Oscar 2010 Predictions: Director

It's widely assumed that the winner of Best Picture usually comes out with the Oscar for Best Director as well, and it's happened so often that it's become difficult to diverse the two. Based on that assumption, Tom Hooper should by all means be going home with the Oscar tomorrow for The King's Speech, and I pray that that does not happen. That would be a catastrophic blow to the Academy's reputation, because Hooper is completely new to the awards field, and that's beside the fact that his direction doesn't leave any imprint on the feature. It's quite obviously plain and indistinct in appearance, which obviously works for the average moviegoer, but doesn't work with the quality obsessed.

To be honest, I didn't believe that Hooper would even be nominated, because there were such dynamic impressions that the other directors this year gave within their films. I expected Danny Boyle to make it in for carrying 127 Hours right along with Franco. Even more than that, I expected Christopher Nolan to be nominated for Inception, as most others did. The man has created such a wide diversity of moods and expressions across his career, and whenever we felt lost during Inception, he brought the vision to show us the way. There was a forward motion to his direction that kept the project together.

David O. Russell has me in a divided place, because while I have massively lightened up on The Fighter, I still think that he was missing his own personal groove. It was closer to distinction than Hooper achieved. I'll give him that. I'm still greatly impressed with Joel & Ethan Coen's work on True Grit, keeping a streak of gritty authenticity that the film would have been lost without. And David Fincher? Well, seeing as he's the most likely to win this Sunday, he quite obviously brought the goods to the job. He truly reinvented himself, drawing a line away from his past films like Fight Club and Se7en. In every single scene of The Social Network, you can see an attention to detail far beyond any other. To not reward that would be a shame.

Personally, my own interests skew darker than that, and I'm put in favor of Darren Aronofsky for his work on Black Swan. It's quite possibly the most impressive directing job of his career, because I wasn't taken with The Fountain, and The Wrestler was mostly a showcase for Mickey Rourke. Black Swan brims with distinction, creating a fine conceivable line between the two sides of each character and pushing towards the heart of the matter. It's highly meticulous emotional territory, not to mention the specificity required in the world of ballet. Aronofsky no doubt had to take a crash course in ballet like all the actors in the film, just to get into the heart of the world he was creating. It's an emotional feast in the most subtle of ways, always straying away from being too obvious. Unfortunately, this isn't the year Aronofsky wins, and we'll have to wait for that to happen.

1. Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
2. David Fincher (The Social Network)
3. Joel & Ethan Coen (True Grit)
4. David O. Russell (The Fighter)
5. Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)

Will Win: David Fincher (The Social Network)
Should Win: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
Potential Upset: Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
Should Have Been Nominated: Christopher Nolan (Inception)