Tom Hooper wins top honors from the Directors Guild of America

 

The Directors Guild of America on Saturday evening named Tom Hooper best director of 2010 for "The King's Speech," the film based on the real-life story of King George VI's battle to overcome a debilitating stammer. It is the first guild win in the feature category for the 38-year-old filmmaker.

"Oh my God," said a surprised Hooper. "I am so grateful to my wonderful cast. I am overwhelmed. This is the highest honor of my life."

Hooper was nominated for a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Movie Award. He's also in contention for a BAFTA and an Academy Award.

"The King's Speech" was the surprise winner last week at the Producers Guild of America Awards -- the Facebook drama "The Social Network" had been favored to win the prize -- and leads the list of most-nominated films heading into the Academy Awards with 12.

The DGA Awards are one of the most dependable bellwethers of the Academy Awards. In fact, in the last 62 years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the DGA have disagreed in their choices only six times.

The 63rd annual DGA ceremony was held at the Renaissance Hotel at Hollywood and Highland with Carl Reiner hosting.

The guild awarded its prize for directing a TV drama series to Martin Scorsese for HBO's "Boardwalk Empire," though Scorsese, who was said to be ill, did not attend the ceremony. Charles Ferguson won in the documentary category for his feature "Inside Job." Mick Jackson won for directorial achievement in movies for television and miniseries for HBO's "Temple Grandin," while Michael Spiller won for the ABC hit "Modern Family" in the TV comedy series category.

Glenn Weiss won in the musical/variety race for his direction of the 64th annual Tony Awards (CBS), and Larry Carpenter won for his work on "One Life to Live" in the daytime serials category.

The DGA also kicked off its 75th anniversary at the ceremony with DGA winners including Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, John Rich and Steven Spielberg introducing special film-clip presentations on "game-changing" moments in the guild's history.

Among the other awards handed out, Eytan Keller won for outstanding achievement in reality programs for "The Next Iron Chef" (Food Network); Eric Bross won top honors in the children's programs category for "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" (Nickelodeon); and Stacy Wall was recognized for his achievement in commercials directing.

-- Susan King

Photo: Tom Hooper at the James Hotel in Chicago. Credit: Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune

 

DGA announces list of presenters for Saturday ceremony

 
It will be a star-studded affair Saturday night at the annual DGA award ceremony, with such luminaries as Leonardo DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese on hand to honor this year's best directors. Also attending will be a slew of this year's Oscar nominees, including Colin Firth ("The King's Speech"), Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone"), Melissa Leo ("The Fighter") and Natalie Portman ("Black Swan").

Other directors on hand to recognize the DGA recipients are Michael Apted, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola and DGA President Taylor Hackford. Carl Reiner will return as the host for the 63rd annual award show at which either Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan"), David Fincher ("The Social Network"), Tom Hooper ("The King's Speech"), Christopher Nolan ("Inception") or David O. Russell ("The Fighter") will walk away with the top prize of the evening.

— Nicole Sperling

Photo: Martin Scorsese. Photo credit: Abbot Genser/HBO.

Can 'The King's Speech' stage a royal Oscar coup?

Just when most Oscarologists believed the race for best picture was over, "The King's Speech" pulled off a shockeroo at the Producers Guild of America Awards on Saturday night, tripped up "The Social Network" and threw the whole derby into a royal tizzy.

Over the last 20 years, the Producers Guild of America has correctly forecast the Oscar champ 13 times. Now we must wonder: Can "The King's Speech" reign over the Academy Awards by seizing the best picture crown?

Answer: Yes. But we won't get more hints that such a coup is in the works until Oscar nominations come out on Tuesday morning and winners of the Screen Actors Guild Awards are unveiled on Sunday night.

There's a good chance that "The King's Speech" will score the most Oscar bids. That's key considering that the best picture winner usually reaps the most nominations 75% of the time. I think it will garner as many as 11 considering British period dramas usually pop up in those multitudinous crafts categories such as best costumes, art direction, etc.

If "The King's Speech" rules over rivals on Tuesday, it must do so again on Sunday when the SAG Award is bestowed for best ensemble. That prize can sometimes foretell an upset to come at the Oscars. While that guild award has matched the Academy Award for best picture only seven times in 15 years, it predicted the two most recent upsets: "Shakespeare in Love" (1998) and "Crash" (2005).

My 100% perfect Oscar nomination predictions

Oscar nominations will be unveiled next Tuesday. Below: my predictions in the top six Academy Awards races.

BEST PICTURE
1. "The Social Network"
2. "The King's Speech"
3. "The Fighter"
4. "True Grit"
5. "Black Swan"
6. "Toy Story 3"
7. "Inception"
8. "The Town"
9. "127 Hours"
10. "The Kids Are All Right"

The top seven films on this list are locks for nominations. Mystery looms over what will nab those bottom three rungs where four films jockey for inclusion. "Winter's Bone" is the one not shown here, but could break in.


BEST DIRECTOR
1. David Fincher, “The Social Network”
2. Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
3. Darren Aronofsky, “Black Swan”
4. Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech”
5. David O. Russell, “The Fighter”

Fincher will win, of course. The only suspense surrounds who'll be nominated. The above five are the DGA nominees. One of them (but not Fincher) might be bumped for Joel and Ethan Coen ("True Grit") or Danny Boyle ("127 Hours"). There's a remote chance Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right") could squeak in now that a woman finally won here for the first time last year.


BEST ACTOR
1. Colin Firth, "The King's Speech"
2. James Franco, "127 Hours"
3. Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network"
4. Robert Duvall, "Get Low"
5. Jeff Bridges, "True Grit"

Colin Firth will win, James Franco and Jesse Eisenberg are guaranteed nominations. Duvall and Bridges are vulnerable and could be bumped by Javier Bardem ("Biutiful"), Mark Wahlberg ("The Fighter") or Ryan Gosling ("Blue Valentine").
 

BEST ACTRESS
1. Natalie Portman, "Black Swan"
2. Annette Bening, "The Kids Are All Right"
3. Nicole Kidman, "Rabbit Hole"
4. Jennifer Lawrence, "Winter's Bone"
5. Hilary Swank, "Conviction"

Some pundits doubt that Swank will make the list, but she scored a SAG nomination and that's always a great omen. Otherwise, expect Julianne Moore ("The Kids Are All Right") or Michelle Williams ("Blue Valentine") to sneak in. Outside shot: Lesley Manville ("Another Year"), who won National Board of Review. Some pundits believe Hailee Steinfeld ("True Grit") will be nommed in lead even though she campaigned in supporting. That happened just two years ago with Kate Winslet ("The Reader"), but I don't see that scenario repeating now.
 

Directors Guild announces documentary nominations

 

The nominees for the Directors Guild of America Award for outstanding directorial achievement in a documentary were announced Wednesday morning. The nominees are Lixin Fan for "Last Train Home," Charles Ferguson for "Inside Job," Alex Gibney for "Client 9:  The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," Davis Guggenheim for "Waiting for 'Superman,'" and Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger for "Restrepo."

The winner will be announced at the DGA Awards ceremony Jan. 29.

-- Susan King

Photo: A scene from "Waiting for 'Superman.'" Credit: Paramount Pictures  

 

 

 

 

HBO leads Directors Guild nominations for television [Updated]

HBO led the pack with 14 nominations in the Directors Guild of America’s awards for television and commercials for 2010, including nods for "Boardwalk Empire," "Entourage," "The Pacific," "Temple Gradin," "You Don't Know Jack" and Bill Maher's "But I'm Not Wrong." DGA President Taylor Hackford announced the nominations Tuesday.

Nominations for dramatic series included ABC's "Lost" (which was ignored by the Golden Globes and the SAG awards) and AMC's "The Walking Dead" and "Mad Men," while comedy nods went to ABC's "Modern Family," NBC's "30 Rock" and Fox's "Glee."

Some prominent film directors are among the nominees, such as Martin Scorsese for "Boardwalk Empire," Barry Levinson for "You Don’t Know Jack" and Frank Darabont for "The Walking Dead." [Updated at 12:15 p.m. to add full list.]

The winners will be announced at the 63rd annual DGA Awards dinner on Jan. 29 at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles.

-- Melissa Maerz

A full list of nominees follows after the jump: 

Poll: Which DGA Award nominee will be snubbed by the Oscars?

Considering that DGA Award nominees and the Oscar contenders for best director usually differ by one out of five, the question award pundits wonder is: Who'll get skunked by the academy?

Joel and Ethan Coen may have been snubbed by the Directors Guild of America because they opted to helm a traditional genre film. Beyond including lots of gee-whiz wilderness scenes, it's hard to show much camera dazzle with a western. However, most film critics agree the Coens pulled it off. Apparently, movie-goers do too. "True Grit" just topped $100 million at the box office, which occurred after DGA nomination ballots were mailed. Oscar ballots are still out. Assuming academy members may be impressed enough by its recent success to include the Coens in their directors' lineup, that means someone must be booted.

Maybe it'll be Christopher Nolan ("Inception"), who's never been nominated for his directorial achievement at the Oscars. He's been nominated once for screenplay ("Memento," 2000) but scorned totally by the directors' branch. That's odd considering he's received two DGA Award nominations: for "Memento" and "The Dark Knight" (2008).

But if Oscar voters snub Nolan, it may trigger the same huge outcry that occurred the last time they did it. "The Dark Knight" was also snubbed for best picture that year. Its omission has been cited as the impetus for the academy's expansion of the best picture list to 10 nominees to make  room for popcorn flicks.

Or maybe David O. Russell will be snubbed because "The Fighter" is about low-brow boxing?

-- Tom O'Neil

Photo of Christopher Nolan by Liz Baylen / Los Angeles Times.

Directors Guild nominations: Tom Hooper's 'wonderful surprise'

Just a few hours after hearing of his Directors Guild nomination, Tom Hooper spoke excitedly of the news. "I am so thrilled about the DGA nomination," said the director of "The King's Speech."

"It is such a big deal," he said by phone from New York. "It's where your peers vote for you. I got a call after midday from [DGA President] Taylor Hackford. I knew it was coming up, but I had forgotten about it.  It was such a wonderful surprise. You can't take anything for granted. It's pretty exciting. "

Vying with Hooper for the DGA's top prize are Darren Aronofsky for "Black Swan," David Fincher for "The Social Network," Christopher Nolan for "Inception" and David O. Russell for "The Fighter."

The award will be presented at the DGA ceremony on Jan. 29.

� Susan King

Tom Hooper photo by Matt Sayles / Associated Press.

Directors Guild nominations: For Darren Aronofsky, it beats a flu shot

 
Darren Aronofsky, who earned his first Directors Guild of America nomination in the feature film category Monday for  his psychological thriller "Black Swan," was getting a flu shot when DGA President Taylor Hackford gave him the good news.

"It took the ouch away," he said by phone Monday afternoon. Getting the nomination from  his peers "means a lot," he says. "They are people who do the same thing I do and who understand what the daily grind is. "

He also had high praise for Jim Carrey's spoof of "Black Swan" on "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend, in which Carrey played the black swan.

"I thought it was hilarious," Aronofsky says. "Jim Carrey wearing a tutu? It was very funny."

-- Susan King

Photo: Darren Aronofsky. Credit: Dan Steinberg / Associate Press

Directors Guild nominations: David O. Russell gets emotional

"You have no idea how emotional I am today," says David O. Russell about his first Directors Guild nomination for feature film for "The Fighter," which was announced Monday.

"I am really, really grateful," he says by phone from a plane jetting him from Los Angeles to New York, where he will present an award to one of the film's stars, Melissa Leo.

"I cried," says Russell, about receiving the news while driving to LAX. "There are a lot of great filmmakers this year and it's very humbling to be included. I feel like our film and myself are underdogs, so I was moved," said Russell.

"The Fighter" stars Mark Wahlberg as the Boston-based professional boxer "Irish" Micky Ward who gets a second chance at the welterweight title, and Christian Bale as his half-brother, Dicky Eklund, a former boxer deep in the abyss of drugs. Leo plays their mother.

Ironically, Darren Aronofsky, who is also nominated for a DGA for "Black Swan," was at one point set to direct "The Fighter."

Joining Russell and Aronofsky in the DGA nominations are David Fincher for "The Social Network," Tom Hooper for "The King's Speech" and Christopher Nolan for "Inception."

--Susan King

Photo of David O. Russell by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images