The DGA Nominations 2013

It’s not like it’s a big deal, but I did manage to correctly predict all of the nominees for the DGA Awards, which were announced today. Everyone knew four of the five directors who were going to get in, but that last spot was definitely up in the air and everyone was divided with their prediction. According to a poll in Awards Daily, both Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell were favorites over Tom Hooper and that completely makes sense. But like they say, sometimes you just gotta go with your gut.

So here are the nominees for the DGA Awards (taken from Awards Daily):

BEN AFFLECK
Argo
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Mr. Affleck’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager:  Amy Herman
First Assistant Director:  David Webb
Second Assistant Director:  Ian Calip
Second Second Assistant Directors: Clark Credle, Gavin Kleintop
First Assistant Director (Turkey Unit): Belkis Turan

This is Mr. Affleck’s first DGA Feature Film Award nomination.

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KATHRYN BIGELOW
Zero Dark Thirty
(Columbia Pictures)

Ms. Bigelow’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager:  Colin Wilson
First Assistant Director:  David A. Ticotin
Second Assistant Directors:  Ben Lanning, Sarah Hood
First Assistant Director (Jordan Unit): Scott Robertson
Second Assistant Directors (Jordan Unit): Jonas Spaccarotelli, Yanal Kassay
Second Second Assistant Director (Jordan Unit): Tarek Afifi
Unit Production Manager (India Unit): Rajeev Mehra

This is Ms. Bigelow’s second DGA Feature Film Award nomination.  She won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for The Hurt Locker in 2009.

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TOM HOOPER
Les Misérables
(Universal Pictures)

Mr. Hooper’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager:  Patrick Schweitzer
First Assistant Director:  Ben Howarth
Second Assistant Director:  Harriet Worth
Second Second Assistant Director: Dan Channing Williams

This is Mr. Hooper’s second DGA Feature Film Award nomination.  He won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for The King’s Speech (2010) and was previously nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Mini-Series for John Adams in 2008.

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ANG LEE
Life of Pi
(Twentieth Century Fox)

Mr. Lee’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager:  Michael J. Malone
Unit Production Manager (Taiwan): Leo Chen
First Assistant Directors:  William M. Connor, Cliff Lanning
Second Assistant Directors:  Robert Burgess, Ben Lanning
Unit Production Manager (India Unit): Sanjay Kumar
First Assistant Director (India Unit): Nitya Mehra
Second Assistant Director (India Unit): Ananya Rane
Second Second Assistant Directors (India Unit): Namra Parikh, Freya Parekh
Second Assistant Directors (Montreal Unit): Derek Wimble, Renato De Cotiis

This is Mr. Lee’s fourth DGA Feature Film Award nomination. He won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and was nominated for Sense and Sensibility in 1995.

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STEVEN SPIELBERG
Lincoln
(DreamWorks Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox)

Mr. Spielberg’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager:  Susan McNamara
First Assistant Director:  Adam Somner
Second Assistant Director:  Ian Stone
Second Second Assistant Directors: Eric Lasko, Trevor Tavares

This is Mr. Spielberg’s eleventh DGA Feature Film Award nomination. He won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film three times for Saving Private Ryan (1998), Schindler’s List (1993) and The Color Purple (1985). He was also nominated in this category for Munich (2005), Amistad (1997), Empire of the Sun (1987), E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Jaws (1975). Mr. Spielberg was honored with the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.

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So now we just have to wait and see if the same five are nominated for the Oscars this Thursday. Once again, I’m going with my hunch by saying it will be the same five.

DGA Nominees This Tuesday

So what do we know? There are certainly some definites to be nominated on Tuesday and those include:

Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)
Ben Affleck (Argo)

These are locks and they are also locks for a Best Director nomination when the Oscars announce their nominations this Thursday. But what about the last two spots? This was one heck of a year and there are quite a few directors trying to sneak in.

Ang Lee (Life of Pi) is probably your best bet at receiving one of the last two nominations. He’s very popular in the DGA and has already won two awards from the guild and one Oscar for Best Director.

Who’s fighting for the last spot? First there is Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) who is still very fresh from his award-winning, The King’s Speech. Taking on the very challenging and beloved musical could definitely pay-off with a DGA and an Oscar nod, but it’s not quite set in stone like you would’ve believed earlier this year. Despite the risky decision to have his actors sing live during shooting, Les Miserables had a few missteps. But it’s still a great epic that wouldn’t surprise anyone if he snuck in.

Then there’s Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), the beloved and quirky director who continues to have fun with the amount of violence he could pour into a film. His last film, Inglorious Basterds, was his most mainstream film in his career and was all over the map during the Oscars. It’s hard for me to see Django Unchained being unanimously liked in the Academy, but Tarantino is definitely a veteran who hasn’t received his due yet, so that’s always something to factor in (if you don’t think that matters, just look at Kate Winslet’s win for The Reader).

Then there is David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), who has one of the most crowd-pleasing films this year. There is always a dramedy that the Academy loves and Silver Linings Playbook is it. He was nominated a few years ago for The Fighter so he’s no stranger to the awards circuit, but even so he’s relatively new and the Academy might go for a veteran instead.

Then there is Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom), an outside shot at receiving any nominations for directing but still worth mentioning. As a veteran and beloved director, Anderson delivers a lovable and mainstream(ish) film that has a some awards buzz surrounding it. Will the DGA push him to finally receive some recognition?

Then there is Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), who in the middle of the year I could’ve sworn was a shoe-in for Best Director. But The Master is very polarizing among critics and the public. Exactly what was the film about? You can’t deny that it’s a wonderful work of art with great acting performances, but does PTA deserve a directing nomination?

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My DGA predictions:

Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Ben Affleck, Argo
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Tom Hooper, Les Miserables

I know that the Weinstein Company are major players during awards season, but Silver Linings Playbook and Django Unchained are from the Weinsteins. I’m just not sure which movie they’re going to support more at this point. I also believe that Les Miserables will be a major player in the Oscars, so it’s hard to imagine Tom Hooper not being involved in the mix.

Review: Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
157 minutes
Rated – R
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler

Grade: A

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The film opens with a black screen with a collage of voices from September 11, 2001. The voices are from people on the hijacked planes and 911 calls from those who were trapped in the World Trade Center buildings. It’s a tough thing to listen to and most certainly will bring back memories to exactly where you were during the attacks. Then the films fades to a CIA black site at an undisclosed location two years later where we meet our heroine, Maya, looking on as another CIA agent, Dan (Clarke), is interrogating a detainee.

There has been much chatter about how Zero Dark Thirty portrays torture in the film. Some say it glamorizes it and others say it shows the evils to the practice. What director Kathryn Bigelow masterfully does is that she stays neutral to the water-boarding. We all know that torture is wrong, but if it helped lead to the death of Bin Laden, will we admit it was worth it? What does that say about us?

The torture scenes right from the start also plays as a tool to see what kind of person Maya is right from the beginning. Her reaction to the water-boarding and her response to the detainee who asks for her help is more you’re going to learn about her than anything she says about her past, which is that all she’s ever concentrated on in the CIA on Bin Laden and also how she’s never had any friends.

For the majority of the film, we bounce around the world to different CIA black sites and watch a number of interrogations, but none that really give Maya any hard intelligence for an upcoming attack or where Bin Laden is hiding. Her bosses remain fierce on her especially when numerous bombings occur, such as the 2008 bombing of the Marriott Islamabad in Pakistan and the 2009 suicide bombing on Camp Chapman in Afghanistan.

Maya’s efforts and determination never go without notice, but the fact is that her main theory was a shaky one at best, and one that took years to actually gain a break that put her back on track to follow Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. But even after wire-tapping phones and actually locating Abu Ahmed in Pakistan, her supervisors still aren’t confident that everything will lead to Bin Laden. Maya states that she is 100 percent sure, but we’re able to put ourselves in the shoes of the other men in that room opposite of Maya. Even though, in the end, we know that this leads to the death of Bin Laden, at that specific moment in the meeting, I sure as hell wouldn’t have believed her.

After a year that really put woman in the front of cinema, 2012 went back to the traditional pattern and was a male-driven year. The only real exception is Zero Dark Thirty, with an incredible performance given by Jessica Chastain. She is one great, versatile actress and really produced a controlled portrayal of a strong woman in an extremely hard job. Even though The Hurt Locker was more in-depth with its main characters and how the war affected them, simply stating that a woman was in charge for tracking down Bin Laden speaks volumes.

Zero Dark Thirty contains a lot of very tense scenes, mostly understanding what is at stake during every meeting and every interrogation and that at any moment there could be another terrorist attack. And of course, the Navy SEAL raid at the end provides a very satisfying and suspenseful conclusion to a heavily serious movie. It’s hard to imagine this project being in the hands of someone else other than Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal. It wouldn’t have felt right to create a Hollywood film feel to the greatest manhunt in history and it most certainly didn’t have a crowd-pleasing ovation when the bad guy is finally killed (I’m sure Michael Bay would’ve had Maya wielding a gun and kicking down Bin Laden’s door). Instead, there was the heroine, Maya, sitting in front of a torn and bloodied American flag with tears streaming down her face. We were all happy when the news came out, but were any of us really satisfied?

Oscar Talk 2012: Look out for Zero Dark Thirty

All of the films have finally been seen and for quite a while, after Lincoln took the commanding lead from Argo, Les Miserables came in and swept away all of the bloggers. Well, it’s time for Les Miserables to be pushed aside as well now that Zero Dark Thirty has been receiving glowing reviews. Everyone is excited to see if Kathryn Bigelow can win twice in four years. And she’s a woman!

The Golden Globes announce their nominees this week, though I doubt they really will influence the Oscars in any way. What’s intriguing about this year’s Best Picture race is how there are legitimately THREE movies that have a very good chance to win. Of course all of this will likely be a lot clearer when the guild awards are announced, but as of right now this is a three-way race between three very powerful movies: Lincoln, Les Miserables, and Zero Dark Thirty.

Last year, 2011, it was a race between The Artist and The Descendants until The Artist started to win every award on its path to the Best Picture. In 2010, it was a race between The King’s Speech (the guilds’ darling) and The Social Network (the critics’ darling). While the weeks leading up to the Oscars, it was obvious that The King’s Speech would sweep, there was still that little doubt that The Social Network could pull the upset simply because it was the CLEAR front-runner before the guild awards were announced.

The year before that, 2009, it was The Hurt Locker vs. Avatar and that concludes the years with more than five nominees. In years with only five nominees, it was even less likely to have a race come down to three movies instead of two. That is why this year is very interesting and quite thrilling for those who follow the Oscar race. And with the amount of nominees falling between five or ten, who knows how many films will be nominated! Since there were nine films last year, I’m sticking with that for this year as well and I’d rather have more films nominated this year because of its quality. If small films like Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Master, and Moonrise Kingdom can be noticed, then I have no problem with there being ten nominees this year.

But right now it’s an extremely close race between our trifecta. Both Bigelow and Hooper have recently won, so that would give Spielberg’s Lincoln the slight edge right? Looks like Daniel Day-Lewis should win Best Actor, but Jessica Chastain is set to win Best Actress. Is it possible to have no sweep at all and splits all across the board? Les Mis for picture? Ang Lee for Best Director? Anna Hathaway for Supporting Actress? Philip Seymour Hoffman for Supporting Actor?

How crazy would that be?

The 82nd Academy Awards: My Predictions

Hey everyone’s doing the whole “Who will win, who should win” formula… so I will too!  Let’s get to it!

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Best Picture

Who Will Win:  The big award of the night will either go to slightly favorite The Hurt Locker, insanely popular Avatar, or the hilarious and entertaining darkhouse, Inglourious Basterds.  Although I am VERY uneasy at The Hurt Locker’s chances, I’m still going to go with my gut and the safe choice by saying The Hurt Locker will win.

Who Should Win:  The Hurt Locker.  It’s the only film from the ten nominees that really leaves you with a lingering effect.  Last night I watched Inglourious Basterds and enjoyed it just as much as I did when I watched it the first time.  It’s an awesome, cool movie.  Very entertaining.  But then right after (at 1 a.m.) I watched The Hurt Locker and I was simply in awe.  This was the third time watching the film and it only gets better.  There’s no doubt that The Hurt Locker is the best film of the year… now will The Academy award the best film?  Or will they give it to a film more popular like Avatar or Inglourious Basterds?

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Best Director

Who Will/Should Win:  Kathryn Bigelow.  This will be the first time a female director walks away with this award and Bigelow deserves it.  Sure, Avatar was visually stunning and Basterds was witty… but The Hurt Locker is on its own level.  The small cast of characters in the film are all brought to life.  The guerilla style camera-work gave the film its gritty, documentary feel.  It’s the closest film to perfection from any film in 2009 and Bigelow should be awarded for the accomplishment.

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Best Lead Actor

Who Will/Should Win:  Jeff Bridges.  Unless there’s a unanimous sweep for The Hurt Locker and Jeremy Renner steals this award (which I would honestly be fine with).  But Bridges has done his time and he is a great, established actor who was excellent in Crazy Heart.

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Best Lead Actress

Who Will Win:  Sandra Bullock.  It was clear in my mind once The Blind Side recieved a Best Picture nomination that The Academy really loves that movie.  On top of Bullock being a fan favorite wherever she goes, this is hers to lose.

Who Should Win:  Carey Mulligan.  She’s a very talented and young actress who was the star in An Education.  She’s a lot more than just a pretty face invading Hollywood.  She has personality and subtle strengths that makes her one of the best up-and-coming actresses.  I look forward to when she’s back in this category for years to come.

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Best Supporting Actor

Who Will/Should Win:  Christoph Waltz.  If you have seen Inglourious Basterds, then you know that this man deserves this award.  He steals every single scene and gives his menacing villain a lot of layers.  I hope he stays in the States for more films instead of continuing his legacy in German cinema.

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Best Supporting Actress

Who Will/Should Win:  Mo’Nique.  A prediction that I thought I would NEVER make in my lifetime.  But yes, Mo’Nique was stunning in Precious and she deserves this golden statue, and she will get it.

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Best Original Screenplay

Who Will/Should Win:  Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds.  This is probably the tightest race of the evening.  Between The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds, it’s basically a coin-flip to determine who’s going to win.  I feel that since The Academy will be awarding The Hurt Locker with two of the biggest awards of the night, Tarantino will get his due in this writing category.

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Best Adapted Screenplay

Who Will/Should Win:  Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner – Up in the Air.  It’s not easy taking a pretty serious and dismal occupation and bringing out so much charm, humor, and romance in a movie.  It all starts with the screenplay and Up in the Air was one of the best.

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Best Animated Feature

Who Will/Should Win:  Up.  It was nominated for Best Picture.  No other animated films were.  That should be enough reason for it to win.  Plus, it’s a Pixar film.  Seriously, when has a Pixar film done you wrong?

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The rest of my predictions are listed below:

Best Foreign Film:  The White Ribbon
Best Documentary Feature:  The Cove
Best Original Score:  “Up” – Michael Giacchino
Best Orignal Song:  “The Weary Kind” – Crazy Heart
Best Cinematography – The Hurt Locker
Best Costume Design:  The Young Victoria
Best Art Direction:  Avatar
Best Makeup:  Star Trek
Best Sound Mixing:  The Hurt Locker
Best Sound Editing:  Avatar
Best Film Editing:  The Hurt Locker
Best Visual Effects:  Avatar

DGA Nominations Announced

The Directors Guild of America have spoken!  Here are the five nominations for Best Director from the DGA:

Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

James Cameron, “Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

Lee Daniels, “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)

Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air” (Paramount)

Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Co./Universal Pictures)

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All the talk has been about Kathryn Bigelow’s chances in becoming the first woman in history to win Best Director at the Oscars.  Bigelow is the seventh woman to be nominated for the DGA award.  Just like the Oscars, no woman has ever won the DGA award.

Only two of the five nominees have been nominated for the DGA before:  James Cameron (who won in 1998 for Titanic) and Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction).  Everyone else are first-time nominees.

San Francisco Film Critics also vote for ‘The Hurt Locker’

Best Picture:  The Hurt Locker

Best Director:  Kathryn Bigelow

Best Original Screenplay:  Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Adapted Screenplay:  Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach (Fanastic Mr. Fox)

Best Actor:  Colin Firth (A Single Man)

Best Actress:  Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)

Best Supporting Actor:  Christian McKay (Me and Orson Welles)

Best Supporting Actress:  Mo’Nique (Precious)

Best Animated Feature:  Coraline

Best Foreign Language Film:  You, the Living

Best Documentary:  Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Best Cinematography:  Roger Deakins (A Serious Man)

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Quick Notes:

Once again, ‘The Hurt Locker’ is voted as the best film of 2009 by another critics group.  It is quite outstanding what this little film from the summer is doing all over the nation during awards season.  Let’s see if the film can keeps its momentum up when it counts in early March.

Mo’Nique appears to be sweeping these critics awards for Best Supporting Actress.  Do not be surprised when she holds the golden statue behind the podium during the Academy Awards.

Colin Firth has emerged as Best Actor over George Clooney.  Like I said before (and most people know), this year is an extremely tight race for Best Actor.  I’ll do a separate post about it later.

And finally, Kathryn Bigelow wins Best Director again.  Will this be the year a female director finally wins the award???

NYFCC awards ‘The Hurt Locker’ as Best Picture of 2009

The results are in for the New York Film Critics Circle.  Once again, The Hurt Locker takes the grand prize as Best Picture of the Year.  By no means does this indicate that this is the frontrunner for the Academy Award, in my opinion.  I still have a feeling Avatar and Up in the Air will be very serious contenders, but what can be guaranteed is a nomination for Best Picture and one for Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director.

Here are the rest of the winners:

Best Director:  Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)

Best Screenplay:  In the Loop

Best Actor:  George Clooney (Up in the Air)

Best Actress:  Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)

Best Supporting Actor:  Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Supporting Actress:  Mo’Nique (Precious)

Best Cinematographer:  Christian Berger (The White Ribbon)

Best Animated Film:  Fantastic Mr. Fox

Best Documentary:  Of Time and The City

Best Foreign Film:  Summer Hours

Best First Film:  Hunger (Steve McQueen)

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Other quick notes:  Fantastic Mr. Fox has been topping Pixar’s Up in these critics awards precursors.  What does that mean?  Well, this certainly hurts the chances for Up to be included as one of the ten Best Picture nominations that a lot of people have been discussing.

Meryl Streep’s win as Best Actress over Carey Mulligan came to a bit surprise for me.  And George Clooney continues to have a very strong case to be the slight front-runner in the extremely talented and packed Best Actor category this year.