Think Greengrass is the weakest link from the group.

Jonze strikes me as an obvious potential spoiler. If this was a year of five Picture nominees he'd be an ideal lone director.

Yeah, having the Amour type of feeling for Her.

Maybe. But I'm not feeling it. Amour was much more accessible to Academy members who are, on average, older than Gandalf. Haneke coming off The White Ribbon helped too.

I still remember the Academy fucking over Being John Malkovich after it collected all guild noms. Granted, Jonze still got a BD nod,but I don't think he'll get in over the Coens this year.

BJM would've obviously been nominated in a field of 5-10 nominees though. Adaptation too, with its three acting nods (and a win) plus the screenplay nod. Also, this seems to be a more emotionally resonant film than either of those, which could help it.

Which is why I have it down for a BP nod. But in the directing deparment, I have a hard time seeing Jonze overcome Greengrass, Scorsese, the Coens, Russell, McQueen and Cuarón. In fact, Ryan Coogler, as mentioned by someone before, does have a very good chance to because his film is "relevant".

Thing with Her is that even if it gets aa BD nod for Jonze, it wll stil have just three nods in total - BP/BD/Screenplay. When was the last time to score just three noms with two of them being BP/BD. I don't see it scorign in the acting department, unlike Adaptation and Being John Malkovich.

I believe the surprise will be the absence of surprise. Cuarón, Greengrass, McQueen, Russell, and Scorsese.

Maybe. Who knows. That's why predicting is fun. Last year's BD category was the biggest nominations surprise ever since I have started followng the Oscars in 1999.

Harmony Korine!!! (lol can you imagine though)

Cuarón, McQueen and Russell look set. But then again, last year, Bigelow and Affleck looked as set as they could possibly be in advance.

The remaining two spots will be between Jonze, Payne, Greengrass, Scorsese and Coogler.

I'd add Coens in there too for the last two spots. ILD currently has 94 at Metacritic and 8.6 at RT.

That's absolutely correct. I forgot about them.

Does anyone else think this could be another split year? Last year was kind of inevitable after Affleck was snubbed for Best Director. This year, I'm really surprised by the amount of critics awards wins for Cuaron - many of the critics awards at which 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture still awarded Best Director to Cuaron, and it's been a pretty consistent pattern in those cases (12YAS as Best Picture, Cuaron as Best Director).

Of course, critics awards are just critics -- it will be a while until the guilds chime in and we get a real sense.

Peace,
Mike

The same critics that showered David Fincher with awards back in 2010...

Fair point. I just wasn't surprised by it that year - this time around I'm genuinely surprised that Cuaron is pretty consistently penetrating the 12 Years a Slave sweep and winning Best Director over McQueen.

Maybe neither will win and it will be David O. Russell.

Who do you think will win at the Globes, Lecter?

Peace,
Mike

Well, Cuarón is such an obvious choice when one looks to award Gravity in a big way. Graviyt is Cuarón. It is 90% his achievement. Thus him sweeping so many BD awards yet the film getting so few BP awards. i don't think we've seen anything like it before.

That being said, I'm thinking the Globes will give BP and BD to Gravity. As seen with Avatar, the HFPA seems to embrace technical advances more than others.