Live Wire

Cormac McCarthy,the novelist whose 2005 novel,No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name,has written his first speculative screenplay,a tale of a respected lawyer in the Southwest who tries his hand,unsuccessfully,at dealings in the drug business. Nick Wechsler and Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz,who produced the movie adaptation of McCarthys Road in 2009,have acquired the screenplay,titled The Counselor,according to a report ,which added that McCarthys agents had expected him to deliver a new novel instead of a screenplay. It is not,however,the authors first foray into movie writing. The Gardeners Son,a screenplay he wrote in 1976,was made into a television movie that year.

Moneyball,the Brad Pitt-starrer is doing well among the viewers. But to some eyes,the movie has underperformed during awards season: though Brad Pitt is likely to get an Oscar nomination for his turn as Billy Beane,its unclear if theres still as much affection for Jonah Hills performance as his schlubby sidekick,Peter. And even as Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian pick up prizes for their screenplay,Bennett Miller,who directed what was a famously difficult movie to marshal,has been overlooked. Miller said,You know,the movie was finished moments before it came out, he said. I think the final things that needed to be approved happened a couple of days before the Toronto film festival. I sort of collapsed over the finish line and took a little breather.

Miss Bala, starring Stephanie Sigman,is Mexicos submission for the foreign-language Academy Award. Inspired by the arrest three years ago of a Mexican beauty queen with her drug-dealer boyfriend she was later released,it was screened at the Cannes,Toronto and New York film festivals.The films foreboding is a reflection of the national mood as Mexico enters the sixth year of the governments frontal assault on drug traffickers.There is no escape, said Gerardo Naranjo,40,the films director and co-writer,who wanted to make a film not about the narcos but about their victims.The anxiety that anyone can become a victim guides Miss Bala. She is a beautiful young woman in the north,where there is no law. What are the possibilities of her getting out? None.