DGA, CCA, PGA: Has the race changed or was it always a free-for-all?

by Nathaniel R

Chicken or egg? Egg or chicken? Have the last two weeks of the Oscar race and the very recent prizes from the Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Critics Choice Awards changed the game or were the upcoming 97th Academy Awards always this much of an "anyone's game" free-for-all wherein Anora, The Brutalist, and Emilia Perez all felt possible as the dominant film?  I myself would argue for the latter. The Golden Globes (Emilia Perez dominated with 4 wins) are never the final chapter in any Oscar race, just one of its booziest most memorable chapters.

The dominant story for a week or so was the deflation Emilia Perez's, done in by a social media scandal which opened a very large window for the film's many naysayers to crash through. But it's important to remember that first industry voters loved the trans cartel musical to the breathy tune of 13 Oscar nominations...

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DGA Nominees: Gerwig, Lanthimos, Nolan, Payne, and Scorsese

Greta Gerwig on the set of "Barbie". Photo by Jaap Buitendijk for Warner Bros.

The Directors Guild of America has announced their nominations for the film year just passed. They are:

OUTSTANDING DIRECTING ACHIEVEMENT, THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM

• Greta Gerwig, Barbie (2nd DGA nod) 
• Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things (1st DGA nod) 
• Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer (5th DGA nod) 
• Alexander Payne, The Holdovers (3rd DGA nod) 
• Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon (13th DGA nods in various categories, 2 previous wins, + 1 Lifetime Achievement Award) 

In short, the Best Picture frontrunners! All five of these films are locked up now in Oscar's headline category. It reminds us of ye olden times when armchair pundits knew that the DGA choices were more predictive of the eventual Best Picture nominees (back then more nail-biting with only five choices) than Oscar's Best Director lineup. Old factoids like that have vanished in the modern era when every film with considerable buzz ends up in the Best Picture lineup. But it's fun to think back on, especially in light of these choices...

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DGA Nominees: Field, Kosinski, McDonagh, Spielberg, and The Daniels

by Nathaniel R

Todd Field and Cate Blanchett for "Tar". Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP

The Directors Guild of America released their nominations yesterday. In their main Oscar-correlative prize they hewed very close to what is seen as the "top five" for Oscar's Best Picture race. Historically speaking, in a counter-intuitive twist, the DGA nominations each year have a closer correlation to eventual Best Picture nominations than the Best Director shortlist. That was of course easier to notice before the new world of the "Expanded Best Picture" lineup of the past 14 years. The exception to this general principle of 'if it's up for the DGA it'll be up for Best Picture' certainty is the nomination for Todd Field for TÁR. While the film has a great shot at making the 10 wide Best Picture list, it's not generally considered one of the top five contenders and could theoretically be snubbed still, given that more than 10 films still seem plausible as contenders. As a result Field is looking very strong in Best Director as the Academy votes on their nominations this week...

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DGA Winners: Jane Campion, Maggie Gyllenhaal and more...

by Nathaniel R

As expected Jane Campion took Best Director at the Directors Guild Awards, their third female winner after Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and Chloe Zhao (Nomadland). The DGA win has long been the most predictive precursor prize for future Oscar glory. Their winner almost always repeats at the Oscar. Splits are rare but the most recent was very recent indeed during the Parasite vs 1917 war; Sam Mendes took the DGA but Bong Joon-ho won the Oscar.

Maggie Gyllenhaal took the coveted First Time Feature award making this the first year were both of those prizes went to women.  All the prizes and more comments after the jump...

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Oscar Volley: Those DGA Nominees (and more) in Best Director

Our Oscar Volleys series is down to our last two categories. Here are Tim Brayton and Eric Blume to talk Best Director. (This volley was recorded before the BAFTA announcement but since those nominations are juried they probably won't have much bearing on Oscar outcomes.)

Eric Blume:  Tim, I'm thrilled to talk shop about the Best Director category. Let's start with Jane Campion, Denis Villeneuve, and Kenneth Branagh who all seem unlikely to miss.  I'm personally thrilled that Campion might ride her crest all the way to a win. Nobody else could have made The Power of the Dog work so layered and subtle, or told that story without it seeming heavy-handed, obvious, or silly. The film gives Campion the chance to do her specialty: embroiling us in a narrative and in character motivations so intensely strange yet fully human that we're transported by our own confusion and curiosity.  She has that special ability to deliver a rare grounded sense of whatthefuckery in her movies. There are moments where so much is happening psychologically, where so many meanings are transpiring simultaneously, that you can't even fully process it until it's passed you by.

I'm also a huge fan of Villeneuve, a natural-born filmmaker if there ever was one...

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