DGA: Bigelow, Cameron, Daniels, Reitman, Tarantino

The Directors Guild of America used to be the Oscar precursor with the most famously accurate prediction record... not for guessing the Best Director lineup, exactly, but for predicting the eventual Best Picture lineup itself.


So *if* were were still only getting five Best Picture nominees (instead of ten) they would be:

• Avatar (James Cameron)
  
• The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
  
• Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
  
• Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Lee Daniels)
  
• Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)

"Tell us something we don't know," you scream in unison. "cuz those are obviously the top contenduhs!"

Okay okay... something you don't know. Let's see... Did you know that Clint Eastwood is arguably a microscopic bit more popular with the AMPAS directorial branch than he is with the DGA: The DGA didn't nominate his Letters From Iwo Jima; Oscar did. (You probably know this, too). But he could still show on Oscar's shortlist for pointing cameras at Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman in Invictus. Still, this list as is from the DGA is actually quite nicely representative of the film year: a little sci-fi, a little war, a lotta drama... films from the summer, fall and winter! It's also worth noting that, WW II reimagining aside, this is a truly contemporary field. Precious is set in the 80s but that's not really "period" now is it? (Shut Up! Don't make me feel old)

Another batch o' trivia: The DGA, which has a much larger membership than the Academy's director's branch, is also slightly more inclusive: Oscar has only given one Asian the Director's trophy (Ang Lee) but DGA did that twice (it was Ang Lee both times, but still... he deserved it! Sorry Traffic lovers but Crouching Tiger owned that particular shortlist); Oscar has only nominated three women for Best Director but Bigelow is the seventh so honored by the DGA; The DGA has also given an out gay man their top prize (Rob Marshall, Chicago) while Oscar hasn't... at least not "out" in the traditional modern sense of the word. But, that said, Lee Daniels is the first black man to be nominated by the DGA (at least in the movie category) and Oscar got there nearly two decades ago with John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) although that's the only time they've done so. Sadly, neither the DGA nor Oscar ever nominated Spike Lee even when he was making critical smashes (Do The Right Thing) or epic biopics (Malcolm X) and you know how frequently Oscar goes for both of those things...

Do you think Lee Daniels can hang on to become the second black director nominated by Oscar? Or do you think this is the last hurrah after which he'll be replaced by ____________
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