2006 Flak Film Also-Ran Awards: The Steak Knives
Second-Best Screenplay
by Flak Staff

The third installment in a five-part Oscars feature

 Photo Slideshow

To be eligible for the Steak Knives, candidates must not have been recognized by the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards or in the top tier of the Village Voice Take Seven Critics' Poll. To see the ineligible nominees, click here.

Judd Apatow & Steve Carell
The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Like Snakes on a Plane, The 40-Year-Old Virgin's title alone tells you a great deal about what you're getting, and the obvious question to ask about any movie that would take that title is, how in the world do you end it? The main character finally has sex, and …? That "and?" is a killer, because such a movie will always be predicated on the other characters' judgments about the title character (here, Steve Carell as Andy Spitzer), and the truth of a life with sex versus a life without is hard to quantify or dramatize in a serious way. The degree to which it's life-altering is a fine one, and casting Spitzer as depressive or socially malfunctional until sex puts a spring in his step would be dishonest, or at least a bad movie, and yet making him such a well-rounded and complete character that sex changes nothing trivializes the entire enterprise.

Suffice it to say that Virgin's post-coital scene is perfect (and is the only scene that's even better on the extended DVD), putting as fine a point on the above question as could be put and delivering hearty laughs in the process. The script, co-written by director Judd Apatow and Carell, accomplishes many outstanding feats throughout, specifically the balance between the hard-R horndog antics of Andy's overly helpful friends and the sweet PG-13isms of Andy's relationship with Trish (Catherine Keener) — two great tastes that shouldn't taste great together, but do. It's by sticking the landing, however, that Virgin's script earns its spot in the comedy pantheon. — Sean Weitner

Craig Brewer
Hustle and Flow

Yes, the movie is straight formula. However, Terrence Howard had to say somebody's lines, and this dialogue gave him the foundation to build a Oscar-nominated performance. Brewer's dialogue is gangsta, but it's localized with Memphis colloquialisms. He captures the desperation of a man whose job it is to act tough: "That's a bottom bitch for you. I mean, we got everything we need right here. And all this stuff in this … this little-bitty space, man, it just looks so much bigger now. I'm here trying to squeeze a dollar out of a dime, and I ain't even got a cent, man."

Even the secondary characters have great lines, like Anthony Anderson's description of what it's like being a record producer: "There are two types of people: Those that talk the talk and those that walk the walk. People who walk the walk sometimes talk the talk but most times they don't talk at all, 'cause they walkin'. Now, people who talk the talk, when it comes time for them to walk the walk, you know what they do? They talk people like me into walkin' for them."

And there's one of my favorite lines of the year: "You Mormons are some brave motherfuckers."

Indeed. — Stephen Himes

Steve Kloves
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The gorilla in the room, in this particular case, was a 734-page novel long and compact enough for three feature films. Sure, with an international following, adapting Harry Potter is far from a tough buck to earn. Goblet of Fire's worldwide box office total — north of $800 million so far — might even elicit a yawn of expectation. But how do you shortcut and tighten up the most pivotal, most elaborate book in the series?

Under the microscope of Rowling's blanket final approval powers, Kloves turned in a script that leaned heavily on viewers' fluency of Potterese. Fully-formed (yet non-essential) components of the print version — S.P.E.W, the Wronski Feint, even the Dursleys — bit it. The resultant movie was a breathless sprint through year four capped by a glimmering, gift-wrapped appearance by Voldemort himself. With the script came a bit of redemption for Kloves; while his earlier Potter works may have been, as BBC's Mark Kermode might put it, "accounting," he seizes upon better material in Goblet of Fire and does well on all levels: line, scene, sequence and script.

Kloves passed on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to write and direct his own work, but he's on tap for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Scribe Michael Goldenberg is taking up the Phoenix task, facing a book even thicker than Goblet of Fire and — dare we say it? — borderline unadaptable. At this point, with his evolution across the first four films, it may be a task for which only Kloves is qualified. — Andy Stilp

Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer
Batman Begins

Movies have effects, films have stories. Batman Begins has both, which is why at long last the Dark Knight has a suitable big-screen representation. Much of that credit must go to Memento director Christopher Nolan and Blade mastermind David S. Goyer's screenplay, a reboot of the franchise which ignores the very fine original Tim Burton film and its shaky sequels and starts from scratch. Telling an origin story — an explanation of how and why Bruce Wayne came to create his alter ego — Batman Begins feels less hemmed-in by the demands of comic-book movies where you must have a certain amount of bad guys and action set pieces to satisfy the audience. Instead, this version is almost a biopic, focusing on Wayne's transformation from lost nihilist to determined activist to conflicted hero. While movies about Ray Charles and Johnny Cash showed how those legends overcame addiction and family traumas — tough stuff, indeed — neither man had to witness the murder of his parents or fall into a cave and be traumatized by a frenzy of swooping bats — and none of Ray's mistresses was as towering or as stunning a foil as Ra's al Ghul. The script treats Batman with seriousness and respect, but that doesn't preclude it from being extremely funny, developing the supporting characters until they jump off the page, or having a plethora of great lines. — Tim Grierson

Sarah Silverman
Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

Prime time will never be ready for Sarah Silverman. Here's the joke that supposedly got her bounced out of the "Saturday Night Live" writer's room: "They're talking about a 24-hour waiting period before you can get an abortion, and I guess that's a good thing. Last week I thought I needed one and it turned out I was just thirsty." Her imagination is so subversive that she has basically had to package her act into a movie to get it out there. Hence, Jesus is Magic. Her anything-goes approach to sex, race, excretion — taboo in general — makes people very nervous. Many want to overlook this because she's wildly gorgeous, but network executives are not among them apparently. Jesus is Magic is not much more than Silverman's legendary stand-up. There are a few musical interludes, some of which are overlong and perhaps even ill-considered. But even these are definitely nervy, and remind you that she'll do whatever to keep the show from dragging. But the standup is well worth sitting through the songs: brilliant, fearless, edge-tripping. She kills. It's not fair. Like Lizst and Mozart, her performing virtuosity allows her more writing freedom than mere mortals have. She can conceive these licks because, with her poker player's deadpan poise, her black-eyed beauty and phone-sex voice, she can pull them off onstage. It remains so surprising to hear this quintessential JAP calmly consider the unthinkable in public.

It is alleged that, much as they claim to want "a sense of humor" in a mate, most men are threatened by funny women. If that's so, Silverman's beau Jimmy Kimmel must have one brass set on him. She's been known to make him the butt of her humor, and she takes a little hide off Kimmel in Jesus Is Magic. But I imagine he doesn't mind starring in some of her stories. One such joke could be rendered into a dissertation, it's so full of Freud and metaphysics. It perfectly epitomizes the bisociative process that makes her writing genius: "Last night I was licking jelly off my boyfriend's penis and I thought, 'Oh my god, I'm becoming my mother.'"

Typcial. That's just so wrong it's perfect. — David Essex

Second-best Actor
Second-best Actress
Second-best Director
Second-best Picture

Produced by Andy Adams.