Stories of freewheeling Writers Guild Awards ceremonies of yore was one of the reasons the Bagger traveled to the tourist-chocked confines of Midtown Manhattan on a frigid Saturday night. The event isn’t broadcast, booze freely flows, and writers supposedly can be a devilish bunch. Antics of years past included a tipsy Patton Oswalt letting rip and a sloshed Jonathan Ames railing against the cancellation of his HBO show “Bored to Death.”
This year’s awards night, however, was a snoozy affair, especially for the journalists, most of whom were seated by a heating vent on the balcony of the Edison Ballroom, where the event was held. As the night wore on, and on, and on, the press, lulled by a steady blast of fetid warmth, fought yawn after yawn. The ceremony takes place simultaneously in New York and in Los Angeles, where perhaps the festivities were merrier. A magazine writer sitting alongside the Bagger suggested the East Coat venue change might be partly to blame: it had long been held at B.B. Kings Blues Club & Grill. The Edison gave the night a bit of the feel of a convention.
The host Larry Wilmore gamely tried to enliven the evening, and indeed elicited some laughs. Among his jokes: “If you’re up here and see a black man approach you quickly, don’t worry it’s Kanye.” “’Gone Girl’ – is Ben Affleck really worth all this hassle?” “’Boyhood': where was the masturbation? Twelve years of a boy’s life in three hours and not one tug scene.”
It’s largely a night for television, radio and new media people – one category includes “Quiz and Audience Participation” – and movies, with just three categories, seem almost an afterthought. Still, the winners can be a solid predictor of which writers will win Oscars next weekend. The Writers Guild awarded Graham Moore best adapted screenplay, for “The Imitation Game” (throwing the film “a life preserver,” wrote Pete Hammond at Deadline.com) and Wes Anderson, a favorite for this Oscar, took home best original screenplay, for “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Best documentary screenplay went to “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz,” which didn’t land an Oscar nomination.
The heart of the night was the Evelyn F. Burkey Award given to Norman Lear, introduced by a long-winded (at least is how it seemed from the toasty balcony) though adulatory Bill Moyers. After clips from his work were shown, Mr. Lear said, “I’m really touched by what Bill said. I’m really a hell of a guy.”