AFTERTHOUGHTS (61)
LOOKING THROUGH THE PRISM

The nominees for the 12th Annual PRISM Awards—which honour “outstanding accomplishments in the accurate depiction of drug, alcohol and tobacco use and addiction in film, television, interactive, comic books, music, and video entertainment,” as well as responsible and realistic depictions of mental health issues—have been announced, and among those singled out are:

Control (The Weinstein Co. / Northsee Ltd. / EM Media / IFF-CINV / 3 Dogs and a Pony / Warner Music UK)
Feature Film – Limited Release

Lars and the Real Girl (MGM Pictures / Sidney Kimmel Entertainment)
Performance in a Feature Film (Ryan Gosling)
Mental Health Depiction Award

Lost (ABC Entertainment / ABC Studios / Bad Robot)
Drama Episode (“Through the Looking Glass” Pt. 1 and 2)
Performance in a Drama Series Episode (Matthew Fox)

Congratulations, one and all. For the complete list of this year’s nominees, go here.
As noted on the official PRISM Awards website (http://www.prismawards.com/), “… winners are selected through a submission and review process by members of the creative community and scientific experts. They are selected for their entertainment value, accessibility of their message, and scientific accuracy. The production in each category that best exemplifies these three objectives is presented with an award.”
The awards will be handed out on April 24, 2008, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and will be taped for telecast on FX.

Parting shot: A review of Control can be found in the Archive, along with episodic recaps/reactions to Lost.

(OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; Lost images courtesy of abc, atnzone.com, and aol.com.)

PUSHING DAISIES
Season 1 Episode 8
“Bitter Sweets”
Written by Abby Gewanter
Directed by Allan Kroeker
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

This one’s another winner, as Dilly Balsam (ex-SNLer Molly Shannon, who also voiced Patience the Vampire in The Amazing Screw-On Head), co-owner of Balsam’s Bittersweets Taffy & Sweets Emporium, moves in across the street, intent on crushing her perceived competition, The Pie Hole.
Ned, now officially Chuck’s boyfriend (and preoccupied with his guilt over inadvertently causing her father’s death), is hesitant to engage in the war, the hostilities inadvertently pushed into overdrive by a welcome gift of Georgia peach pie. Olive and Chuck have no problem in getting down and dirty though, and are ready to do so.
They get their chance when Dilly gets health inspector Andrew Brown (Steve Hytner, from The Bill Engvall Show and Roswell) to pay a surprise visit to The Pie Ho (its sign “inexplicably” malfunctioning). Brown discovers the locked room stocked full of rotten fruit (which Ned uses for his ingredients, of course) and shuts the Ho down.

In retaliation, Olive and Chuck break in and release a pack of rats in the Emporium. Unknown to them, Dilly’s brother Billy (Mike White, who starred in The Good Girl and The Stepford Wives, and recently worked with Shannon in his directorial debut, Year of the Dog) is already a floating, taffied corpse in one of the shop’s vats.
When Ned finds out about the rat problem, he goes next door to try and clean the mess up, but instead touches Billy’s corpse by mistake. But Billy can’t talk with a mouthful of taffy, and when the cops bust in, Ned touches Billy again, and he’s caught red-handed, with Billy’s now permanently dead, taffied body.

With Ned in jail, Emerson is forced to sleuth the old-fashioned way, and with Chuck’s (and the coroner’s) help, they find out that Billy bit off one of his killer’s fingers before dying. Sadly Billy’s stomach acids eradicated all trace of a fingerprint, so Emerson and Chuck go to the scene of the crime, and with the help of some flour, lift a pair of handprints (with a grand total of 9 fingers) from a marble countertop.
It turns out that Billy’s killer was Brown, who was rudely demanding to be paid for his “surprise inspection” to The Pie Ho. A scuffle takes place, and voila, dead, taffied Billy.

With Ned in the clear, there’s a welcome back do at the Ho, courtesy of Olive and Chuck. Later that evening, and despite having decided otherwise, Ned confesses that he caused Chuck’s dad’s death. (Dang that cliffhanger!)
There’re also a couple of subplots involving a “carpool doll” (think Lars and the Real Girl), and the return of traveling salesman Alfredo Aldarisio, who is still smitten with Olive, and whom Olive doesn’t realize is right there in front of her, until it’s too late.

At episode 8, we’re winding down on the interrupted freshman season of Pushing Daisies and it’s still going strong. With yet another Hitchcock homage in this episode, “Bitter Sweets” keeps the winning streak going.

Parting shot: We also discover that Dilly is capable of murder, as we see her getting rid of Brown‘s body, which could actually be yet another Hitchcock nod. (If only that 4-fingered hand had been shown sticking out of the trunk of a car as it sank into the muck, then the reference would be undeniable…)

Parting shot: Reviews of The Amazing Screw-On Head and The Stepford Wives can be found in the Archive.

(Image courtesy of pushing-daisies.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (30)
THE BLACK LIST

Happy Christmas, The Black List 2007 is out.
Before we get into that though—in fact, let’s save that for Afterthoughts (31)—let’s have a quick overview of The Black List.

In the words of its compiler and originator, Franklin Leonard, “THE BLACK LIST was compiled from the suggestions of over 150 film executives and high-level assistants, each of whom contributed the names of up to ten of their favorite scripts that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2007 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year.
Like last year, scripts had to receive at least two mentions to be included on THE BLACK LIST.”

Leonard—who currently works for Mirage Enterprises (Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella’s production company)—also goes on to note, “It has been said, but it’s worth repeating: THE BLACK LIST is not a ‘best of’ list. It is, at best, a ‘most liked’ list.”

To give you an idea of the kinds of scripts that were once on The Black List, the top three titles on The Black List 2005 were Allan Loeb’s Things We Lost In The Fire (25 mentions), Diablo Cody’s Juno (24 mentions), and Nancy Oliver’s Lars and the Real Girl (15 mentions).
At #5 with 13 mentions was Aaron Sorkin’s Charlie Wilson’s War, and #6, with 10 mentions, David Benioff’s The Kite Runner.
Other scripts that were on The Black List 2005 were Peter Morgan’s The Queen, Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, and Guillermo Arriaga’s Babel.

On The Black List 2006 were Kelley Sane’s Rendition (#3; 19 mentions); Matt Carnahan’s Lions For Lambs (6 mentions); Michael Winterbottom & Laurence Coriat’s A Mighty Heart (4 mentions); Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg’s Super Bad (4 mentions); Stuart Beattie’s 3:10 To Yuma (3 mentions); and Dean Craig’s Death At A Funeral (2 mentions).

The Black List is only three years old, but already it’s become, as the New York Times puts it, “a Hollywood phenomenon, the kind of underground document that writers with projects stuck in development pray will mention their script.”
So, if you want to see the 2007 scripts that are on my personal film geek radar, check out Afterthoughts (31) in the Archive.

(All OS’s [Things We Lost In The Fire, Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, Charlie Wilson’s War, and The Kite Runner] courtesy of impawards.com.)