Over the past month, the members of the Online Film Critics Society have been guessing who will be nominated in a handful of major Academy Award categories. With the actual nominees to be announced on February 2, we’re down to our last speculations: Best Director. Here’s who we picked (in alphabetical order; links go to my reviews):
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Your turn: Do you agree with the OFCS critics? Did we miss a filmmaker who’s certain to be nominated? Did we predict a nomination that’s ridiculous? Who will the Best Director nominees be?
(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTD sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)
Looking at the list for 2009, can’t really say there’d been a lot of directors deserving of the nominations other than the 5 already listed. Probably the two guys who directed Up – Pete Docter and Bob Peterson – except that I don’t think Hollywood nominates director teams.
One thing I’ve noticed. There was a date movie, early in the year… 500 Days of Summer, that’s it. For some reason I haven’t been seeing a lot of year-end awards/praises for it. Did it just slip from people’s memories?
Why the hell is Avatar getting all these nominations and awards? Best visual effects is all it deserves, and both Star Trek and District 9 were as good if not better in that department.
Maybe Best Animated Film?
PaulW, (500) Days wasn’t forgotten. It just didn’t win anything big except it getting six critic groups (Women Journalists, Southeastern, Las Vegas, Florida, St. Louis, Oklahoma) to call its screenplay the best of the year.
It also popped up in a bunch of places in terms of nominations: Writers Guild (Screenplay), Golden Globes (Picture and Actor), National Board of Review (Picture), and Spirit Awards (Picture, Actor, Screenplay).
As for the QOTD, it’s difficult to see any one of these five being dislodged from the Oscar Top Five. I mean Clint Eastwood is always a threat because he’s Eastwood, but I’m rooting for Neil Blomkamp (District 9) to get into the fray. He hasn’t won directing awards this season per se, but a lot of critic groups gave him “new filmmaker” award or something similar. he was also recently nominated for Best Director at the BAFTAs so many the British contingent could have some sway? Doubtful, but probably as close as any can come.
the guy who directed 500 days of summer is going to direct the new spiderman trilogy, and that was his only movie, hardly forgotten