Precursor: 71st Writers Guild Awards (2018)

Never content to leave a race predictable. The Writers Guild of America, already with the most unusual, arcane rules of all of the guilds, went out on a limb not once, but twice. Eighth Grade beats all the odds and triumphed over Oscar-nominated scripts by familiar names. Can You Ever Forgive Me? did the same. Will this mean much to the Oscars? Obviously not. I wonder if The Favourite had been nominated, if Eighth Grade would have won. Maybe this is a sign of the weakness of Green Book as a Best Picture winner. It could still win the Oscar, but if even it can’t win the WGA, what hope does it have at the Oscars? More idiosyncratic is the selection of Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which is a rather unusual choice since If Beale Street could Talk is the most honored screenplay of the year and BlacKkKlansman as an opportunity to recognize the legendary Spike Lee. Does this matter to the Oscars? Unlikely. Lee’s name on the ballot will help more with the smaller membership of AMPAS, but at this point, nothing is certain.