Academy Anonymous

Oscar Season 2024-2025; DGA Nominees Forecast Oscar’s Best Picture Top 5 - Blockbusters Out, Passion Projects In, Veterans Sidelined

• Jules & Joseph • Season 1 • Episode 11

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On this episode of ACADEMY ANONYMOUS:

  • Votes are in from the Directors Guild of America!
  • The DGA 5 = The Academy Awards Best Picture 5 
  • A bad omen for Dune, Part 2 and Denis Villeneuve OR “Who needs a veteran anyway?!”
  • Edward Berger poised to strike back after “All Quiet on the Western Front” snub at the Oscars 
  • James Mangold FINALLY gets his flowers
  • Corbet - young, unfamiliar and uncompromising… but “The Brutalist” may just be un-snubbable.
  • No Jon M. Chu, BIG problem! A “Wicked” snub spells trouble at the Oscars
  • Baker’s “Anora” proves irresistible with first nomination for Palme D’Or winner since “Parasite” - the NEON playbook may lead to gold at the Oscars yet again
  • Coralie Fargeat and her visionary “The Substance” not enough to overcome guild’s ingrained genre bias
Joseph:

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Academy Anonymous. I'm your host, joseph, and I'm here with your co-host, jules. We're glad to have you back. Before we begin this episode, we just want to say that our thoughts are with all of the people in the state of California and certainly those who live in the Los Angeles area, which is at the heart of the American film industry. We, like every other American citizen and probably global citizen, have been watching with dread and anxiety everything that's going on with these wildfires, and you and I are no strangers to the difficulty and the sadness and the sorrow that comes with being displaced at the hands of natural disasters.

Jules:

Yeah, Our hearts and our hopes are with all these victims of these natural disasters.

Joseph:

And their families, and their friends and their loved ones Suffering right now. Suffering right now, so.

Jules:

We're eagerly awaiting, as everyone is, the end of this dark tragedy and getting through this dark moment and, hopefully, getting to a better place.

Joseph:

And what we're sure will be the recovery of Los Angeles and the state of California, absolutely.

Jules:

Very well said. Thank you Well, one of the most important things that have happened. A lot has happened since we last spoke. We've been taking a moment, since the news of the wildfires has been top of mind, of everyone's mind, and in that time there's been a few announcements. Among them, the Directors Guild announced their nominations for Best Director and the nominees were Jacques Audillard for Emilia Perez, sean Baker for Onora, edward Berger for Conclave, brady Corbett for the Brutalist and we had mentioned this in a few previous episodes James Mangold for Complete, unknown To a lesser extent. There was the first time, theatrical feature film nominations, which is always a great category, a really cool category. I love that they do this. I wish the Academy would do a category like this.

Jules:

They had really interesting nominees Payal Kapadia for All we Imagine Is Light, one of the year's best. Megan Park for my Old Ass. Rommel Ross for Nickel Boys. Havdan Ullman-Tondal for Armand, which we haven't seen but we've heard really beautiful things about. And Sean Wang for Didi Really great category. There were even more contenders that weren't spotlighted. It was a strong year for first-time features, so that's always a really great thing that we anticipate this category and we wish that it would have more waves in that other ceremonies, other institutions would install this sort of category.

Joseph:

I think that would be great. It would be fantastic.

Jules:

But really in terms of having more impact on the Oscar races, the nominees for best theatrical feature film, and really there aren't very many surprises. I think people would be most surprised by James Mangold's inclusion, for a complete unknown, even though, as I mentioned, we had mentioned previously that that movie was gaining a lot of steam. It was coming out at the right time. James Mangold has never been nominated for Best Director, and so we've always perceived that movie to be a threat to get into that top five for Best Director. Why don't you tell me your thoughts on the nominees?

Joseph:

Well, before we go too deep, let's also mention that, with everything that's happened with the wildfires and everything that's occurring with the wildfires, in an effort to, you know, contain the emergency we should expect, and we've seen dates are shifting all over the place. So we're starting here because we think it's a good point, but, as we speak right now, there are have been suggestions as to when to expect more news in terms of awards and accolades and the buildup to the Academy Awards. So, if you're following the road to the Oscars, if you're an Oscar watcher or anything like that, just keep in mind that these dates, because of the tragedy that is occurring, are very fluid right now.

Jules:

Yeah, subject to change.

Joseph:

They are very much subject to change and, as you can imagine, there's no permanence to any of these dates. We're going to start here. I think it's an excellent place to start, but let's keep that in mind.

Joseph:

I think that there's a few things that I would like to discuss in terms of the DGA nominations that I observed. Number one one we talk about the dga nominations for best director, and they are revealing in terms of who will get into those final five slots for best director at the academy awards. They certainly paint a picture of you know where the race is headed but who has the?

Joseph:

momentum and who has the momentum. But for a long time the director's guild award has also functioned as a sort of measuring stick for where the upper echelon of best picture is at that moment. For a long time, the director's guild award five have sort of been known to mirror what are the oscar five best picture nominees. Yeah, and so I think that's the best place to start, and I think that's why it's a good idea to start with the dj nominees. We mentioned all those films that were nominated. I think it would be valid to accept those films as the five most likely best picture nominees. Were this a year of five where there was not a best picture?

Joseph:

extended lineup right there was only five slots, and so, from 2000 backward, a lot of the times you're gonna find four out of those five nominees representing the five nominees for best picture, and you'll be surprised how many times the five nominees for the DGA are usually those spots one through five for the Academy Awards. And so I think it's really good to take these five films Emilia Perez, conclave, a Complete Unknown, the Brutalist, the Brutalist and Anora as the Best Picture top five.

Joseph:

Yeah yeah, and the other films falling somewhere below that, yeah, so I think that's the. The first place where one should start is that the dga5 look more or less like the academy five right at that moment, and so that's who's.

Joseph:

You know who's running the best race in terms of best picture now, in terms of best director. You know who's running the best race in terms of best picture Now, in terms of best director? There's always some interesting things to think about, because this lineup certainly after the expansion and recently you're going to see titles that don't make it onto this lineup, that do have an excellent shot and end up crashing the final five for best director. And someone that comes to mind, for example, is Ruben Oslund for Triangle of Sadness, who was not listed here and was listed in Director. But you could sort of interpret also that the nomination for Triangle of Sadness in Best Picture was not a top five movie. In fact it was probably a bottom five movie even if it was a top five director spot.

Joseph:

So first of all, let's talk about who didn't get it. So who at this moment is probably not a best picture top five movie? And a few titles stick out to me. Number one is the substance right, because we think it's. It would appear to be, on paper, a more tempting choice for directors in the sense of how much work went into making it, as opposed to something probably more conventional, like James Mangold. Another person who wasn't there is John M Chu for Wicked, and I really expected that film and that director to place because of the immense success that Wicked had, right and then right on the coattails of that. Another director that was not there was Denis Villeneuve.

Jules:

I think that's the biggest surprise For Dune Part 2.

Joseph:

And a lot of people are surprised by that and I understand that and I'll speak more to that in a minute but the idea that this is the same guild that could give a nomination to the director of Barbie and the director of Dune Part 1 and the director of the Dark Knight and the director of Top Gun Maverick.

Joseph:

for them not to find room for John M Chu to me was quite shocking and telling. Right, it's interesting to see that not only did Wicked not make it, but that Dune didn't make it, because it's the closest sort of film that resembles a sort of more commercial-leaning film, a film that's in this conversation in large part because of how much money it makes and how much it speaks to the general movie-going public. So it was surprising not just to see the absence of Wicked on this list of five but also the absence of Dune. I think it's possibly telling that both films maybe are competing against each other for the attention of what is usually reserved to one spot, that's, specifically for spectacle, think of something like Avatar.

Joseph:

That's specifically the spectacle spot, and so they may be both splitting between Wicked or Dune. That's a possibility. The idea that we do not have either included, I think, is very interesting. And then I think we can take this point into the other aspect that I found fascinating about the DGA, which may be very revealing as to where the Academy Awards are headed in this particular category, the category of Best Director Right. First of all, we shouldn't expect the DGA five to be perfect with the best director five at the Academy Awards right.

Jules:

But they can be, they can be.

Joseph:

They can be, but we're expecting, like most people, a Ruben Oslund to sort of show up, right, and we talked about those three individuals who were snubbed. One thing that the Academy tends to favor is a veteran on their lineup for best director, and the DGAs did not nominate any previously Oscar-nominated director this year in their top five James Mangold, jacques Audiard, sean Baker they would all be first-time Oscar nominees, and the DGA has not done that very often, and it may speak to an academy that has a choice to make, which is are we going to include a veteran and we spoke about this a little bit or are we going to include films that have more momentum at this moment? Right? So the veteran that everyone was expecting to be on this dga list, that everyone is expecting to be on the academy award list, is denny villeneuve. There's a few other people that are competing for that spot, but denny villeneuve has to be on the Academy Award list. Is Denis Villeneuve? There's a few other people that are competing for that spot, but Denis Villeneuve has to be the favorite. It just becomes a question of is the Academy going to mimic the DGA and forego any veteran? Right?

Joseph:

The last time the DGAs, you could argue, presented a list without they omitted a veteran, without a veteran. Where they omitted a veteran was something like 2017, because Christopher Nolan, famously, was not nominated for director before Dunkirk. Neither was Guillermo del Toro. You had Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele and Marta McDonough. That's the DGA 5.

Joseph:

And what we could expect is the Oscar 5 in that year. But the Academy Awards decided to snub Martin McDonough in favor of Paul Thomas Anderson, right, and he would get his second nomination for directing Right. And this happens also in something like 2016, where the year before, phantom Thread got that Best Director nomination, where someone like Mel Gibson was able to get the Best Director nomination over the director of Lion, mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge. And so we've seen over the last few years that the Academy has been sort of have a desire to include at least one veteran in their lineup.

Joseph:

Exactly. The Academy has chosen to include a veteran, has chosen to include a veteran Even when the DGA broke free of that and only nominated first-timers individuals without Oscar nominations in the category of directing. The Academy has sort of said I want to have someone here who represents a previous nominee.

Jules:

Paul.

Joseph:

Thomas Anderson, mel Gibson and, if you look at something like 2016,. It's an interesting case also because the DGA 5, there was still a veteran of the DGA on that list, and so Garth Davis, I believe, who was nominated for directing Lion at the Director's Guild Award, who would be snubbed in favor of Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge. He was a previous DGA nominee for his commercial work. What's interesting this year is that, as far as I know, none of these filmmakers are previous DGA nominees. Even someone like Edward Berger for Conclave, who's worked in television, who's worked on something like Patrick Melrose, that has been nominated for Emmys I think this is his first nomination within the Guild as a whole. Same thing with someone like Sean Baker, who's been making films since 2006, I think the early 2000s and even James Mangold, who's been making films since the mid-90s right, he's never been recognized by this Guild. So, not only do we have a list of no previous Oscar nominees at the DGA, but we have a list of no previous DGA nominees, and that's something that you didn't see in 2016 with Garth Davis, right, and that's something that you didn't see in 2017. Right, because, by that point, christopher Nolan had been nominated for the Dark Knight and Inception. Right, because by that point Christopher Nolan had been nominated for the Dark Knight and Inception.

Joseph:

So it again goes to this idea that that this branch of voter is going to be very open to having a list exclusively of first-time nominees for directing, right? I went back and I did some research and I researched the last time that the DGA had five first-time filmmakers, five filmmakers without any Academy Award nominations for Best Director. That resulted in a list at the Academy Awards that had no veteran. And the closest I can come up with was something like 1997, when James Cameron for Titanic, curtis Hanson for LA Confidential, adam McGuire for the Sweet Hereafter they're all first-time directing nominees at the Academy and over at the Directors Guild they did nominate two veterans. At the Directors Guild that got snubbed in favor of two newbies, two first-time directors nominated yeah, two first-time directors, two newbies Nominated yeah, two first-time directors nominated.

Joseph:

So the DGA went for Steven Spielberg for Amistad that year, 1997, and James O Brooks for as Good as it Gets. The Academy decided instead to nominate Adam Egoyan for the Sweet Hereafter his first nod in directing, and the director of the Full Monty, which was his first nod in directing. Interestingly enough, he was a previous nominee, I believe, for short film. So maybe that was sort of in the mentality of the director's voting bloc that sort of allowed him to be nominated over perennial favorites like Steven Spielberg. But I definitely think it shows that if it hasn't happened since 1997, it hasn't happened since 1997 that there is again just this behavior among the directing branch that wants to include a veteran on its lineup. Right, if you look at something like 1999, a few years later, the Directors Guild would nominate five newbies that included someone like Frank Darabont who was snubbed for the Shawshank Redemption and would be nominated for the Green Mile in 1999.

Joseph:

But that year, had the Academy Awards mimicked the best director list of the DGA with their own list at the Academy, you would have had five newbies because you had Michael Mann, you had Spike Jonze, you had a bunch of individuals M Night Shyamalan who were not previous nominees in the Best Director category. What they end up doing is they end up snubbing Frank Darabont again for the Green Mile in favor of Lasse Hallström for the side of house rules. Holstrom for the side of house rules, right. So there's another instance where the dga sort of pushed forward the idea of well, let's nominate five never oscar nominated directors and the academy sort of said well, you know what? I would rather leave out someone who has even been nominated for the guild twice at this point, like frank darabont, in favor of a previous oscar nominee, like lassa holstrom right, right.

Joseph:

And if you look at something like 1996, that you have another year where the DGA went for someone like Cameron Crowe or Jerry Maguire and the Academy instead goes for Milos Forman, for the People versus Larry Flint. Again, just that idea of the Academy voting branch, the director's voting branch, wanting to have a veteran on that lineup, right voting branch, the director's voting branch wanting to have a veteran on that lineup. Before that, 1995 was the year when you had five newbies at the Director's Guild Award. Right, and it's interesting because that is one of the few years where you have, like 1997, five newbies in the Academy also. They just don't happen to be the same newbies. So if the Director's Guild Award in 1995 went for Ron Howard for Apollo 13 and Ang Lee for Sense and Sensibility, the Academy sort of said, well, we'll nominate all newbies also, but we'll do Tim Robbins for Dead man Walking and the director of Babe, chris Noonan.

Joseph:

In 1995, the director's branch had a choice within the Academy to not nominate all newbies and to instead nominate, for example, marnus Scorsese for Casino. They could have nominated Clint Eastwood for Bridges of Madison County. They could have nominated Oliver Stone for Nixon. These are all movies that were nominated for Academy Awards that could have filled out what is basically a mandatory veteran slot, and the Academy decided that it was, or the director's voting branch decided that it was better to just nominate five new directors, five directors who hadn't been there before, even if they weren't the exact five from the DGA, or the five that were the favorite at that point, switching out, for example, tim Robbins for Ang Lee.

Joseph:

And if you go back to something like 1979, is another instance where you'll see five best directors at the DGA who were not previous Oscar nominees in that category. And you'll even have someone who made that DGA list, like Paul Mazursky, who was a notable writer, notable Academy Award-nominated writer at that point, who was nominated at the Director's Guild Award for An Unmarried Woman, a movie that would end up, as we said, in the top five for Best Picture. We talked about how the DGA five is usually the Oscar five for Best Picture.

Joseph:

He would get snubbed in favor of someone like Woody Allen, who had just won a few years before for Annie Hall. He would be nominated for Interiors, and so you'd have a veteran there again. And so there's just this push and pull this year as to whether there's going to be a veteran or not. I think if the DGA is anything to go by, it suggests that there is not going to be a veteran, but Academy history would suggest that they're going to try to put a veteran on there.

Jules:

And I think it's also important to note that this DGA 5 didn't include Denis Villeneuve for Dune Part 2, but the last time Dune was in contention it did include it. It did include Denis Villeneuve for Dune part one, where the academy didn't. So there's sort of a an empty space there in that or something to consider in that the DGA could have felt that they already recognized Denis Villeneuve for his work in Dune last time.

Jules:

They don't need to this year make room for someone else. The Academy is the opposite. They passed over Denis Villeneuve. Maybe this year they're going to feel more.

Joseph:

Like they owe him.

Jules:

Like they owe him a nomination for the work in totality of Dune and that it would be fitting to have him nominated for this franchise as a success, a financial success, an artistic success, success, and have him nominated in that veteran spot yeah so there's a sort of symmetry to it right, exactly a

Joseph:

sort of it sort of complements what happened in 2021, which is that denivo knew, as you said, did not get the academy award nomination, but he got that guild nomination this year. Maybe what's going to end up happening is that he did not get that guild nomination, but he will get the academy award nomination right. So I think you're right that could end up being a factor here. The other thing I want to talk about, which I thought was sort of interesting, if you're really analyzing the race a lot is it's a pretty well-rounded list. This dga five or oscar best picture five. You have con films, a A Palm Dior Winner in Enora. You have another Cannes film in Emilia Perez. You have a Venice film in the Brutalist. You have a biopic in A Complete Unknown which is from Fox Searchlight as well, and lastly, you have Edward Berger for Conclave Edward.

Joseph:

Berger for Conclave, which did really well at BAFTA and has a lot of ties to international production and certainly British production, and so it makes a pretty compelling list, a pretty complete list of an Oscar Best Picture five. But I was thinking that there are some titles here that really pop out to me, and one of them that really pops out to me is Onora, because what's interesting about Anora is I believe it is the first Palme d'Or winning film to make it onto this list, other than Parasite. Right Triangle of Sadness did not make this list.

Joseph:

Right right. Tree of Life did not make this list. Any other film that I believe was nominated for the Palme d'or that was then nominated for the academy award that won the palm, dior well I'm thinking about a film like drive my car, which did not win the palm dior yes, it did not make it onto this list, right, and so the idea that a nora has enough appeal to be both a palm dior winner and a dGA top five and an Oscar Best Picture five Bodes well.

Joseph:

It's really compelling. It bodes really well for it. I guess what I'm trying to suggest is whatever voting block, whatever portion of the Academy membership that is powerful enough to get Triangle of Sadness and Tree of Life three nominations apiece, that Onora has that and more and then some, or maybe it doesn't even have that and it's writing a certain another type of energy, right again into that spot right and so why I bring that up is because a parasite went on to win and I'm not sure that you and I at this moment think that a Nora carries that same sort of energy that is required for winning Right.

Joseph:

And so I'm going to revisit the idea of, as I start formulating my final five, that maybe there is a portion of voters within the Academy that are powerful enough to get Triangle of Sadness and Tree of Life nominated. That is not necessarily the portion of voters that are going to push Onora the hardest, because they feel comfortable that Onora has enough push from elsewhere to get it nominated. And that's why I'm saying that a Nora is is a weird sort of Palme d'Or winner, because you know a lot of the energy that gets the drive, my cars in and the triangle of sadness is in. They don't have that same American energy from the voting block, the American voting block that a Nora has, because Sean Baker has such a storied history with the American independent voting block of the Academy, right.

Jules:

Yeah.

Joseph:

He's been nominated multiple times at the Independent Spirit Awards multiple critic nominations a highlight for a lot of moviegoers and movie critics. Every year he has a film. So I wonder if again there is this sort of unseen contender whether it's All we Imagine is Light or Seat of the Sacred Fig that could end up crashing the Best Picture 10 and possibly the Best Director 5, because Onora doesn't require all that energy from whatever that voting block is that gets the drive my cars in interesting that's.

Joseph:

That's an interesting point. Whatever, whatever energy was necessary to get a film like drive my car into the five for director or 10 for best picture. I'm not sure that that's there for anora. I think anora is appealing enough that it's it's there in the director's guild top five because it checks enough boxes for everyone and it sort of has broad appeal, and so it does sort of stick out to me as a Palme d'Or winner. And then, now that we're on that subject, the other movie that sticks out to me is Emilia Perez.

Joseph:

And correct me if I'm wrong, but is Emilia Perez the last film to be nominated for Best Director at the DGA? That's, a foreign language film, other than parasite as well. Well, roma, roma was nominated, but that was before parasite. Right, right, right, yeah, and they, they were. You know, they've always been fans of Cuaron, they, they Cuaron, they knew from gravity. Then you have, so Parasite. But if you look at other films Drive my Car, other films that were listed in the Oscars Best Director Top 5, there aren't very many foreign language films, and so the idea that Emilia Perez could be a foreign language film within this, DGA Top 5, I think also bodes well and speaks to how the piece is resonating with members of the industry at large.

Joseph:

And again, it's another film where, if this film is speaking to enough voters to get into DGA five again, whatever energy was required to drive my car into best picture is not the same one that's going to be present for amelia perez I also.

Jules:

I you could, but I would. But I would argue that in a in a way you could have that voting block that pushes that passion for a foreign film or, yeah, an international film. This lineup is very international because, taking Onora aside, even though it won the biggest award you know, internationally speaking for film, which is considered by many the biggest, the Cannes-Palme d'Or, taking that aside Jacques Odiard, the European band that is there and that is also there for Conclave and that is certainly there for the Brutalist. It's a DJ5 that feels, again, very influenced by these sort of foreign sectors. It just feels very international to me.

Jules:

And so you could have a case here where that voting bloc is sort of has their pickings here, because you could have one that segues to Amiga Perez, another group that segues to Conclave, another group that segues to the Brutalists. So there's ample choice here, whereas some of the other more American commercial titles like we talked about, wicked is having less resonance than those European titles. So I think that could be something that happens. In place of Right. We typically see that sort of voting block, that passion vote summoning, something like the director of Drive my Car.

Jules:

Right, I think that's something to consider. But I would say what's most interesting to me is trying to look at this list a strong list and trying to fathom if they were to continue with the trend of including a veteran filmmaker, who the hell gets snubbed? That, to me, is the more perplexing question because, as you just said, I highly doubt a film like Onora and Emilia Perez that's having this sort of really broad appeal could be the ones that get snubbed from this list. It's hard to imagine Brady Corbett, post-winning the Golden Globe for Best Director, getting snubbed for that film, especially as filmmakers are going to consider that film a big achievement in many regards. And it's hard to see Conclave getting snubbed because I do feel, as we've discussed, he has leftover goodwill from Aquila and the Western Front, where he was not nominated for director, and this film also has a broad base of passion for this film. I think it stands to get many Oscar nominations. So you're left with someone like James Mangold, which would make sense to some degree, but to another degree, he makes perfect sense to be included into the list because he's never been nominated for Best Director, right, and this is sort of the kind of film that has really helped his career put him into a place of prominence. You know we talk often about this parallel between a complete unknown and walk the line, yeah, and how that didn't get an eye for Best Picture or Best Director, but it was a big success. It continues to be a film that people still remember, still talk about. He's never been recognized by the director's branch of the Academy as a director nominee yeah.

Jules:

And here we have a perfect opportunity for a film that seems to be a top five film. It's about Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is a producer on it. It's financially successful. It just takes all the boxes Exactly. And so would they really snub him again to include someone like Denis Villeneuve? Part of you says yes. Another part of you says, well, you know, does that make a lot of sense? And then it goes to this other matter that I brought up to you, in that a complete and known stands to do pretty well in that James Mangold should be nominated as a producer, I believe, for the film, and a writer, and he should be nominated as a writer. So maybe it's overkill a little bit to have him have three nominations in one year, including director. So maybe, if you look at it through that lens. It makes sense to snub someone like James Mangold. It's really hard to see what avenue the Academy is going to take.

Joseph:

I agree.

Joseph:

I think that you and I were right on the money with James Mangold.

Joseph:

To me, as I told you before, this kind of feels like the film where, if James Mangold cannot get into the Oscar five best director for this film, I'm not sure if there is a film that he can get nominated for the Oscar best five.

Joseph:

It just takes so many of the right boxes and at this point his career is so well developed that it's going to be very difficult, I think, for them to leave him off that list. And if they do again, I'm just not sure what James Mangold would have to do to get on that list. I think that the two vulnerable films would probably be the more conventional films, which is Berger and Mangold for a Conclave and a Complete Unknown respectively. Yes, but you and I talk about this list, and so here are some of the movies that I think had enough of that passion to get into the Oscar Best Director list or slash Best Picture list that were not listed at the DGA. So you have films like Past Lives, which I think maybe got that lower tier Best First Film but not Best Director, like Greta Gerwig did, I think, for Lady Bird, she got an eye for Best Director I believe.

Jules:

Yeah, she didn't get an eye for Best First Film.

Joseph:

Exactly so. The director of Past Lives did not get nominated for Best Film at the DGA. Neither did. Can you qualify for both? I don't think you can. I think you can because Jordan Peele got nominated for Get Out on the main list. Oh. So I believe they could have nominated her for Best Director last year. They did not. They did not nominate the director of the Zone of Interest. They did not nominate the director of Anatomy of the Fall. Again, these are more festival films. You have your con titles there, challenging arthouse films, independent films. That's not the list we have this year. This year we have honora the brutalist and amelia paris on the list, right, so I'm sort of saying that either that faction of voter is going to say, well, I don't have to push too hard, because those movies are already in there.

Joseph:

They're going to say I'll push something else, because those movies are pretty secure but if you look at this list, if, if you have edgy, compelling, international art house independent work already included, then what is this missing? It's missing conventionality. It's missing, if you look at it, some spectacle and it's certainly missing a veteran. So I think the Denis Villeneuve bid is very much alive, even though I think it's certainly, certainly in jeopardy, because if the DGAs are saying it's okay to go, no veteran, then I think it's going to be very tempting for the Academy to say no veteran, and it seems like the DGA sort of punished any movie that had the word part in its title whether it's part two or part one, and I cannot imagine that more picky Academy voters, especially in the directing branch, is going to be that much more welcoming of any title that has the word part in it.

Jules:

Yeah, I agree 100%. So it's tricky. Yeah, that last spot trying to fathom if someone like James Mangold or Edward Berger is going to get snubbed in favor of someone like Denis Villeneuve.

Joseph:

No, it's tricky, it's uncertain or another edgier work that maybe that faction of voters who were pushing someone like Past Lives or the Zone of Interest into Best Director, when they see that Anora, the Brutalist and Emilia Perez are safe, do enough of them list Coralie Fargeat at number one for the Substance?

Jules:

I would place her below Denis Villeneuve. I don't think that the film, considering how picky the Academy is and how picky they've been with the female filmmakers and the female directed films that they include in their lineup, I'm just not sure that I see this type of film from coralie getting into the five. Um, even though many people believe that she will get nominated, I don't see her as being the prime person to steal a spot, especially over someone like denis villeneuve.

Joseph:

It's interesting also that this dga list again a very complete list it has films that are all going to be represented in writing for the most part, but certainly acting. Yeah, right. So what you're missing here again is whatever movie avatar is, whoever's gonna hold up the avatar spot. That's the movie that this list is technically missing yeah 100% again.

Jules:

It's sort of that last big quandary that we are posing is very much in this uncertain place. I'm not sure what's going to happen yet. I'm still mulling it over. I think you are as well.

Joseph:

Yeah.

Jules:

Before we make our final predictions of the final five. But it's certainly going to be a tricky category to pull off 100% accurate.

Joseph:

Yeah.

Jules:

Yeah, well then, that's our dive into Best Director and the DGA, and we will see you next time. I'm Jules, and.

Joseph:

I'm Joseph.

Jules:

And it's been a pleasure. The music on this episode, entitled Kool Kats, was graciously provided by Kevin MacLeod and Incompetechcom Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0. Http//creativecommonsorg Licenses by 3.0.

Joseph:

Disclaimer the Academy Anonymous podcast is in no way affiliated or endorsed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.