Sam Mendes wins DGA again, 20 years later

by Nathaniel R

Sam Mendes was an acclaimed theater director when American Beauty hit the scene in 1999 asking audiences to "look closer" in its promotional material. They did. The film went on to become a sleeper hit and then a very big one and eventually win the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director among others. Mendes is likely to repeat that trick at this year's Oscars 20 years later even though his film career in the interim hasn't been noteworthy enough to scream "2 time director winner!" But then Hilary Swank has two Oscars and Renee Zellweger is likely to join her while Close, Bening, Pfeiffer, Weaver, Garland, Stanwyck, Dunne, and many other genius actresses from Hollywood history have none so this is the way it goes sometimes...

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DGA (semi) surprises with a Taika Waititi nomination

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...

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