DGA Tomorrow

The Directors Guild of America announces their picks tomorrow morning. This is a huge indicator of Oscar contenders. The interesting thing is that the DGA usually matches up with Best Picture, not Best Director. Since 2002, the DGA nominees have translated 5/5 to the Best Picture lineup with the exception of last year, when "Dreamgirls" missed out on the Oscar list in favor of "Letters from Iwo Jima". The DGA is not where surprise directors like Pedro Almodovar, Fernando Mereilles, Mike Leigh, or Paul Greengress pop up, but rather were the films not traditionally praised for their directing show up, like "Seabiscuit", "Finding Neverland", and "Little Miss Sunshine". Only twice in the past twenty years has the DGA lineup matched the Oscar list for Best Director 5/5 - in 1998 and 2005. Tom O'Neil, an awards expert and columnist over at GoldDerby, writes that some of the late released films like "Juno", "Sweeney Todd", "Atonement", and "There Will Be Blood" will very likely be left off the DGA list this year just like they were with SAG. I for one will still include them because I had three out of four on my original predictions list and think they can still make it. I was warned, and I may do poorly because of it, but I am willing to take the risk. I especially have faith in "Juno" because it is exactly the "Little Miss Sunshine" type of film which DGA seems to like so much.

My no guts, no glory prediction (not going to happen, but wouldn't it be cool?)
PAUL HAGGIS, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH

My alternates for the top five:
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
JULIAN SCHNABEL, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
RIDLEY SCOTT, AMERICAN GANGSTER
SIDNEY LUMET, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD
DAVID CRONENBERG, EASTERN PROMISES

My predictions:
THE COEN BROTHERS, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
JOE WRIGHT, ATONEMENT
SEAN PENN, INTO THE WILD
JASON REITMAN, JUNO
TIM BURTON, SWEENEY TODD

See you tomorrow. Golden Globe winner predictions will begin tomorrow, despite all this hoopla about there being no televised event.