Today’s LION Award goes to Best Director of 2010. With 46 participating voters, here are the Top 5:

A bit different from the Academy’s nominees, no? Only two more days of awards and tomorrow we’ll have the Bottom 5 Films from last year.

Interesting that Best Director garnered the most votes (48) for any category not named “Top 10″ (which was a required category). More than the glory guys and gals of the actor and actress categories, you chose to honor those that did their work from behind the camera. Even more fitting, a future Director Chair honoree finished in the top two; synergy, people! This was an absolute two-horse race - third place earned a piddly three votes.

The runner-up, with 14 votes: Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

And the winner, with 19 votes: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Next up… Best Supporting Actress. Stay tuned to the LAMB for more of the LIONs, culminating with our Top 10 Films of 2009.

Editor’s note: Welcome to the first of a 33-part series dissecting the 82st Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every day leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category of the Oscars. To read any other posts regarding this event, please click the tag following the post. Thank you, and enjoy!

By Emma of Final Cut.

The Academy Award for Best Director has long been a controversial one. Often labelled as ‘sexist’, the Academy has never given the award to a woman and in its eighty-one year history has only nominated three. Lina Wertműller was the first to be nominated in 1977 for Pasqualino Settebellezze (Seven Beauties). The film earned a total of four nominations (director, foreign film, actor in a leading role and original screenplay) but didn’t win any. Jane Campion was nominated for The Piano in 1994 which won three awards (leading actress, supporting actress and original screenplay) and earned a further five nominations (director, cinematography, costume design, editing and best picture). The latest woman to be nominated was Sofia Coppola in 2004 for Lost in Translation. Like Campion, the film was also nominated for Best Picture and she took home the award for Original Screenplay (the film was further nominated for leading actor). The issue with films directed by women receiving nominations in other categories has been a long-running one with all three nominated female directors picking up Best Screenplay and actors winning Oscars for roles written or directed by women (Melissa Leo in Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River, Charlize Theron in Patty Jenkins’ Monster and Hilary Swank in Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry).

2009 has been a great year for women directors. Big names include Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Nancy Meyers (It’s Complicated), Nora Ephron (Julie and Julia), Jane Campion (Bright Star), Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank), Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel), Anne Fletcher (The Proposal), Drew Barrymore (Whip It) and Lone Scherfig (An Education). These names have proved successful with critics, at festivals, early awards ceremonies or with audiences. Andrea Arnold has already picked up awards at Cannes Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards and Jane Campion and Kathryn Bigelow were both strong early contenders to pick up the Oscar for Best Director this year. They face competition from Golden Globe nominees Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Lee Daniels (Precious, Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) and Golden Globe winner James Cameron (Avatar).

The Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture often go hand in hand. Of the eighty films that have won Best Picture, fifty-nine of those also won Best Director with just three Best Picture winners not nominated for Best Director. It has also been argued that there are links between Golden Globe winners and Oscar winners but recent years have seen differences between the big winners. Seventeen of the last twenty five Best Director winners at the Golden Globes won the Oscar and eighteen of the last twenty five Best Picture winners at the Golden Globes won the Oscar. Until Avatar was released, I firmly believed that The Hurt Locker would win Best Picture and Best Director but seeing as blockbusters like Titanic and The Lord of the Rings have won big in recent years, I think James Cameron’s latest technical triumph stands a good chance. I just think it would be a shame to see a film that is often reviewed as being all style and no substance win over a more topical, dramatic and intense one. Cameron told Variety, “I remember being outraged when Star Wars lost to Annie Hall. I thought, ‘Well that’s ridiculous. Star Wars changed the face of filmmaking and Annie Hall’s a nice little film.’ I like Annie Hall but I thought that was outrageous.” Personally, unless a film has an engaging plot and jaw-dropping effects, I don’t think it should be nominated for more than the technical awards. I like to see smaller films rewarded.

Hopes are now high for Kathryn Bigelow to become the first woman to win Best Director. Having recently won the Directors Guild of America award, Bigelow is now a shoo-in for the little gold man. In the sixty years since the first DGA award was accepted, only six times has the recipient not won the Oscar and she was the first woman to receive it.

The Big Five

Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker

Previous features as director: The Loveless (1982), Near Dark (1987), Blue Steel (1989), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1985), The Weight of Water (2000), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002).

Previous awards: Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films (won Best Director for Strange Days and was nominated for Near Dark), BAFTA (nominated for Best Director for The Hurt Locker), Directors Guild of America (won Best Director for The Hurt Locker), Golden Globes (nominated for Best Director for The Hurt Locker), many critics and festival awards for Best Director for The Hurt Locker.

What the critics said: Rob Daniels at Sky Movies - “Kathryn Bigelow’s explosive, edge-of-the-seat thriller is one the best war movies ever made. After years in the wilderness, the director’s stunning return to form is set, fittingly enough, in the arid landscape of a scorched Iraq.”Dave Calhoun at Time Out – “Bigelow’s film combines an expert management of tension with a sensitive and journalistic attention to detail: she has one eye on the truth and the other on the multiplex.” Jonathan Dean at Total Film – “Director Kathryn Bigelow shifts focus from those that chatter to those that matter – the soldiers – and in doing so has crafted the finest film made about the Bush/Blair Iraq assault and its protracted aftermath yet.”

Chances: A woman has never won Best Director and only three have been nominated in over eighty years. This could be the year things change though as Bigelow became the first woman to win the DGA award. War films have often found success at the Academy Awards with seventeen Best Director winners and 22 nominees recognised for their work on war films.

James Cameron - Avatar

Previous features as director: Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981), The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997).

Previous awards: Academy Awards (won Best Director, Editing and Picture for Titanic), Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films (seven wins and four nominations for writing and directing Strange Days, The Abyss, True Lies, Terminator 2, Aliens and The Terminator), BAFTAs (nominated for Best Director, Editing and Film for Avatar and Titanic), Directors Guild of America (nominated for Avatar and won for Titanic), Golden Globes (won Best Director for Avatar and Titanic).

What the critics said: David Edwards at the Daily Mirror – “Avatar truly is something else, a wondrously-detailed visual extravaganza quite unlike anything you’ve seen before.” Rich Cline at Shadows on the Wall – “A mind-bending epic that’s both visually spectacular and emotionally involving.” David Hunter at Heat Magazine – “Ground-breaking cinema of the most eye-popping variety. Avatar is right up there with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings as a milestone in fantasy film-making.”

Chances: Blockbusters tend not to win Oscars but Titanic pretty much swept the board. Cameron could see a repeat performance with Avatar although a sci-fi film has never won the biggie.

Jason Reitman – Up in the Air

Previous features as director: Thank You For Smoking (2005), Juno (2007).

Previous awards: Academy Awards (nominated for Best Director for Juno), BAFTAs (nominated for Best Film and Screenplay for Up in the Air), several festival wins and nominations for Up in the Air, Directors Guild of America (nominated for Up in the Air), Golden Globes (won Best Screenplay and nominated for Best Director for Up in the Air), Independent Spirit Awards (nominated for Best Director for Juno and won Best Screenplay for Thank You For Smoking), Writers Guild of America (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Up in the Air and Thank You For Smoking).

What the critics said: Neil Smith at Total Film – “Witty, pertinent and moving, this is a sophisticated treat from a director who gets exponentially better with every picture with every picture.” Ian Nathan at Empire Magazine – “In Reitman’s care, channelling the breezy, matter-of-fact perkiness if Juno, it is an emphatic statement that Hollywood can still make great movies; a celebration that stardom can be as thrilling a concept as 3-D or CG or mooncalf vampires.” Tim Grierson at Screen International – “It’s one of those rare mainstream Hollywood pictures that addresses contemporary issues gracefully.”

Chances: Reitman wouldn’t be the first director to win for an indie film or the youngest director. Few have won for a simple, pleasant story with voters favouring biopics, true stories, war films or controversy. The last contemporary drama to win the Oscar for Best Director was Barry Levinson for Rain Man in 1988.

Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds

Previous features as director: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Grindhouse (2007), Death Proof (2007).

Previous awards: Academy Awards (won Best Screenplay and nominated for Best Director for Pulp Fiction), Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films (nominated for Best Director and Screenplay for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 and Screenplay for True Romance), BAFTAs (nominated for Best Director for Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction, Best Film for Pulp Fiction, Original Screenplay for Inglourious Basterds and won Original Screenplay for Pulp Fiction), festival and critics wins and nominations for Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds and Death Proof), Directors Guild of America (nominated for Best Director for Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction), Golden Globes (nominated for Best Director for Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction, nominated for Original Screenplay for Inglourious Basterds and won Best Screenplay for Pulp Fiction), Independent Spirit Awards (nominated for Best Director and First Feature for Reservoir Dogs and won Best Director and Screenplay for Pulp Fiction).

What the critics said: Matthew Turner at ViewLondon – “A tense, thrilling, brilliantly acted and superbly directed war flick that just might be Tarantino’s masterpiece.”Christ Hewitt at Empire – “Every bit as idiosyncratic as the spelling of its title, it’s a wonderfully-acted movie that subverts expectation at every turn. And it may represent the most confident, audacious writing and directing of QT’s career.” Todd McCarthy at Variety – “By turns surprising, nutty, windy, audacious and a bit caught up in its own cleverness, the picture is a completely distinctive piece of American pop art with a strong Euro flavor that’s new for the director.”

Chances: Another war film. Tarantino has always been more likely to win for his original screenplays than his direction but Scorsese finally won for The Departed a couple of years ago so maybe he could get the award; just not this year. I think it’s a close race between Bigelow and Cameron.

Lee Daniels – Precious, Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Previous features as director: Shadowboxer (2005)

Previous awards: AFI Awards (nominated for Film of the Year for Monster’s Ball), BAFTAs (nominated for Best Film for Precious), Black Reel Awards (nominated for Best Director for Precious), several critics and festival wins and nominations for Precious, Directors Guild of America (nominated for Best Director for Precious), Independent Spirit Awards (nominated for Best Director and Film for Precious and nominated for Best First Feature for The Woodsman).

What the critics said: Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian – “The film is never shy of pressing the viewer’s buttons, but it’s put across with heartfelt power.” Mike Goodridge at Screen International – “Second-time director Lee Daniels creates a must-see portrait of life’s underprivileged which is utterly compelling.” Mike McGranaghan at Aisle Seat – “Beautifully and effectively crafted in every single way, the film looks unflinchingly into desperate lives and finds hope amidst the despair. This is truly a masterpiece of slice-of-life storytelling.”

Chances: John Singleton was the first and so far only African-American director to be nominated for an Academy Award for Boyz N the Hood in 1991. Child abuse also seems to be deemed too controversial for the Academy too.

Editor’s note: Welcome to the nineteenth of a 24-part series dissecting the 81st Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every day leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category of the Oscars. To read any other posts regarding this event, please click the tag following the post. Thank you, and enjoy!

By Nick of Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob.

When I started doing research on the Best Director award, I saw a question asked that is a very good one: If the director is in charge of making the movie as great as it is, why are there two separate categories for Best Director and Best Picture? If you’re the best director, shouldn’t that mean you’ve technically made the superior film? Especially in years like this, wherein the Best Director slots and the Best Picture slots share the same films.

But then there was a really good answer to go along with it… though I want to extend on it myself. The director is like the “author.” He or she is ‘god’ of the film, so to speak. Whatever he or she says goes. The director has control over everything, from getting the script to where he/she likes it to how the film is edited in post-production. And as an author, I can relate to that sentiment. However, I can also extend on it. Most people who write books (and I’m no exception) will tell you that there is a certain point where the characters just take a life of their own and write the story themselves. They take it in places you (as the ‘god’ figure) didn’t even expect the story to go. In essence, while the ‘author’ has the final say, it’s the little pieces that build themselves that make the work good or bad.

Now, to translate that into the movie realm, it’s the actors, actresses, set designers, etc… all of them working together to create things that even the director might not have expected (which you do hear quite often, especially in DVD commentaries). Actors are more phenomenal than the director first imagined. The costume or set designers or special effects teams create better visuals than even the director could have fathomed at the start. So in other words, just because you have a great director that formulates all this together into one work does not mean the picture is going to turn out the best.

But this also works vice versa. You can see In The Name of the King with a bunch of great actors and whatnot, but that still doesn’t make up for the fact that it was directed by Uwe Boll and turned into a complete mess. So that brings us to the Best Director category. The Best Director is somebody who not only works with excellent people, but uses those excellent people to create an excellent film. The director takes everything he or she is given and uses it to the best of his/her abilities. And then those efforts have to be better than the other four that they’re up against.

In the past, only 59 directors have also won Best Picture for their films (out of 80). That’s barely less than 3/4 of the count. And only three movies have won Best Picture without the director having also been at least nominated. And only two directors have won for films that were not nominated for Best Picture (which was back in the 20s). But as I’ve stated before, all the Best Directors and Best Pictures line up equally this year. So with all of that in mind, let’s look at this year’s nominees:

For specification, Previous Academy Nominations means how many times has the director been nominated as such for other films in the past for the Academy Awards. Previous Academy Wins is how many of those nominations were won. Direction Nominations For Current Film Elsewhere means how many other awards (Golden Globes, BAFTAs, etc.) nominated him for current film. Wins… well, that’s obvious. And then there’s percentage for winning the Oscar. And the numbers are just based on what I could find. So here we go.

Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Previous Academy Nominations: 2
Previous Academy Wins: 1
Director Nominations For Current Film Elsewhere: 4
Director Wins For Current Film Elsewhere: 1
Percentage To Win Oscar For Current Film: 1%

In my review for this film, I noted that Ron Howard, as a director, didn’t do anything groundbreaking here. He made a great film, but the directing was nothing particularly special. He didn’t take any chances. I knew even before seeing the movie that it was going to involve juxtapositions with past news footage, because that would be the predictable thing to do with this kind of film. He also kept the same actors from the stage play. Nothing with the camera work or editing was special. Nothing with the music was mind-blowing. Good film it was. Best Director it isn’t.

Gus Van Sant (Milk)
Previous Academy Nominations: 2
Previous Academy Wins: 0
Director Nominations For Current Film Elsewhere: 5
Director Wins For Current Film Elsewhere: 1
Percentage To Win Oscar For Current Film: 3%

Gus Van Sant can be a pretty good director (except for Elephant, which was self-indulgent, pretentious crap. If you want a great movie on school shootings, watch Bang Bang You’re Dead. But I digress). I also have yet to see Milk as of this point due to where I live. But I can tell that if any of the movies were to give the forerunner a run for its money, it would probably be this one. But we still all know it’s not gonna win.

Stephen Daldry (The Reader)
Previous Academy Nominations: 2
Previous Academy Wins: 0
Director Nominations For Current Film Elsewhere: 4
Director Wins For Current Film Elsewhere: 0
Percentage To Win Oscar For Current Film: 1%

I haven’t seen The Reader, so I can’t comment on it much, especially Director-wise. I’ve also never seen Billy Elliot or The Hours, the other two films for which he was nominated for an Academy Award in the past. It doesn’t really matter anyway. We all know he’s not gonna win.

David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Previous Academy Nominations: 0
Previous Academy Wins: 0
Director Nominations For Current Film Elsewhere: 4
Director Wins For Current Film Elsewhere: 2
Percentage To Win Oscar For Current Film: 1%

I think everybody can agree David Fincher is a great director: Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Zodiac… okay, so Alien 3 wasn’t the greatest, but every director has at least one bad movie. But does Ben Button stand up with the aforementioned four, or is it in the realm of Alien 3? Most would say the latter. Personally, I enjoyed the film (and apparently so did the Academy with it’s insane amount of nominations for the film). But is it worthy of Best Director? Did Fincher know when to leave stuff in or cut stuff out? Did he know how to pace his movie so not to bore the mass population that saw it? Was he able to get the best performances out of all his actors, including Brad Pitt? Was he able to make something original out of the script he was given? Most will answer these questions with a resounding “No.” But the real question is: Does the Academy care what everybody else thinks?

Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Previous Academy Nominations: 0
Previous Academy Wins: 0
Director Nominations For Current Film Elsewhere: 23
Director Wins For Current Film Elsewhere: 22
Percentage To Win Oscar For Current Film: 94%

I really think the numbers say it all. Regardless of Ben Button getting the numbers in nominations, I think Slumdog is gonna run the gamut. Boyle had the film edited masterfully, keeping a great pace with numerous flashbacks and multiple things going on at once. He chose great music. He received great performances, even from his child actors with no experience. He found beautiful (or beautifully gritty) places to shoot his settings. He even got people to stay in their seats, enthralled, during the credits. There’s really no doubt that Boyle is going to walk away with the award this year. And what’s next for Boyle after winning an Oscar? Hopefully 28 Months Later…

Editor’s note: Welcome to the fifteenth of a multi-part series dissecting the 2008 Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every weekday leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category (or more) of the Oscars (there are 24 in all). To read any other posts regarding this event, please just click on the tag following the post. Thank you, and enjoy!

By Tony Tanti of Watch It.

I know many will agree with me that there is nothing as important to a movie as its director. Great directing alone can never make a great movie, but there is so much depending on the director getting it right. The pacing, the tone, the overall look and even the motivation of the actors are all in the hands of the director, and though a great director cannot single-handedly make a great movie, a bad director can certainly single-handedly ruin one.

I’ve heard many people complain each year that the Best Director list is not the same as the Best Picture list; to me this has always made sense though. It is not a stretch to imagine a movie with outstanding directing which when compared to others may not provide the same level of the many other important aspects of a great movie. This year, the Best Picture and Best Director lists are almost identical save for one exception.

This year’s Oscar nominees for Best Director are as follows:

Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (the exception)
Jason Reitman for Juno
Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton
Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood

I will say right at the outset that I think it is ridiculous that Andrew Dominik was not nominated here for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The directing in this movie is among the best I’ve seen for years. I suppose it would be hard to know which of the nominees to remove in its place, but with the awards show being long winded as it is, I suspect the Academy just couldn’t be bothered to be reciting the title over and over on Oscar night.

There is only one movie on the nominee list that I had not seen anything about before hearing it was nominated and that is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. After taking a look at some clips and trailers, I can certainly see the reason for this nomination. Schnabel appears to be bringing very unique and breathtaking directing into the industry. Though I haven’t seen this movie yet, I plan to now and it’s always great to see someone pushing the creative envelope a bit and growing the art from.

My heart tells me to pull for my fellow countryman Jason Reitman on Oscar night, though, to be honest, among this list Juno seems the most out of place. It was well directed for sure and Reitman’s talent deserves to be acknowledged but I’m not convinced the directing in Juno deserves to be in the running here.

Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are all great examples of what this particular Oscar is all about. Gritty tone, amazing imagery and fantastic pacing permeate through them all. It would be a major upset if one of these three does not come away with the award.

I’m predicting that the Coen brothers take this one. No Country for Old Men has been almost universally hailed by critics and I think it narrowly edges out the other nominees in what was a very good year.