Saturday, April 08, 2006

I beg to differ

The Writers Guild of America has released a list of the 101 greatest screenplays.
The screenplay for 1942's "Casablanca," by Julius Epstein, Philip Epstein and Howard Koch, was chosen from more than 1,400 nominated works. Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola and Billy Wilder each have four screenplays on the list. Charlie Kaufman, William Goldman and John Huston earned three mentions each.

The guild's picks for the top 10 screenplays:

1. "Casablanca."
2. "The Godfather."
3. "Chinatown."
4. "Citizen Kane."
5. "All About Eve."
6. "Annie Hall."
7. "Sunset Boulevard."
8. "Network."
9. "Some Like It Hot."
10. "The Godfather II."

Well, I don't get it about Casablanca. It's a really schmaltzy movie. To me, both Sunset Boulevard and Some Like it Hot by Billy Wilder deserve more to be at the top of the list.
Also, Fargo by the Coen Brothers, currently number 32, should be closer to the top. There are some unforgiveable clunkers there like The Shawshank Redemption and other big Hollywood spectacles that should not be on that list: Forrest Gump? Star Wars? WTF? And they only have two foreign movies in the entire list: La Grande Illusion and 81/2. That sucks. What about Rashomon, or The Servant, or Persona, or Big Deal on Madonna St? But that's the problem with lists, and that's the problem with Hollywood. If the writers actually think that Star Wars and Forrest Gump are great screenplays, we're in deep doodoo.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:15 PM

    Querida Yehudit: ese no es, como yo lo veo, lo más relevante. Lo más relevante es que todas las películas son americanas, es decir, no hay, virtualmente, una sola pelícua extranjera: francesa, rusa, inglesa. Eso se me hace más importante. No crees?
    Gabana Yozef

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  2. I think, since it's best screenplay, not movie, they're judging based on what's written on the page and how memorable those lines are. I'm pretty sure all of the top ten have lines that have become part of American popular culture. Take Sunset Boulevard—"I'm ready for my close-up..." or Some Like it Hot—"nobody's perfect". Looking at it that way no movie's more quotable that Casablanca. What's strange to me is that The Big Sleep, with its fabulous dialogue, wasn't among the top ten.

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