Best Director
My current frontrunners:
- Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)
- George Clooney (Good Night and Good Luck)
- Steven Spielberg (Munich)
- Woody Allen (Matchpoint)
- Paul Haggis (Crash)
- Bennet Miller (Capote)
I probably would have guessed Cronenberg before Miller, but I knew that Woody Allen was a semi-wild pick.
While Ang Lee is locked in and George Clooney would be terribly dissapointed if he won't hear his name listed on the directors shortlist, the rest of the spots are not as easy to predict. Spielberg, Woody Allen, Paul Haggis, Cronenberg, Bennet Miller are equally hopeful. If I chose to gamble here, I would do it with Terrence Malick.
Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)
Brokeback Mountain is this year's frontrunner and Ang Lee is the man responsible for it. The elegant acceptance speech at the Golden Globes certainly solidified his nomination.
George Clooney (Good Night and Good Luck)
Clooney's presence in the director's top five was not predicted by many a few months ago, but now it is almost as certain as Ang Lee's.
Steven Spielberg (Munich)
Spielberg is always a safe vote on the ballots and he certainly did one of his better jobs with Munich. DGA and Golden Globes saw it the same way.
Woody Allen (Matchpoint)
Director nominations are often going towards well established directors that are able to re-prove themselves. Allen is by no means a lock, but his name may come more natural to many voters than newcomer Bennet Miller.
Paul Haggis (Crash)
Haggis was well appreciated last year for the Million Dollar Baby screenplay. This time he tries his hand at directing and certainly does it right as acknowledged by the DGA. He is a new director but not a new name, therefore he may look better than Miller for this nomination.
Runners Up
Bennet Miller (Capote)
Capote has strong support in all categories, and DGA acknowledged Miller as well. However, everything in Capote, including Catherine Keener's understated performance, is overshadowed by Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance.
Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener)
Meirelles surprised once before everyone with double nominations for City of Gods, and The Constant Gardener has plenty supporters.
David Cronenberg (A History of Violence)
Many are considering Cronenberg to be overdue for a nomination and History of Violence is perhaps his most mainstream movie so far. He received an award for excellence in directing from the National Board of Reviews, but I am not sure if there's enough buzz around him to put him ahead of one of the classics (Allen or Spielberg).
Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers)
Here I feel like I missed an episode... the episode where everyone decided that Broken Flowers is not this year's Lost in Translation after everyone was only talking about this around the time the movie came out...
Peter Jackson (King Kong)
Jackson already proved he's an accomplished movie maker, but he will need to come up with something else if he wants to get on the Academy's radar again.
Terrence Malick (The New World)
If I don't have the guts to list Malick in the top 5, I might as well leave him as 11th. What a surprise would be if he would be nominated together with his young star, Q'Orianka Kilcher!!
The Rest
There can always be a surprise sneaking in this category but... how likely that is? Michael Hanneke to compensate that his movie Cache was not eligible for Foreign Film? Miranda July for a quirky movie? James Mangold for Walk the Line? Ron Howard for a typical Oscar bait (Cinderella Man) that came too soon after M$B to have a chance?... The answer is probably no to all of them.