In a USA Today “Magic 8 Ball” piece, Scott Bowles is asked if this year will once again see a Clint vs. Marty showdown for Best Picture and director, and he answers that “all signs point to yes. While Clint Eastwood‘s Flags of Our Fathers hasn’t been burning up the box office — $32.9 million since its release Oct. 20 — it continues to play well at academy screenings.”
HE respectfully disputes this — my understanding is that Flags has been playing to respectful but sluggish responses all along — although there’s no doubt, as Bowles says, that Scorsese “seems a shoo-in for a Best Director nomination with The Departed, his return to the crime genre.”
And then EW‘s Dave Karger comes along and blows everyone’s mind by saying we should all watch out for Dreamgirls director Bill Condon, whom he calls a “dark horse” contender. He also says that Dreamgirls “could be a spoiler.” A spoiler? A lot of handicappers have been calling it the Big Kahuna for a while now.