2007 Diva Cup Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay

And the nominees are...

Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men
I'm used to Coen Brothers in full-on talk mode a la Fargo and The Big Lebowski (I'm pleading ignorance on their older films), so it was a pleasant surprise to find that they can also write powerful films with hardly any dialogue (and without any of their usual quirks).

Leslie Dixon, Hairspray
Pay attention Mamma Mia- this is how you adapt a Broadway show to the film medium. Cut out all the extraneous songs, beef up the actual story and have no fear in making changes that will condense a 2 1/2 hour stage show into a neat and trim 1 hour and 50 minutes. There's not one wasted minute in the entire script.

Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Turns a literary structure (what really happened vs. what is perceived) into something cinematic (Briony's window opening and closing and, much later, her eventual apology).

Sarah Polley, Away From Her
The film was merely adequate, but Polley's script for Away From Her could hardly have been bettered. It's every bit as nuanced and subtle as a fine novel.

James Vanderbilt, Zodiac
The story sounds pretty close to any episode of CSI or Cold Case, but Vanderbilt understands how much the case has haunted and basically ruined the lives of all the "good" guys involved.

If Only There Were Six: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood I don't know anything about the original book, but I've heard Anderson took major liberties with the last 2/3 of the book. Those are some massive balls, Mr. Anderson; are you sure your name's not Kelly Clarkson?

Rest of the Top 10: Andrew Dominik, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford...Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson's War...Ben Affleck, Aaron Stockard, Gone Baby Gone...John Logan, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BRONZE
No Country For Old Men

SILVER
Hairspray

GOLD
Away From Her