AWARDS 2011: DGA Does Directors Good

I haven't done too well to keep up with the pace of the Guild awards, and in fact this awards season has been an uncharacteristically weak one for me. I guess I'm just not that invested in it. I rather respect all of the directors on the list of Directors Guild nominations, but two of them just don't deserve to be here. I'm not at all talking about Woody Allen or David Fincher, as both earned their stripes pretty well this year by my standards. I'm talking about Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne, who are both rather fine directors who misfired drastically this year. Payne seemed to lose any strong and dramatic bone in his body with "The Descendants", and Scorsese's passion was diluted by a supremely lacking story in "Hugo". This is quite a strong list of directors, but they just shouldn't be here now.

• Woody Allen ("Midnight in Paris")
• David Fincher ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo")
• Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist")
• Alexander Payne ("The Descendants")
• Martin Scorsese ("Hugo")

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.

Awards 2010: Director's Guild of America Nominations

The guild awards season does tend to seem a little single-faceted at times, mostly because they have one basic category to decide on each. When it comes to the DGA, I'm a bit surprised at the nominations. Most of them are right on the money, but I find it a bit shocking that David O. Russell made the cut for The Fighter while Joel & Ethan Coen were snubbed for True Grit. Other than that, I have no qualms or quarries with this year's nominations. I'm pretty sure David Fincher will end up winning, but I'd like to think that Darren Aronofsky still has a chance.

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film
Darren Aronofsky (“Black Swan”)
David O. Russell (“The Fighter”)
Christopher Nolan (“Inception”)
Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”)
David Fincher (“The Social Network”)