.

    The panelists included Nick Hornby, Alessandro Camon, Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Geoffrey Fletcher, Terri Tatchell, Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner.  Quentin Tarantino, Mark Boal and Oren Moverman were scheduled to attend but bailed out at the last minute, while the Coen brothers — no shock here — were never going to be there.  So Goldsmith almost nailed down nine of the 10 nominated films.

    It was a great discussion with plenty of insights.  Goldsmith asked about defying genre, which he judged to be the connective quality of all the work represented by the panel, what the re-writing process was like for all involved, how they made it through the agony of staring at a blank page, etc.

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