The writer of Milk to make his directorial debut...

...with a promising project, according to Variety:
Liam Neeson and Jennifer Connelly will star in "What's Wrong With Virginia," a film that will mark the directing debut of Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "Milk."
Black wrote the script, and "Milk" helmer Gus Van Sant will be executive producer. The film shoots in Michigan in late summer.
Tick Tock Studios is financing the film and founders Hopwood DePree and Scott Brooks will produce with Killer Films' Christine Vachon and Eric Watson. Roar's Jay Froberg and Greg Suess will be executive producers, and Film Bridge Intl.'s Ellen Wander is handling international distribution. CAA, which packaged the picture, will broker the domestic distribution deal.
Connelly will play the charming but psychologically disturbed mother of a 16-year-old son. Her 20-year clandestine love with a sheriff (Neeson), who is running for the state senate, is tested when her son begins a relationship with his daughter.
Neeson is coming off the action hit "Taken," while Connelly was most recently seen in "He's Just Not That Into You." She most recently completed the animated feature "9" and teamed with husband Paul Bettany in "Creation."
Black and Van Sant are separately developing "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," based on the Tom Wolfe classic book about '60s icon Ken Kesey and his hallucinogenic misadventures.
-Nice cast...thoughts?

Is it actually better to LOSE an Oscar than to WIN one?

This article in Cinematical seems to make the arguement that the great films/performances keep their strength by not winning, using The Wrestler/Mickey Rourke as an example:

The Oscars are history now and soon people won't even be able to remember the winners. But I keep thinking about that Best Actor race that came down to a near-draw between Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler (291 screens) and Sean Penn for Milk (111 screens). My group, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, simply called it a tie. We agreed that both men gave the performance of their lifetimes. Other critics groups and other year-end awards also split between them; there was no clear consensus. For my annual predictions, I went with my gut on this one: I got the vague impression that, just from the cultural temperature, people were really into Rourke. But Penn won. And now that it's over -- with some hindsight -- it makes perfect sense. The Oscars didn't want to ruin The Wrestler for us.
The Wrestler is just a couple of months old now, but it has already gained a certain type of following. It has actual fans; people love this movie rather than just admire it. Milk has become a good movie for students to watch in school, but The Wrestler is a film that they will choose to watch, in their free time. It's a cult film now. And cult films don't win Oscars. It automatically disqualifies them from cult status. A cult film is something that people discover on their own. If the Academy acknowledges it, then it has been plucked away and turned into something official. It has a stamp of approval, and cult films are all about not being approved.
You can bet that Citizen Kane wouldn't always poll as the best movie of all time if it had actually won Best Picture in 1941. (The actual winner, How Green Was My Valley, is a good film, but it doesn't get nearly the same kind of love.) Think about films like Showgirls (1995), The Big Lebowski (1998), Fight Club (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), Memento (2001) or Brick (2006). Together those six beloved cult films earned a total of three Oscar nominations, and all lost. (Fight Club for Sound Effects Editing, and Memento for Screenplay and Editing.) Part of the fun of enjoying these films on a cult level is the idea of coming to their rescue, pulling them from obscurity and planting our own flag on them.
Additionally, I seriously believe that part of Martin Scorsese's enduring, loyal following from 1972 all the way through 2006 came from the fact that he never won an Oscar, and thus was never officially accepted. (Just look at his Oscar-winner colleagues like Coppola, Schaffner or Avildsen.) Now Rourke is riding on this cult success. Now that he has become our actor and not their actor, we will demand -- and get to see -- him in lots more films. I imagine the odds are only about 50-50 he will ever be nominated again, but won't it be fun to see him going nuts in two, three or even four movies a year? But better still, just imagine if Penn had lost. He'd probably go back to making more angry, message-laden films, hoping for more nominations. But now that he's got two Oscars, he has stopped, smiled and taken a role as Larry Fine in the upcoming Three Stooges movie! That alone will be worth his Oscar victory.
-What do you think? Does this arguement hold water?

An embarrassment of riches on DVD this week

As the title indicates, there is quite a bit of choice films being made available this week on DVD. No less than 10 films are out, and none of them are particularly bad. In fact, almost half of them could have been in contention for the coveted spot of PICK OF THE WEEK. They all fell short however, of my pick, which is:
Milk
One of the best movies of the year, and a winner of 2 Oscars, this tale of slain human rights leader Harvey Milk was one of the most timely films to come out in the wake of the election and Prop 8. If you haven't seen this, it's worth watching if nothing else than for Sean Penn's most likeable role of his career. It's a movie that will hold up, and it deserves a spot in your collection.
-Some of the other real high quality flicks out this week include the brain-tease that is Synecdoche, NY. I was never quite certain I understood it, but there's no denying its brilliance. We also have the Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In, which is one of the most original takes on the undead in a long time. There's the profane but funny comedy Role Models, and last but not least, Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. Anne Hathaway here gave the best performance by an actress last year in my opinion, and everyone else is at the top of their game as well. Very much worth a view.
-A level down, but by no means losers, are Mike Leigh's lightweight Happy-Go-Lucky, which is saved by Sally Hawkins' fantastic performance, the protest movie Battle in Seattle, which isn't bad, but wastes its great cast. There's the melodrama The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was too heavy handed for my tastes, the decent Cadillac Records, and finally the ridiculous Transporter 3. They all have their ups and downs, so judge them for yourself.
-My Vintage pick this week is a Sean Penn movie that should have dominated the Oscars 2 years ago. It's Into the Wild, and it was an amazing flick that should have caught on more than it did. If you missed it, grab it and behold Emile Hirsch's eye opening performance.
-What will you be watching on DVD this week?

Your pick for the best moment of the night...

I'm sure they'll be plenty of different ones, but I found the most lasting moment of the night to be Dustin Lance Black's speech that he gave after winning Best Original Screenplay for Milk.

Here's the speech:

-What was your favorite moment of the night? (Personally, I missed out on what I expected to be a standing O for Mickey Rourke and his acceptance speech, but it is what it is)

And Finally, to Sum Up the WGA Awards...

Waltz with Bashir wins for Documentary.

-So to summarize the WGA awards, the winners were Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire, Dustin Lance Black for Milk, and Ari Folman for Waltz with Bashir....thoughts?

A Second Update from the WGA Awards

Dustin Lance Black has won in the Original category for Milk...

MILK Opening (limited) Tomorrow!

I intend to see it tomorrow, early. If you are interested, I know it's playing in AMC Loews Village 7 (NYC). The tickets are only 6 dollars for matinee.