I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders after opening up the Oscar Prediction flood gates yesterday with my first round of Best Picture predictions. It’s also exciting to see reader predictions, some of which agree and others that disagree with a lot of my picks. It’s all part of the fun and all part of narrowing things down so come nomination day we may or may not be right on the money.
Today let’s see how your initial predictions differ from mine when it comes to the Best Director category as I’m sure some of the questions regarding the faith I have in Clint Eastwood‘s J. Edgar will certainly crop up once again.
Eastwood currently tops my list of directors, although, over the last few days I have going back and forth with that top spot between Eastwood and Steven Spielberg (War Horse) with Alexander Payne and Michel Hazanavicius closing fast following screenings of The Descendants and The Artist at Telluride. Both of those films will be screening in Toronto where even more buzz is likely to surface, but I am still having a hard time, in my mind, pushing the talent of Eastwood and Spielberg aside.
The concerns over Eastwood that were brought up in some of the comments yesterday are quite valid. Eastwood has had a string of relatively mediocre films depending on your opinion and while people point to Letters from Iwo Jima as his last Best Picture-worthy film, I would actually disagree with that and go back to Million Dollar Baby (a film I absolutely love). In all honesty, I wasn’t a big fan of either Letters from Iwo Jima or Flags of Out Fathers.
As for J. Edgar, it seems like it is right down the Academy’s alley and with a script from Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk) and Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. With Eastwood at the helm it seems like a slam dunk and I just can’t do anything more with that film other than think of it as one of the front-runners in multiple categories.
As for Spielberg, it’s been a while since he tackled some serious material and as I wrote in my first bit of commentary for the director, “The only thing that keeps him from being my #1 is Academy members may reserve handing him the win for Lincoln next year.”
Finally, there’s Stephen Daldry, nominated three times as a director and he’s never won. I have Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as my current front-runner for Best Picture so it may be a while before Daldry bounces out of my top five here as that film doesn’t hit theaters until December 25. Hopefully the critical base will get a chance to see it earlier than that for Oscar consideration, but for now… we wait.
As of right now the Best Director category holds my largest list of contenders at 25 total names so when looking over this list don’t think I’ve resigned my decision to a final five, because this list is anything but.
The six that follow on the heels of my top five include Tomas Alfredson (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Bennett Miller (Moneyball), George Clooney (The Ides of March) and Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris). And even after them we can’t forget about — Oh what the hell, just click here and browse the entire field along with my commentary on each name. It’s a list where my #20 could be my #5 within a couple of weeks.
So with that said, directly below are my current top five for Best Director, but you can click here to browse the complete field of 25 contenders and my commentary on each.
- Clint Eastwood (J. Edgar)
- Steven Spielberg (War Horse)
- Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
- Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
- Stephen Daldry (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)
Following these predictions we will begin moving into the acting categories, beginning with Best Actress tomorrow so stay tuned.
To check out the new Oscar Predictions homepage click here and be sure to bookmark it. As the season continues any update I make to the predictions will be revealed on that page and more and more categories are revealed the page will begin to fill up as we head toward Tuesday, January 24 when the Oscar nominations are announced.
Once again, I want to hear your opinions on these predictions as any and all comments are valuable and help shape the Oscar season. There’s a reason studios campaign and pundits predict as public opinion can always help shape the tide of the Oscar season… at least I know I use it to help inform my predictions. So get below and start commenting!
