The 11.10 Gurus of Gold chart has eight gurus predicting David Fincher will win the Best Director Oscar but only two of them saying that The Social Network will take the Oscar for Best Picture. They’re predicting, in short, a split decision with TKS getting the heart vote and Fincher getting the head vote plus the “okay, he’s earned it, he’s due” approval.

As a friend says, “The gurus always choose what they feel is the Best Picture emotional default film — the one that supposedly makes older viewers feel chest pangs. But they’re betraying themselves in the director category where many of them, including EW‘s Dave Karger, a totally political finger-to-the-wind consensus guy, have Fincher in the number one spot. That tells me a lot more than The King’s Speech in number one. The directors almost always lead the way.”

And you know what else may very well happen? The more people see The Fighter, the more you’re going to see it rise in the Best Picture ranks, and the more you’ll see David O. Russell elbowing into Best Director contention. The top five directors right now are Fincher, The King’s Speech‘s Tom Hooper, Black Swan‘s Darren Aronofsky, 127 Hours‘ Danny Boyle and Inception‘s Chris Nolan. But if The Fighter starts to catch on like I think it will, one of these five might begin to experience a little slippage.