Awards 2010: Director's Guild of America (DGA) Winner

I don't know why, but the world is just collapsing all around me right now. I am so confused by the awards season right now, because it doesn't make even the slightest bit of sense to me. The DGA Award winners were announced last night, and to everyone's surprise, Tom Hooper ended up winning for directing The King's Speech. I am about to go on a bit of an enraged tangent, so if you just wanted to know who won, then you've been satisfied by now. However, if you want to read me going into how ridiculous this recent turn of events is, by all means continue on.

What is behind the fascination that the Academy and the Guilds have for The King's Speech? Before the Oscar nominations were announced on Tuesday, I was in genuine favor with Tom Hooper's film, and I appreciated it for the inspirational musings of a not necessarily original work. Then the nominations came out, and all that I could be thinking about was how it was unworthy. Twelve nominations is far more than anybody expected, and far more than it deserves. I could've pegged better supporting actresses this year than Helena Bonham Carter's performance. The cinematography is the film was occasionally so plainly straightforward that it a bit distracting. I haven't the slightest clue why it garnered a nod for sound mixing. As much as I love Alexandre Desplat's scores, his least impressive work this year, besides Tamara Drewe, was with The King's Speech.

Even the directing race seems like a bit of a stretch. If asking the overwhelming majority if Tom Hooper's direction defined the film, most would say no. It barely had an impact on how I felt, and certainly not as much as Colin Firth or Geoffrey Rush. I always expected that David Fincher would win Best Director for The Social Network, and now that's going to be a bit of a struggle. If you were to ask me who most deserved to win the category, I would say Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan. He's never quite astounded with his directorial work until now. Still, this is a fight between Hooper and Fincher, and I can't help but believe that the wrong person will win.