Will Regina King be nominated for Best Director? It'd be a first in more than one way.

by Eurocheese

All Oscar season, I’ve heard a comment that didn’t sit quite right with me. When discussing Regina King’s Oscar chances for a Best Director nomination, the belief was that because she is a well-known actress, her nomination was more likely. Is that true, when we look at previous Best Director nominees? My knee jerk reaction has been 'tell that to Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper', two of the most surprising Oscar snubs in the category over the last decade. Does Best Director typically resist award winning actors? And would King be an unusual choice for a nominee? My answer to both questions is yes, and before you object, I brought receipts.

There have certainly been acclaimed actors (mostly white males, of course) that have crossed from the acting world to become acclaimed directors. Examples typically fall into a few specific categories...

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Directing Actors to Oscar Nominations ~ Updated Stats!

by Ben Miller

Power couple Noah and Greta moving up the "Directed Actors to Oscar Nominations" charts

The Oscars are so stat heavy, it’s difficult to keep up with the information. Especially since each season there's yet more of it. One of the stats that gets perpetually lost in the noise is the complex area  of 'acting nominations by director'. If you’ve read my previous piece last year, I am somewhat of an expert in this field, and this year’s set of nominees and winners provides some interesting stats.

First Timers

With nominations for Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Laura Dern, Noah Baumbach does what Guillermo Del Toro did with Shape of Water and Martin McDonagh did with Three Billboards, going from zero to three acting nominations from his filmography in one year.  A few directors have gone from zero to four, including but not limited to...

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YNMS x 2: "Richard Jewell" and "The Gentlemen

by Ben Miller

It’s festival season, but new trailers keep dropping left and right, so let’s do a couple quick Yes, No, Maybe So’s staring with Clint Eastwood's latest sudden December drop, Richard Jewell. It's the true story of an innocent man put on trial by the media as a bombing suspect in the 1996 Summer Olympics. The Yes No Maybe So breakdown is after the jump...

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Stranger Links

• Backstage casting notice for Asian actors. As @AnnieW pointed out on twitter this can't be anything other than the live-action remake of Akira
• Cinematic Corner ten best scenes in the Stranger Things series before the new season premieres
• Coming Soon how many times does Anna Karenina need to be remade? Apparently that's still tbd since there's another one coming

More after the jump including Carice van Houten, Darth Maul, Quentin Tarantion, and news of a new Clint Eastwood film...

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Clint is "The Mule"

Please welcome guest contributor Abe Fried-Tanzer from Movies with Abe. Since we hadn't discussed Clint Eastwood's new movie, he's doing the honor...

This is not the first time that Clint Eastwood has released a film at the tail end of awards season. That strategy worked wonders in 2014 for American Sniper, which landed major Oscar nominations despite missing out on a number of precursors. A full decade earlier, Million Dollar Baby launched late and managed to overtake the Oscar frontrunner, The Aviator, to win Best Picture. Eastwood may have arrived too late to earn accolades for this effort, which marks his 37th film as director, but he’s sure to earn some fans for his performance.

The most comparable frame of reference for The Mule is the most recent film that saw Eastwood as an acting Oscar hopeful, 2008’s Gran Torino... 

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