Y'know, I can accept that District 9 and The Hurt Locker are among the best movies of the year, but I thought both had serious problems with their scripts. District 9 had an excellent premise, but it used some lazy, lazy action-movie tropes to solve some of the situations it threw at its hero (such as the row of cars with keys in the ignition conveniently located a thin wall away from the alien-technology-testing lab or the orange-vest alien suddenly deciding to save the life of the dude who left him for dead some 5 minutes earlier). And all of the dialogue in The Hurt Locker was waaaay on the nose. It was a character study that assumed that the audience couldn't figure anything out about its central character unless another character commented on it. The scene with the juice box was nice, though.
And I liked A Serious Man quite a lot, but figure that one was far too opaque to get any awards. In short: I'm a grumpy old man.
But is it based on like Dark Knight was based on characters and premises from Batman Begins, or is the story itself based on something pre-existing?
Well, for purposes of the Oscars, it is "adapted" if it based on any material previously published (or, in the case of TV or films, produced).
If they had been nominated, I would assume both
Dark Knight
and
Batman Begins
would be adapted because they are based on the comic character.
Maybe I can get TCG to see "A Single Man" now that it is nominated. I haven't seen much that was nominated, but I am happy to see Penelope Cruz nominated for Nine; she was fabulous!
I think the problem with "adapted" for me is that it implies "take an existing text and rework it for the screen". The content of "In the Loop" is completely original, but is based on a premise and characters who already existed on TV. If I just change "adapted" to "not entirely original" in my head I should be OK.
I'd have been similarly surprised to see
Dark Knight
nominated for adapted, since the story is new. Any sequel is using existing characters--would they all fall under an adapted rubric?
And all of the dialogue in The Hurt Locker was waaaay on the nose.
I find this to be true of a lot of war movies.
Any sequel is using existing characters--would they all fall under an adapted rubric?
All sequels are automatically considered as adapted.
And all of the dialogue in The Hurt Locker was waaaay on the nose.
I'm confused. I use "on the nose" to mean accurate, but that doesn't seem to be what you're saying here.
I think he means that it was very deliberate and obvious and anvilicious, like "Hey, you're angry! You're yelling and screaming because you're angry!" (I haven't seen it yet, and I assume the dialogue is better than that.)
