Failed Oscar Campaigns: "Philomena" (2013)

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

A Closer Look at the Best Adapted Screenplay Nominees

Closing out our dissection of the big Oscar categories, here is a look at the Best Adapted Screenplay nominees. Much like the Best Original Screenplay selections, this year's batch features an impressive and diverse group of nominees that reflect the best in bring a film's story to life. Some are vivacious with profane bliss (The Wolf of Wall Street) while others explore slaver (12 Years a Slave) and long term guilt (Philomena). It is an interesting group and while less interesting than its counterpart category, it is as open a race.

Review: "Philomena" is a Problematic Narrative About Child Loss

Left to right: Judi Dench and Steve Coogan

There are many struggles that happen in life that shape the way that one perceives the world. Sometimes it is even the absence of an individual or the influence of a community. In director Stephen Frears' Philomena, the titular woman (Judi Dench) meets up with a struggling journalist named Martin (Steve Coogan) to find out about her son, who was long ago adopted to an American family from the Irish congregation where she grew up. With each preceding interview, more information is unraveled and the constructs of faith and understanding become more questionable as life's great mysteries become more complicated.