The Best Director Oscar race should be the most competitive category of the ceremony. For several years now, every best picture contender has not been nominated for best director. It seems very likely though that Paul Thomas Anderson’s oil industry epic, “There Will Be Blood,” will be nominated for best picture and best director. This will be Anderson’s first best director nomination and also, “Juno,” will get plenty of attention the next two months and he may become part of the groundswell.
“No Country For Old Men” should be this year’s Oscar front-runner, if its critical and popular response is any indication. Joel and Ethan Coen’s names should be written in with a Magic Marker. They aren’t going anywhere. Fellow Oscar speculators, Ridley Scott should be counted out. “The Departed” was superior to “American Gangster” and Scott was not the best part of the film, the performances were. So, this box office hit will be ignored, at least in this category.
Mike Nichols, Hollywood veteran of “The Graduate” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and most recently “Closer,” will get noticed for “Charlie Wilson’s War.” The film about a Cold War CIA effort to raise money and arms in Afghanistan is going to be a very high-profile spectacle featuring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and P.S. Hoffman. Nichols is getting early praise and his reputation certainly does proceed him.
If “The Kite Runner” can actually match the book’s intensity for which it is based then director Marc Forster should earn a nomination as well. Tim Burton is a dark-horse for “Sweeney Todd.” This dark musical has his trademark “look” to it and features Johnny Depp and does require a very specific vision, which it looks like Burton had for this film.
Also look out for Ang Lee, frequent nominee, for “Lust, Caution.” He won for “Brokeback Mountain” and is a foreign national — one is nominated every year. David Cronenberg was in top-form for “Eastern Promises,” but the film may be too simple for academy voters. Sidney Lumet, director of “Before The Devil Knows Your Dead,” probably had a lot of fun combining genres while making this crime melodrama. His octogenarian status and ability to always make compelling dramas are reason enough to nominate him.
Anyway you figure it, the class of 2007 is a very stalwart list of great directors.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 1, 2007. Read the original PDF.