With a little over 24 hours before polls close for Oscar nomination voting (ballots must be submitted by 5PM tomorrow LA time), the big winners from today’s announcement of the Directors Guild nominees were Martin Scorsese and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. While it can never be considered a “surprise” for Scorsese to get a DGA nomination (this is his 11th), 12 YEARS A SLAVE, GRAVITY, AMERICAN HUSTLE and CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, along with their respective directors (Steve McQueen, Alfonso Cuaron, David O. Russell and Paul Greenglass) were already designated favorites, but that 5th slot might have gone to Spike Jonze for HER, the Coen Brothers for INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, Alexander Payne for NEBRASKA, or another contender. Instead, it’s Wolf that finds its way among the frontrunners.
The DGA award is an important Oscar precursor, especially since it’s one of the dwindling number of groups that honors just 5 nominees, unlike the Oscars, Golden Globes, Producers Guild and Writers Guild, which in various permutations pick up to 10. There’s a high degree of correlation between DGA choices and Oscar’s directors (and then between films nominated in the Directing category and also for Best Picture), although there are certainly exceptions–famously, last year Ben Affleck received a DGA nomination but none from the Academy, which turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Argo.
Related Posts
-
Oscar Nominations
>We'll have some analysis later (good news: Extremely Loud! Margin Call for Screenplay! Bad news: no Michael Fassbender? No David Fincher?), but for now, here's a link to the full list of Oscar nominees:http://oscar.go.com/nominees?cid=ealert_012412_oscars_nom_nomindex_oscarpagevideovisitorsSent via BlackBerry by AT&T
-
OSCARLAND: Producers Guild Nominations
The calendar has turned to 2014, and the critics, for the most part, have spoken. Now Oscar season is moving into the Guild part of its schedule, and today the Producers Guild announced its Best Picture nominees. The PGAs have been a fairly accurate precursor of Oscar nominees, with…
-
SHOWBUZZDAILY OSCAR WATCH: The Directors Guild Nominations
It wasn’t a great morning for the Weinstein Company, which saw both of its major candidates rejected by the Directors Guild of America in that organization’s nominations, the last to be announced before Thursday morning’s Oscar unveilings. The DGA chose: Ben Affleck, ARGO Kathryn Bigelow, ZERO DARK THIRTY Tom…
-
OSCARLAND: Directors Guild Puts “Gravity” Into Orbit
The Directors Guild of America tonight gave its prize for best film direction to Alfonso Cuaron and GRAVITY. This was not an unexpected result, but it solidifies the sense that this year we have what is (at least) a three-horse race for the Best Picture Oscar: Gravity, 12 YEARS A…
-
OSCARLAND: Writers Guild Nominations
The Writers Guild is unusual among awards-giving groups in that it strictly enforces the rule that only screenplays written for films produced under Guild agreements are eligible. That tends to exclude some of the major indie movies of the year and many foreign imports, which are produced non-Guild for…
About the Author
Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."
More articles by
Mitch Salem »
