Oscar: Best Adapted Screenplay

WILL Win: “Seabiscuit”

SHOULD Win: “City of God”

“Seabiscuit” and “City of God” are films
riffing off of already existing templates ““ Gary Ross’
audience-favorite was a film of considerable sentimentality and
traditional American-spirit pathos, while “City of God”
was a cool, disturbing homage to the many gangster flicks of years
past. How disappointing, then, that of all the hype and attention
afforded to Ross and his story of the little horse that could, the
film’s inspirational story yielded such an exploitative,
overwrought script.

Yet while viewers can rave about “City of
God’s” quick cuts and flashy cinematography, even
more impressive is how Braulio Mantovani wrote a
screenplay that absorbed its towering influences and recreated them
on its own terms.

There are echoes of Scorsese and Coppola all over “City of
God,” but the film contains its own crafty insular world,
portraying gangsterism not as a life choice but a rite of passage.
The film is a winner of both style and substance, aware that its
place in the line of tradition isn’t license for
caricature.