This is… the story of a girl… who cried a river and drowned the whole world…
Director’s Guild president Taylor Hackford today announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2012, which included Steven Spielberg and Les Misérables director Tom Hooper, but not Paul Thomas Anderson, Rian Johnson, Steven Soderbergh, or Quentin Tarantino. If you wonder why there are so many bad movies, that a voting majority of directors have boring, crappy taste may have something to do with it.
Argo – Ben Affleck
Zero Dark Thirty – Kathryn Bigelow
Les Misérables -Tom Hooper
Life of Pi – Ang Lee
Lincoln – Steven Spielberg [full press release]
This is Spielberg’s 11th DGA nomination, a record. I don’t know what’s worse, the DGA not recognizing The Master, Django Unchained, or Looper (all of which feature in my top five of the year), or that they honored Les Mis with anything but a Smash Mouth parody. Especially since the Les Mis haters were so vocal:
Director Tom Hooper piles one terrible decision upon another, with the result being a movie so overbearingly maudlin and distorted that it’s one of 2012′s most excruciating film experiences. -The Wrap
…a maudlin act of white-noise desperation, underscored by director Tom Hooper’s inability to discern the difference between quiet and loud – not just musically, but as a storyteller and dramatist. -Todd Gilchrist, THR/Celebuzz
This fake-opulent Les Miz made me long for guillotines. -Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
Fans of the original production, no doubt, will eat the movie up, and good luck to them. I screamed a scream as time went by. -The New Yorker
A swing and a miz. -Boston Herald
Not for nothing, I went in as a Les Mis virgin, and I thought the first half about redemption was sort of interesting, and the second half about a torn-from-a-romance-novel love triangle was pretty boring. My uncontrollable laughter at Eddie Redmayne’s Parkinson’s-esque delivery was a particular highlight. Russell Crowe gets more crap than he deserves for his singing, which actually got more tolerable as the movie progressed, whereas Hugh Jackman’s flat, vibrato-y tenor got less. (Best singer of the cast was Amanda Seyfried, though Anne Hathaway did a great job acting through her singing).
BAH! They almost tricked me! Don’t you see? This is how they get you! I refuse to discuss the self-congratulatory awards prospects of a movie created solely for the purpose of winning self-congratulatory awards! Here’s your gold pander star for excellence in pandering, pandery! F*ck that movie, f*ck awards, and f*ck you! (*burns bra, flips off the TV*)
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Oh fuck dude, The Mighty Feklahr knew this post was going to be one of your best ever the second He saw the fucking headline.
Since when did Anne Hathaway start emulating Andy Serkis?
You mean Matthew Broderick.
Anne Hathaway stars in “Lady Hawke”. But not as the actual Lady Hawke.
Guh, don’t give Peter Jackson any ideas about motion capture musicals. He’ll turn Lord of the Rings back into a German opera and split it into 14 parts.
Thank God *someone* is still willing to encourage Ste–Mr. Spielberg to make cello-y period pieces instead of high fiving dinosaur adventures.
Is there really a movie with high fiving dinosaurs, or was that just an allusion? (Dead serious.)
No. No, but there could have been, if Steven Spielberg had kept making Jurassic Park movies. Maybe the raptors learn to high five after stalking children through the tall grass. (This is a free idea for you, Steven. Do it.)
Or like a tragic silent movie of T Rex’s that want to high five each other, but their arms are too short…
I like it. The sadness would allow him to use his stirring orchestral music.
Samuell Jackson was in Jurassic Park. He could have taught the dinosaurs all kinds of cool handshakes because black.
Not a high five, but The Lost World’s gymnastic-kick to the raptor is equivalent.
Hackford? Ha! More like…um. Hackfor…Hack…he’s a…
…It appears Hackford will suffice.
Of course the president of the DGA’s first name is “Taylor.”
Hackford did Walk Hard, right? I really liked that one.
He did Walk the Line. Walk Hard was much better. Unless you already knew that, in which case, whatever.
You have to reach back for his good stuff like Officer and a Gentleman, which, I still maintain, is about Louis Gosset jr being secretly in love with Richard Gere and his gerbil.
Such crap that Looper and Django were robbed of nominations when they honor Les Miz. Even people who like the film (im not one of them) agree that its biggest issue was the crappy direction. its insane that he gets honored over more worthy people. Ugh! The King’s Speech wasnt even good
Vince, your clothes never wear as well the next day and your jew fro never falls in quite the same way but you never seem to run out of things to say…that make me smile.
I would trade Hackford Armond any day of the week.
Best Director isn’t an award for “Most entertaining if a bit ridiculous Film”. This is why movies like Looper and Django get passed up. Too much “I’m laughing my balls off, bit that’s just silly” in them.
Is it an award for “By the numbers, expected period drama or adaptation?”
This year, it appears to be the award for “Political drama that exceeds all expectations since it was Directed by the guy from Gigli”
We can agree to disagree about Django and Looper (best original sci-fi film in years, if you ask me), but then what *is* the DGA meant to award? Pointless exercises in awards pandering? Why else film the umpteenth adaptation of Les Mis featuring one original song to keep you eligible for a best original song Oscar?
I will give you, “Argo.” Goodman and Arkin made that movie more fun than basing Lincoln.
I think “awards movie” is it’s own genre at this point. In the same way you can argue “literary fiction” has become (largely) a kind of self-parodying genre. All of the movies up there, even Argo, hit the same expected beats as any Michael Bay summer-blockbuster-by-numbers.
(The exception is Zero Dark Thirty, but only because I haven’t seen it.)
Again, these awards ARE exactly that, insider back slapping pandering bullshit. If every year the most solidly entertaining and noteworthy Films were the ones that were nominated and won these various Awards, rather than the ones certain cliques of “artistes” in Hollywood have been sufficiently fellated over, Things would be vastly different.
If Django or Looper were nominated, they would still suffer the same fate as Star Wars in 1978 and Raiders in 1981. Clearly more entertaining and well received than their stuffy farthouse peers, but ultimately too common and pedestrian for the Academy to fully recognize.
Is The Return of The King too common and pedestrian to win an Academy award? Sorry for being contrarian.
The awards people occasionally do something interesting and get it right. Hurt Locker, the screenwriting awards (usually), Lose Yourself. Bigelow is the most deserving one on this list, and I say that with complete confidence having seen 2 of the 5 movies in question.
I have less than Zero interest in seeing anymore retarded, irresponsible military fantasies from Bigelow. Sorry Larry but that’s what she does. The guys she worked with, on whom she “based” the hurt locker on, wish she would die in a fire and so do I.
Also – we forget, The Academy thinks it did the whole Sci-Fi branch of the movie industry a solid by handing Peter Jackson the award for Lord of the Rings (and only did so because of it’s well-regarded classic source material). So they figure they’re off the hook on nominating or seriously considering any kind of Sci-Fi or Fantasy films for another 20 years or so.
As for Django – again, fan favorite that is just way too over the top in many regards to be considered worthy of serious praise.
Oh you.
For reals? Les Mis was at least 50% uncomfortable, static close-ups of people singing.
Seriously!
Almost every fucking shot in the first half only showed the face or upper torso. So weirdly disorienting.
Awards shows suck, even the AVNs get it wrong.
All Asa Akira, ALL DAY.
If only JGL had hung some dong for the papparazzi.
You’re not even fucking trying.
I’d be happy to see Affleck take this one home. Spielberg can suck it.