The fact that Ava Duvernay is not nominated for Best Director is criminal. Selma is an amazing film that was snubbed in many categories but this is where the snubbing of the film hurt the most. The Academy had a chance to make history by giving a directing nomination to a black woman for the first time. Instead, it played it safe with a couple of the choices here.
At least there are other people in this category who deserved to be here for films that are great. Also there is some curve balls being thrown in over who is going to win.
So with that, let's look at the category:
BEST DIRECTOR
Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Richard Linklater - Boyhood
Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher
Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game
Odd thing about this category is that you get the feeling of deja vu creeping up this year. In 2010, it was assumed that David Fincher was going to win Best Director for The Social Network. He won all the early critics awards. The movie was popular with critics and audiences. But slowly but surely, The King's Speech started winning major awards. Come Oscar night, it beat Social Network for best picture and director. In 2015, that same thing is going to happen again. This time, it is Richard Linklater who is going to end up losing. For most of the year, he has been the frontrunner to win best director. Boyhood and the way the film was shot over a 12 year period has been discussed at length since the film came out this summer. It is impressive for sure, especially since Linklater was able to keep the performances that good for that length of time. But lately, complaints about the story have popped up. Is it involving enough? Is the movie too slow? Is the movie too gimmicky? The film has been out for so long that people have begun to look for a better, sexier option and that option appears to be Birdman and it's director. Inarritu has been a favorite of the Academy for years. 21 Grams, Babel, and Biutiful have all gotten acclaim over the years but he has yet to win any awards for his work. That ends this Sunday. The competition otherwise doesn't look like it could knock either one of these two gentlemen out. Wes Anderson is finally getting some long overdue acclaim from the Academy for Grand Budapest, but the film seems to be more likely to win the technical awards than any of the major awards. Morten Tyldum is the newcomer in this group but his work on Imitation Game was good but nothing outstanding. (I would have switched his spot out with DuVernay and let her get the nomination over him.) And Bennett Miller continues to impress with his third directing nomination in a row for Foxcatcher but the coldness of the story seems to have turned people off. When it comes down to it, Academy members will give Innarritu the Oscar for the way he guided Birdman and got the great performances out of the film. It doesn't speak bad to Linklater, he is just losing to the sexier option at the moment. As it showed before in 2010, it happens sometimes.
Should Win and Will Win:
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