The Writers Guild of America has released the nominees for their Writer’s Guild Awards today, and while there’s certainly some room for quibbling as far as their choices go, the screenplays they’ve nominated in their film categories are at least a diverse array of projects. There’s something here for everyone. I balked at these choices a bit on first glance, they’d left off many of my favorite films of the year. But after thinking about what was missing for a few seconds I started to realize that a lot of the films I really loved over the course of 2011 relied more on mood and photography than they did their screenplays. In my mind, there was no real superstar script this year, like Inception and The Social Network last year. I loved things like Drive and Shame, but did their greatness really lie in their screenplays? Still, I can think of a handful of things that I would have liked to have seen included that weren’t. As far as original screenplays go, I think a film like Warrior was a master of structure, and is more deserving than something like Bridesmaids, which was a fairly generic comedy plot and which probably relied largely on improvisation for its humor. And I really miss a nomination for something like The Skin I Live In when it comes to the adapted screenplay section; especially when they’ve nominated a film like The Help, which cannot name writing as one of its strengths. Check out [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Today brings a host of new awards nominations with both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ACE) announcing nominees for their respective 2009 awards.

Quick! Name your favorite writer. Screenwriter. Got it yet? No? Ok, name the writer of your favorite movie in the past year?

What we haven’t talked enough about is the grim reality of the strike, the fact that there are thousands of writers — whose names you would never recognize — who are finding themselves in a very tough spot because of the strike.

New negotiations, two days ongoing at this 11/27 writing, are still a secret, but I CAN tell you what’s been on the news, since it has nothing to do with what’s going on indoors.

As much as I support the writers in their ongoing battle against the studios, the WGA strike could be a blessing in disguise for Saturday Night Live. Maybe the show’s really dying this time. It’s hard to say.

12 Days into the strike and we get our first big surprise.

I feel I’m in a unique place to comment on the Writer’s Strike. On one hand, I aspire to be a writer, so obviously I have to support them so that my own paychecks will be that much nicer in the future. On the other hand, I work far below the line in Hollywood, and the Writer’s Guild has put my job, and the jobs of all my coworkers, in danger.

All of Hollywood is talking about a video called “The Heartbreaking Voices of Uncertainty”. Now you can, too.

Question of the Day: Where do you stand? With the Writers or with the Studios?

Those pesky writers, they’ve been holding up the entertainment industry for too long (a little over a week). Isn’t it time someone picketed them?