Oscarwatch‘s Sasha Stone has asked me to send her my choices for the five most likely DGA Best Director nominees, which are being announced tomorrow. I started to write them out but quickly devolved into hemming and hawing because…
I can’t figure which of the well-celebrated Three Amigos (Inarritu, Cuaron, del Toro) are the most steady and venerated in the membership’s eyes, for one thing, and which is the most vulnerable? They obviously all deserve to be nominated — if nothing else, ’06 has truly been the Year of the Three Amigos — and I really don’t know which way to turn because of the Children of Men surge of the last week or so. (Did it take off too late?)
The Queen‘s Stephen Frears is a likely nominee, I suppose, but I haven’t been feeling great inevitable power surges coming out of the Queen camp. I’ve been presuming all along that Bill Condon will be nominated for Dreamgirls, and good for Bill and Larry Mark and the gang if this happens, but I don’t know. The gotta- salute-the-big-musical herd mentality will probably put him over, but I wonder.
And I’m figuring United 93‘s Paul Greengrass has to be nominated…no? The most highly regarded film of the year according to the critics?
Here are my five choices plus reasons for each: (1) Martin Scorsese (The Departed) — slam dunk, no question, in the bag. (2) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel) — the Producers Guild and SAG ratifications make this more likely than it was two or three weeks ago; (3) Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) — because everyone loves their film, and they’re little guys from the indie/MTV world; (4) Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) — herd mentality; and (5) Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) — because he’s the master.
It depends on how many DGA voters have seen Children of Men and how many of these have picked up on the growing support for this film, but something tells me that helmer Alfonso Cuaron might just make it into the top five. And if he doesn’t make it — or even if he does — Greengrass might step in also. Dunno, can’t figure it….stumped.