Bond writer Paul Haggis gets good reviews for new film

It's that time again, when the studios sweep aside all those silly sequels to make way for more serious fare - reports the Edmonton Sun.

And, for the fourth consecutive year, there's a very good chance there's going to be a serving of Haggis on the Oscar menu.

That, of course, would be Paul Haggis, the London, Ont.-born writer-director whose 2005 movie debut, Crash, took home the golden guy, much to the surprise of favourite Brokeback Mountain.

Haggis, who had been nominated the previous year for penning the screenplay for Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby, was also nominated again this year for co-writing Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima.

The movie that looks to earn Haggis a return shot at walking up the red carpet is In the Valley of Elah, which, ahead of festival screenings in Venice and Toronto, already has been generating considerable Oscar buzz, and for good reason.

Like Crash, it's another quietly powerful and disturbing drama, with the added timely element of being set against the backdrop of the Iraq War.

While it is being marketed as a murder mystery -- Tommy Lee Jones plays a former military MP whose soldier son has been reported AWOL a week after returning from Iraq -- it nevertheless strikes an opportune emotional chord without being preachy about it.

In short, it's the kind of stuff that Academy and other awards voters eat up.

The goodwill should also extend to Jones, who gives one of the finest performances of his career in the Haggis film, and hasn't figured into an Oscar race since nabbing a Best Supporting Actor statuette back in 1994 for The Fugitive.

Ironically, Haggis originally went after Eastwood for the role, and while Clint was instrumental in bringing the project to Warner Bros. (it's being released by Warner Independent Pictures), he was too tied up with Flags of Our Fathers, for which Haggis also received a screenwriting credit, and Letters to commit.

It certainly has been quite the decade for 54-year-old Haggis, who, back in the mid-'80s was churning out episodes of The Facts of Life. But good luck finding any mention of that show in any recent bio.

And while he was also one of the credited screenwriters on last fall's well-received Casino Royale, not everything bearing the Haggis touch has turned to Oscar and Emmy gold.

The Black Donnellys, which he originally created with Crash collaborator Bobby Moresco back in 1997, lasted all of half a season on NBC; while his adaptation of The Last Kiss, starring Zach Braff and based on an Italian movie, received the kiss-off from moviegoers last fall.

So nobody's success rate is 100%, but with a new James Bond script in the offing as well as Honeymoon with Harry, a sentimental comedy he wants to direct (which at one point was being pitched to Jack Nicholson and Vince Vaughn), Haggis is plunging full-steam ahead.

That is, if he finds any spare time in between all the awards-related appearances he'll likely have to have to put on behalf of In the Valley of Elah.

And, although Haggis is the kind of low-key guy who's superstitious about counting those Oscar chickens before they're hatched, even he'd have to admit hearing his name read out on nomination day is becoming a nice tradition.

Not to pressure him, or anything.

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