by Nathaniel R
Taika is a previous Oscar nominee for Live Action Short. He could become an Oscar nominee in additional categories this year (Best Director and Best Screenplay)
Making a clean sweep of the major guild nominations, Jojo Rabbit is also in with the Directors Guild of America. This was not totally expected but neither is it much of a surprise since his "anti-hate satire"has performed well all season with awards bodies, despite very vocal detractors and a modest box office performance. Yes, it grossed just a little less than Parasite but since it has Hollywood stars and is in English it wasn't half the breakout word-of-mouth smash that the former was. Where the DGA is always more interesting is in their less Oscar-buzzed "first time feature" category. The nominees are after the jump...
Directors
- Bong Joon Ho, “Parasite”
- Sam Mendes, “1917”
- Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman”
- Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
- Taika Waititi, “Jojo Rabbit”
In ye olden times the DGA was a more accurate predicter of the eventual Best Picture lineup than the eventual Best Director lineup but things changed a lot once preferential balloting and expanded BP lineups began. Still, the DGA lineup rarely matches Oscar 5/5 (the last time was in The Hurt Locker/Avatar season) so any of these men might be vulnerable to either an unexpected player with passion votes (Sciamma, Almodovar, Gerwig?) or an expected one (Todd Philips for Joker?).
Alma Ha'rel directing Noah Jupe in "Honey Boy"
First Time Feature Director
- Mati Diop, “Atlantics”
- Alma Har’el, “Honey Boy”
- Melina Matsoukas, “Queen & Slim”
- Joe Talbot, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”
- Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, “The Peanut Butter Falcon”
It's a 50/50 gender balanced category with 3 male nominee and 3 female nominees. How about that? Both Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers) and Lulu Wang (The Farewell) are on their second features so they weren't eligible for this prize despite feeling like newbies since their debut features were less heralded.
The major omission in the list above is obviously Olivia Wilde for Booksmart. Other buzzy new filmmakers they could have honored included the Spirit nominees for "first feature" Phililp Youmans (Burning Cane), Kent Jones (Diane), and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (The Mustang).