'Her' and 'Captain Phillips' win big at WGA award event

LOS ANGELES - Agence France-Presse

Picture shows Joaquin Phoenix in a scene from "Her."

The films "Her" and "Captain Phillips" won top awards in America's annual Writers Guild Awards ceremony Saturday.
 
"Her," a futuristic love story featuring Joaquin Phoenix falling for his computer's operating system, which has the sultry voice of Scarlett Johansson, won in the category of best original screenplay.
 
Director Spike Jonze, who wrote the screenplay, beat out "American Hustle," Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine," "Dallas Buyer's Club" and "Nebraska" for the award.
 
"This is a high honor coming from writers," Jonze said as he accepted the award.
 
"Her" has five Oscar nominations, including best film and best screenplay for Jonze.
 
"Captain Phillips," based on the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates and starring Tom Hanks as the cargo ship captain, won in the category of best adapted screenplay.

Billy Ray wrote the screenplay based on "A Captain's Duty," a recounting of the hijacking ordeal by Richard Phillips, the real captain.
 
"There are a lot of wonderful writers in this room tonight and honestly my wish for each of you is that once, just once, you can know what it feels like to have the luck that I had with this movie: to have your work realized by a director as brilliant as Paul Greengrass and an actor as courageous as Tom Hanks," Ray said as he accepted the award.
 
The other films nominated in the category were "August: Osage County," "Before Midnight," "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "Lone Survivor." In the television category, the most-talked about series of last year, "Breaking Bad," won best TV drama category, "Veep" won in best TV comedy series, and political thriller "House of Cards" won in the category of best new TV series.
 
The WGA awards is one of the last major award ceremonies ahead of the Oscars, to be held on March 2.