Oscar Roundup 2012: The DGA Goes to Affleck, So Who Wins Oscar?

On January 10, 2013 the Academy Award nominations were announced.  The two biggest snubs were in the Best Director category, and the snubees were Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck.  That same night the Broadcast Film Critics Awards (BFCA) hosted their awards, and wouldn't you know, Affleck won Best Director, and Argo took home Best Picture.  After that win Argo won Best Picture (Drama) at the Golden Globes, Affleck took home director there too.  Argo took home the Producer's Guild Award, and the following day Argo won Best Ensemble at the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) Awards.  Both guilds equivalent honors of the Best Picture.  Last night Affleck did something only few others have done, won the Director's Guild of America (DGA) prize without an Oscar nomination.

With all of this support from almost every guild (namely the larger guilds) Argo is unstoppable in the Best Picture category.  Affleck's snub at the Oscars is being shoved in the Academy's face.  While Affleck does not have a director nomination, he is nominated as a Producer.  When Argo wins Best Picture at the Oscars Affleck will stand at the podium along with George Clooney and Grant Heslov.

Yet without a director nomination, Argo will make history on several levels.  As I stated above Affleck has won DGA, and is in a small company of director's who won DGA and were not nominated for Oscar.  One of the of those men is his director competitor Steven Spielberg.  Spielberg won the DGA for The Color Purple, but was not nominated for an Oscar.  Out of Africa won Best Picture that year, and The Color Purple was the only film to win 0 out of 11 nominations.  Affleck's Argo is being compared to another actor turned director's first quest towards Oscar, Ron Howard.  Howard's Apollo 13 won most of the awards Argo has won, but no Howard in the Best Director category.  Apollo 13 did not go on to win Best Picture, it was beat surprisingly by another actor turned director's film Braveheart.  Apollo 13 did win 2 Oscars, Best Editing, and Best Sound.

Argo would be the second film in Oscar history to win without a Best Director nomination.  The first was 1989's Driving Miss Daisy.  Daisy had 9 nominations winning four, Picture, Lead Actress-Jessica Tandy, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Makeup.  While Driving Miss Daisy had numerous acting nominations (three), Argo only has one for Alan Arkin.  Argo has seven nominations at the Oscars.

What are the next awards to pay attention to?  The American Cinema Editors (ACE) Awards, support from this guild would seal the win even further for me, and prove that there is hope for Argo to win this prize on Oscar night.  The Writer's Guild Awards (WGA) are going to be more important than ever.  While most have predicted Tony Kushner's Lincoln will win, many are switching teams with the barrage of Argo support.  If Argo wins hear it has a shot to win this at the Oscars as well.  The last, and probably most important precursor is the British Academy of Television and Film Awards (BAFTA). BAFTA have nominated Argo for seven awards as well.  these winners may be more of a wild card, but have a lot of cross over voters between here and the Oscars.  Affleck is even nominated for Best Actor here, so he has a lot of support look for him to win Director as well.

With Affleck winning all of these director prizes this makes Best Director one of the toughest categories to predict.  Who will could be anyone's guess.  Here is my best guess.  Spielberg was snubbed by BAFTA, which was shocking to me because Lincoln still scored the most nominations.

Life of Pi appears to have a lot of support from all the technical branches, and Ang Lee is a well respected director, after all this talk of Argo, and moving forward to Director and Oscar my prediction at this moment is Ang Lee.  Yet as many have cited how something can be nominated for Best Picture without a Best Director nomination makes sense, and Affleck should have been a nominee, along with the snubbed but forgotten Kathryn Bigelow.

Michel Hazanavicius from The Artist wins the Directors Guild Award and Pops a Hole in the Balloon (Fun) for Awards Season

In a not so surprising outcome, Michel Hazanavicius from The Artist won the Director's Guild prize last night for feature film.  Prior to the Broadcast Film Critics Awards and the Golden Globes this award season looked to have some mystery, but then came The Artist.


First and foremost I have to say I gave The Artist four stars out of five, and I do not think it's a bad film.  Many people have compared its trajectory slightly to Te King's Speech from last year.  As in, how can you hate this film, it's the most heartwarming, and like able of all of the nominees.  The Artist pays homage to the early days of film, and people are suckers for nostalgia.  I do admire the film, I laughed a lot, felt connected to the couple in the film (even though the script used the  A Star is Born type relationship), and while I was afraid that using silence was going to be a gimmick, it was not, and done well.  


I think my problem is not with the film itself but with the actual award shows themselves.  It seems as though many of them are afraid to pick something different.  In the last few years films match up and win straight through award season, and by the time the Oscars roll around things are way too predictable.  This makes me want to skip the award show.  Yes, I said it, the person who loves award shows, wants to skip them.  Where's the drama? The Excitement?  Every voting body can not think think that The Artist was the best film, that's some heard mentality going on there.  Has Mrs, Eleanor Shawn Iselin (the Lansbury verson) played cards with all of these voters?


I know I sound snotty, and I do not want to take anything away from Hazanavicius; his direction is solid, while  not the best this year, he did good work.  I think the voters get lazy, and feel as though sending this film through bolsters their ego and makes voting bodies feel as though they are a part of making something happen. Stop!  Pick, what you honestly think is the best.  I will step away from this now (for today).


Here is the official list of winners:

Best Director for a Feature Film
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Feature Documentary
James Marsh, Project Nim

Drama Series
Patty Jenkins, The Killing, “Pilot” (AMC)

Comedy Series
Robert B. Weide, Curb Your Enthusiasm, “Palestinian Chicken” (HBO) (Great Win)!!

Movies for Television and Miniseries
Jon Cassar, The Kennedys (Reelz Channel)

Reality Series
Neil P. Degroot, The Biggest Loser, “Episode #1115” (NBC)

Musical/Variety Series
Glenn Weiss, 65th Annual Tony Awards (CBS)

Daytime Serials
William Ludel, General Hospital, “Intervention” (ABC)

The Director's Guild Narrows Things Down a Little Bit

Today the Director's Guild of America (DGA) announced their five nominees, and their was one shock, David Fincher for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was nominated in every one of the major guild awards, the PGA, WGA, and the DGA.  What does this mean?  Tattoo is on solid ground and will most likely be one of the 5-9 Best Picture nominee.  Fincher is a well respected director, but I did not see this nomination coming.  I thought we would see Tate Taylor for The Help, Steven Spielberg for War Horse or Bennett Miller for Moneyball before Fincher made this list.

Now as an Oscar forecaster I can safely predict The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has a much better shot at (if not locked down) at being a Best Picture nominee.  I also think think this means we will see Rooney Mara's name announced as a nominee for Best Actress. The biggest problem with predicting the Best Picture category is that no one knows the number of nominees in the Best Picture category so predicted the actual nominees is going to be more difficult.  The Help will  still score a Best Picture nomination, but will probably not get a director nomination (as previously thought).  I think Moneyball is in the same category as The Help, a Best Picture nomination without a Director nomination.  I think War Horse could be a causality here, while Spielberg garnered a DGA nomination for Munich, but not for this and with this  films diminishing box office, and the fact that no one is pushing it as their favorite film proves to be a huge barrier for this film.

I am saddened that brilliant directors like Terrence Malick-The Tree of Life, and Nicolas Winding Refn-Drive are being ignored.  These two men created two brilliant films, and their direction is the best of the year.  The Director's branch of the Academy does not always agree with these five nominees.  Last year Christopher Nolan-Inception was nominated for the DGA but the Coen Brothers earned a nomination in his place at the Oscars for True Grit (huge mistake). 2009 the nominees matched up exactly.  In 2008 Christopher Nolan received a DGA nomination for The Dark Knight, and Stephen Daldry received his spot as an Oscar nominee for The Reader (another big mistake).  In 2007 the DGA picked Sean Penn for Into the Wild as a nominee while the Academy replace him with Jason Reitman for Juno.  I would have picked Penn, but Juno was a well liked film.  In 2006 the DGA and the Academy disagreed on two nominations.  The DGA nominated Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Ferris for Little Miss Sunshine and Bill Condon for Dreamgirls.  The Academy Awards nominated Clint Eastwood for Letters from Iwo Jima and Paul Greengrass for United 93. Over the last few years the DGA and Academy have only completely agreed one year, and from 2000-2010 the DGA and Academy have only lined up three times (2002, 2005, and 2009).

So who will stay and who will be replaced (if anyone)?  I think Fincher is the most vulnerable, but at this moment it is hard to predict that any of these five men listed below will not get a nomination.  The next question is who would be the replacement nominee, will the Academy play it safe with Miller, Spielberg, or Taylor or will they take a risk and go with Malick or Refn.  When replacing someone in a group like this this the Academy will typically go with Malick or Refn.  The Academy has typically only messed up when replacing Christopher Nolan (they sure hate him for some reason.  At the moment I think Malick will replace Fincher, but that is not a set in stone prediction.

Here are the nominees:

WOODY ALLEN
Midnight in Paris
(Sony Pictures Classics)

DAVID FINCHER
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
(Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)

MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS
The Artist
(The Weinstein Company)

ALEXANDER PAYNE
The Descendants
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)

MARTIN SCORSESE
Hugo
(Paramount Pictures)