Jonathan Ames’ Drunken Rant, and the Winners, at the East Coast WGA Awards
“I don’t care. I’ve already been canceled. I’m going back to novels, anyway!”
So spoke Jonathan Ames, the super-drunk writer and director of HBO’s recently cancelled “Bored To Death” during last night’s Writers Guild Awards. He was visibly bitter when presenting the awards for Long Form teleplay, for which three of the four nominees were HBO shows.
Drunk as he was, his impromptu rant about HBO, marijuana and prosecco was the undisputed highlight of the evening at the WGA’s east coast awards program.
The BB King Ballroom, just off Times Square, was packed with writers and their dates for the show, which was hosted by SNL’s Rachel Dratch. Much of the show went off without a slip-up, with Dratch delivering some good jokes (it’s a writers’ awards show!) and a great sketch where she performed a scene study as George Clooney’s comatose wife from “The Descendants.”
But as the night wore on and the liquids kept coming, the gaffes flew and the laughter grew. And when the New York audience wasn’t booing every mention of Los Angeles, they were worshipping at the feet of actor Mandy Patinkin, who was there to accept two awards for his show, “Homeland.”
The night was not without its more precious moments, though. Soap opera legend Claire Labine accepted the WGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and took the opportunity to mourn her medium, eloquently chiding networks for canceling daytime dramas rather than creatively re-inventing the genre for its dedicated viewers.
Full list of winners reprinted below:
The winners:
Screen categories:
Original Screenplay: “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen
Adapted Screenplay: “The Descendants,” written by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Documentary Screenplay: “Better This World,” Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega
Television categories:
Drama Series: “Breaking Bad,” written by Sam Caitlin, Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, George Mastras, Thomas Schaunz and Moira Welley-Beckett
Comedy Series: “Modern Family,” written by Cindy Chupack, Paul Corrigan, Abraham Higginbotham, Ben Karlin, Elaine Ko, Carol Leifer, Steven Levitan, Christopher Lloyd, Dan O’Shannon, Jeffrey Richman, Brad Walsh, Ilana Wernick, Bill Wrubel, Danny Zuker
New Series: “Homeland,” written by Henry Bromell, Alexander Cary, Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon, Chip Johannessen, Gideon Raff, Meredith Stiehm
Episodic Drama: (tie) “Box Cutter” (“Breaking Bad”), written by Vince Gilligan, and “The Good Soldier” (“Homeland”), written by Henry Bromell
Episodic Comedy: “Caught in the Act” (“Modern Family”), written by Steven Levitan and Jeffrey Richman
Long Form – Original: “Cinema Verite,” written by David Seltzer
Long Form – Adapted: “Too Big to Fail,” written by Peter Gould
Animation: “Homer the Father” (“The Simpsons”), written by Joel H. Cohen
Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) Series: “The Colbert Report,” written by Michael Brumm, Stephen Colbert, Rich Dahm, Paul Dinello, Eric Drysdale, Rob Dubbin, Glenn Eichler, Dan Guterman, Peter Gwinn, Jay Katsir, Barry Julien, Frank Lesser, Opus Moreschi, Tom Purcell, Meredith Scardino, Scott Sherman and Max Werner
Comedy/Variety – Music, Awards, Tributes – Specials: “After the Academy Awards,” Jimmy Kimmel, written by Gary Greenberg, Molly McNearney, Tom Barbieri, Jonathan Bines, John N. Huss, Sal Iacono, Eric Immerman, Jimmy Kimmel, Jonathan Kimmel, Jacob Lentz, Danny Ricker and Richard G. Rosner.
Daytime Drama: “General Hospital,” written by Meg Bennett, Nathan Fissell, David Goldschmid, Robert Guza, Jr., Karen Harris, Elizabeth Korte, Mary Sue Price, Michele Val Jean, Susan Wald and Tracey Thomson
Children’s – Episodic and Specials: “Hero of the Shadows” (“Supah Ninjas”), written by Leo Chu and Eric S. Garcia
Documentary – Current Events: “Top Secret America” (“Frontline”), written by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser
Documentary – Other Than Current Events: “Wiki Secrets” (“Frontline”), written by Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith
News – Regularly Scheduled, Bulletin or Breaking Report: “Educating Sergeant Pantzke” (“Frontline”), written by John Maggio and Martin Smith
News – Analysis, Feature or Commentary: “Doctor Hot Spot” (“Frontline”), written by Thomas Jennings
Radio categories:
Documentary: “2010 Year in Review,” written by Gail Lee
News – Regularly Scheduled or Breaking Report: “Portraits of a Terrorist: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?,” written by Gail Lee
News – Analysis, Feature or Commentary: “Justice in a Time of Terror,” written by Andrew Cohen and Rob Mank
Promotional Writing and Graphic Adaptation categories:
On-Air Promotion (Radio or Television): “Fairytale” (“Today Show”), written by Carol M. Sullivan
Television Graphic Animation: “CBS News Aninmations” (“CBS News”), graphic animation by David Rosen
New Media and Videogame categories:
Outstanding Achievement in Writing New Media: “Aim High,” episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6, written by Heath Corson and Richie Keen
Outstanding Achievement in Writing Derivative New Media: “The Walking Dead” webseries, written by John Esposito and Greg Nicotero
Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing: “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception,” written by Amy Hennig
