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...

Click to read more ...

DGA Nominees: Anderson, Branagh, Campion, Spielberg, Villeneuve

by Nathaniel R

And now the 'super thursday' of Guild Awards comes to an end with the Directors Guild of America nominations. The Directors Guild has historically been the best 'predictor' as to the Best Picture lineup though that distinction ceased being really important in 2009 when Oscar expanded its Best Picture lineup. Since then we've only seen one DGA Feature Film nominee that didnt show up in Oscar's Best Picture list (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) though we've several several DGA nominees who didn't show up in the parallel Oscar list for Best Director. Make sense? Okay, let's discuss their nominees...

Click to read more ...

Oscar charts: The more interesting than we were expecting it to be "Best Director" race

by Nathaniel R

The annual competition for Best Director at the Oscars is in a very interesting era. The Academy has become increasingly international so, in theory, we can expect more international figures to pop up in this category rather than just the superstar auteurs. Though it's long had the same racial problems as the acting categories it's always had those in a much less visible way... until recently. And it wasn't all that long ago that people (or, more specifically, the media) didn't grouse about no women being up for the prize. The movement for equity behind the camera only went truly mainstream in the past decade. Female directors have always been around, of course, if not in the same numbers they are today it's a topic Juan Carlos is currently investigating as he moves backwards in time through the Oscar years in his series "Through Her Lens" (new episode drops tomorrow).

For the first time in history we could be looking at a second consecutive win by a female auteur since Jane Campion is currently the favourite for The Power of the Dog. But who else will join her in the lineup? 

Click to read more ...

Team Top Ten: Steven Spielberg for his 75th Birthday

by... our team here at TFE!

West Side Story, now in theaters. is Steven Spielberg's 32nd motion picture. Though he directed one self-financed "feature" at 17 (shown at one movie theater), Duel (1971) a made for television movie was his first Hollywood gig. His movie career proper began with the spring release of The Sugarland Express in 1974. By the end of the following summer, due to Jaws, he was globally famous and a bankable A list director, lists he'd never fall off of. To celebrate Spielberg's 75th birthday (today, December 18th) we recently polled the team about the work of America's most beloved auteur: his best, worst, and most underappreciated.

It was fascinating to be reminded how widely viewed Spielberg's filmography is. Of his 31 pictures prior to West Side Story, not a single one of them went unmentioned in the answers to our three-part poll which 23 members of our team participated in. That said the least often cited for any reason (so probably the least seen?) were Sugarland Express and 1941. Of Spielberg's blockbusters Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom  and War of the Worlds were the two that had the weakest turn out under any section of the polling.

In the end we opted not to focus on the Worst as that isn't celebratory and, what's more, there was not a clear consensus but if you're curious Ready Player One, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Terminal, The BFG, and Lost World Jurassic Park all sprung up regularly. Hey you can't win them all but Spielberg has won more than most. Ready for the Best of List? Enjoy...

Click to read more ...

Linkmeter

• Vulture Every Kirsten Dunst role ranked. Wonderful piece by Matthew Jacobs though crazy/beautiful is too low!
• Letterboxd The Writers Guild of America's 101 best screenplays of the 21st century (thus far)
• Interview Colman Domingo interviews Zendaya
• IMDb top 100 stars of 2021 (by their STARmeter rankings) topped by Elisabeth Olsen (WandaVision). The lsit leans heavily into stars from popular shows or movies like everyone from Bridgerton, Ted Lasso, Mare of Easttown, the MCU, and even the star of Squid Game (though the list is heavy on blonde American women). Surprisingly high ranking for Alexander Skarsgård given that he had a mostly quiet year and Kathleen Turner somehow made the list, too, not that we're complaining as longtime fans.

More after the jump including a Shang-Chi sequel, West Side Story plus Steven Spielberg's next film, a big Alessandro Nivola get,  the teaser to Across the Spider-Verse, and the top ten list seasonal kickoff...

Click to read more ...