Whoa, wait up. Hold it a second. Are you telling me that 12 respected Oscar watchers — Thelma Adams, Brooke Anderson, Roger Ebert, Scott Feinberg, Pete Hammond, Tariq Khan, Michael Musto, Steve Pond, Kris Tapley, Stu Van Airsdale, Chuck Walton and Susan Wloszczyna (a.k.a. “Suzie Woz”) — are seriously predicting that Tom Hooper will take the Best Director Oscar?

That still leaves 16 — Tim Appelo, Erik Kevin Davis, Joseph Kapsch, Dave Karger, Peter Knegt, Kevin Lewin, Guy Lodge, Tom O’Neil, Kevin Polowy, Paul Sheehan, Keith Simanton, Sasha Stone, Anne Thompson, Bob Tourtellotte, Peter Travers and myself — predicting a David Fincher win, but the size of the Hooper contingent surprised me. That’s close to an even split. What happened to the alleged dismay over Hooper’s DGA win and people subsequently saying “gee, maybe we need to re-think things here”?

The above comes from Tom O’Neil’s latest Gold Derby survey.