DGA nominees match the Globe lineup *exactly*
Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at 2:20PM
NATHANIEL R in Adam McKay, Alfonso Cuarón, Best Director, Bradley Cooper, DGA, Directors, Oscar Trivia, Oscars (18), Peter Farrelly, Spike Lee, Yorgos Lanthimos, precursor awards

by Nathaniel R

This awards season keeps throwing us unpleasant curveballs. First Bohemian Rhapsody took the top prize at the Globes and now, the Director's Guild of America has decided to up and agree with the Globes exactly on the Best Director list.

Their nominations and statistical hand-wringing after the jump...

BEST DIRECTOR, DGA

We don't understand what Peter Farrelly and Adam McKay are doing in there. Even if you love Green Book it isn't a directorial feat in any traditional sense like so many movies selected for this honor  are. Vice is tonally all over the place and has relatively poor reviews, things that would normally doom a director in the Oscar race. The only solace we're taking in this nomination lineup is that Oscar's directing branch is (generally speaking) slightly more sophisticated than the wider voting membership of the DGA. If this year's Oscar lineup follows statistical tradition it will include 4 but not 5 of these men. But there's a few other mitigating factors to consider.

- Oscar's lineup generally differs from the Globe lineup even more than it differs from the DGAs (sometimes as few as 2 people transfer like last year!) . But since the DGA & Globes match this year what does that mean? 

- Bradley Cooper could be a surprise exclusion, especially if the Directors resist him muscling in on their territory. They've done that before you know (see Ben Affleck in Argo). We confess: if a snub here would guarantee him the Best Actor prize we'd be all for that snub to happen! Otherwise that's just mean! It's one of the definitive films of the year and he wrote, directed, produced and starred in it, and did his best acting ever!

- You can't vote AGAINST a movie when nominating people so helming a divisive film doesn't necessarily harm you; you only need the passionate fans to rally... which one assumes is how Vice and Green Book (both generally divisive) still made it in there.

- Part of the problem in more traditional "auteurs" showing up to replace anyone on this list this year is that the votes are undoubtedly spread out, as is opinion. We've found over our long years of Oscar-watching that the better a film year is the more likely you are to end up with mediocre nominees. It's almost as if, if you give people too many brilliant choices, they all glom on to easiest films from indecision or no momentum for any one piece of brilliance given all the other remarkable choices. 

- There's always the chance that the directors branch within the Academy will throw a real curveball this year like they did in 2012 when the DGA and Oscar list were MUCH different and perceived frontrunning films were shoved aside. The DGAs nominated Ben Affleck (Argo),  Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) and Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) but the Academy chucked all of them for Austria's master Michael Haneke (Amour), newcomer Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), and then hot David O. Russell (Silver Lining's Playbook). The only transfers were two previous Oscar & DGA winners Ang Lee (Life of Pi) and Steven Spielberg (Lincoln). If we have a year like that again in Best Director all bets are off as to who falls though in this scenario I guess we could expect Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman) and Alfonso Cuarón (Roma) to be the holdovers since they're the closest thing to legends among this lineup like Lee & Spielberg were. 

Yorgos Lanthimos

- It's impossible to know if the Directors branch is feeling restless this year but if they are there are so many alternate possibilities, chief among them:  Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite), Debra Granik (Leave No Trace), Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War), and Barry Jenkins (If Beale Street Could Talk). If  Ryan Coogler (Black Panther) couldn't make it to the nominations from the more populist leaning DGA he doesn't have a clear shot at an Oscar nomination. 

- But with opinions so widespread about the more arthouse-leaning fare this year, that might be good news for Farrelly and McKay. Aside from arguably Lanthimos and maybe Granik do any of the others have anything like momentum in the conversation at this point? 

CURRENT BEST DIRECTOR CHART - yes, we'll be updating very soon.

 

THE REST OF THE DGA'S AWARDS

First Time Feature Film

 

Not pleased that Ari Aster isn't here for Hereditary  but otherwise it's a good list. 

 

Documentary

 

Dramatic Series

 

Homeland is still on AND being nominated for awards? Whoa!

 

Comedy Series

 

 

Movies for Television or Limited Series

 

 

Variety/Talk/News/Sports (Regular)

 

 

Variety/Talk/News/Sports (Specials)

 

 

Reality Programs

 

 

Children's Programs

 

So... the DGA reallllly likes A Series of Unfortunate Events.

 

Commercial

 

 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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