Yeah, I'm convinced that even though Brokeback Mountain isn't necessarily the front runner for Best Picture yet or maybe never will be, Ang Lee has best director in the bag. Here are my reasons:

There are only two other films I can see winning Best Picture: Munich and King Kong. First the reviews for Munich are good enough, but not good enough for Spielberg to win his third directing oscar. It would have required a masterpiece or near-universal praise for that to happen. Peter Jackson actually has a better shot at winning his second oscar in three years than Spielberg, IMO, but that will require an unbelieveable box office run from King Kong and sweep of major precursor awards. Both "winning again so soon" and "winning 3 times in a lifetime" are very very hard things to do and need the circumstance to just blow people away to the point where it's impossible not to. As far as I can tell, neither Munich or King Kong is likely to achieve that to carry their respective directors to the podium.

And get back to Ang Lee. First the success of Brokeback Mountain quality-wise is largely due to Ang Lee: the story telling, the actors' performances. Also, he could be regarded as being snubbed of a nomination for Sense and Sensibility, as well as snubbed of a win for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Draon, even though he did win the foreign film oscar. With a directing win for Brokeback Mountain, it feels like completing the personal Oscar journey for him, and I believe it will happen.

You know what? I'll agree with you!


I think the fact that Ang Lee has shown himself to be a remarkably diverse director who is not afraid of tackling diverse projects cannot be ignored. That, and the fact that he probably did a great job on this film as well.


So I have 2 claims to support now: Best Film (The New World) and Best Director (Ang Lee)

Em, xiayun, any other claims?

I agree about Ang Lee.

Though I think there's a wild card. What if George Clooney receives a BD nom?

Yeah, I see a Picture/Director winner split.

I think Munich will probably win but I seriously doubt Spielberg would get a third win.

Then he will also need GNAGL to be nominated. If both happen, and if it comes down to two smaller films, I still think Ang Lee will come out on top.

Certainly a possibility. I don't think Spielberg will get his third. He got one for SPR, this time he'll probably et Picture.

Jackson should be happy if he gets noms for Picture and Director, for a movie like KK it is already an achievement.

That leaves us with Clooney (but GNGL is too small), Allen (Match Point probably won't get a BP nom, thus ruling out his chances), Lee (likely) and Malick. Malick is the one who can crash Lee's party, I think.

Personal thoughts: I sure hope you are wrong on this one, xia

Well I think just the fact that Ang Lee didnt hang himself after Hulk, instead he went to go make an oscar worthy movie is reason enough to give him best director.

I'm not sure. Against Spielberg is a tough call. Against Jackson, I would say Lee would win. Against Mangold, then yes. Against Clooney is a tougher one for me.

God knows I would prefer any of them to win over Lee, but Munich is not getting huge praises and we haven't had a BP/BD split since Chicago/The Pianist and Munich is more likely to win BP than BD, so...

This Oscar season is awesome.

Anything can happen.

I'm not sure Ang Lee could beat George Clooney.The actors branch of AMPAS tends to get behind actor/directors and Clooney has directed one of the best reviewed films of the year. GNGL is too small to win BP but I think Clooney could win BD.

And Good Night, and Good Luck. is bloody brilliant.

Just thought I would add that...

Which most likely means I'll hate it.

I can see why someone can dislike Master & Commander, even though I think it's brilliant.

To hate Good Night, and Good Luck. (you can just "like" it or "think it's okay") without sound reasons would, in my opinion, mean that you are a complete utter moron.

Even Slant loved it for chrissakes!

I think if Lee wins Best Director then Brokeback will win Best Picture. I see it as the front-runner for Best Picture at this point anyway. I can't see Munich winning, and King Kong won't either.

Amen, best movie of the year so far...

Clooney is No.2 behind Lee. Brokeback seems so epic, and Lee is overdue for a win. Clooney is an accomplished, but relatively new director and I think he'll be honored later on down the round. It's up in the air between those two, and that's pretty much it.

Then again, Kong could be the new Titanic (sans cheesy dialogue I hope), and Munich could be another emotional powerhouse from SS.

I never thought of it that way mainly because I rarely think of the director race.

I would agree that Lee would probably be the best candidate for the front-runner at this early stage of the race.

I still want to wait and see for Munich before going on to say anything about winners. But since the earliest word hasn't been quite a rave, I don't know where that places it. And this is what I wanted; for the race to be a complete question mark and not have Munich as the runaway contender.

However, right behind Lee would probably be Clooney and Woody Allen. If Match Point, in some miraculous turn of events, gains enormous buzz by mid January and gets nominated for Best Picture, I'd say Allen would be the very clear front-runner. Even otherwise, he would pose a large threat just as a nominee but is there history on a Best Director win for a film that wasn't a Best Pic nominee?

I think Clooney would be a very worthy opponent except for the fact that this is what (?) his third directed film? Everyone can see he's really starting to warm up and they may want to wait on him or give him time to really grow rather than risking the chance of bloating his ego (which I don't think will happen, but.... whatever).

The Oscars often pick out Directors who don't have a lot of history. Rob Marshall's film won, Sam Mendes' film and director won, Lost in Translation was Coppola's second film, etc.

Ummm... I'm actually confused as to what we're both talking about.

The thread is about the director win right?
And for the most part we're assuming there will be a director/picture split, at least at this stage of the race.

I'm talking about Clooney winning, not getting nominated. I'm almost sure he will be nominated.
The examples you gave were all for nods and American Beauty's was by far the most favored movie to win that year, so...

Good Night, and Good Luck is not quite on par with LiT's and chicago's clout. Maybe not even close. But if Munich doesn't end up being unanimously praised and if one other film, at least, gets better raves then Speilberg won't walk away with the award and, in my opinion, it will be a race between Lee, Clooney, and Allen.

I think Ang Lee will win it.

I segmented your message mentally


Yes you are right.

Perhaps George Clooney is more comparable to Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner.

Part of me, my brain and logic says that xiayun's argument is here is incredibly sound.

But Ang Lee feels more like a Peter Weir to me. Peter Weir being a director who, up until last year, got nominated 5 times with no wins. Scorsese tied him last year.

Since Mendes won, the Oscars have been giving out director awards based on the quality of the film and obviously the history of the ones who win it... Jackson, Eastwood, Polanski, Howard... all of them had a heavy Oscar history before winning (or in Eastwood's case, winning again). Can this go on forever?

Something in my heart tells me that Brokeback Mountain isn't ... enough... to get him a win this time around. That Ang Lee isn't enough to tug the strings to get an "owed" director Oscar. I'm just not seeing it. But frankly at this point, I don't see anybody really winning that award. The category is extremely murky to me.

He is the fronrunner right now, probably. But Clooney (Actor) and Malick (due) have also ery strong chances.

Of course, the two "not due" guys - Jackson and Spielberg - could still win if their films are big enough - in the case of KOng, that has to be HUGE, but It can happen. For Spielberg, it´s more of a critical thing: I still need to read more reviews before I convince movis "Munich" is not going to go down really well with reviewers. I´d be surprised.

So yeah, I wish I was as confident about it as you are, Xiayun.

Malick would be the best competition if both The New World and him get nominated. However, the buzz seems to be uneven now for the film after starting out well.

Precursors are as important as ever. If Ang wins both GG Director and DGA again, as he did with CTHD, he won't be denied. There is still a long long way to go, but right now I see that happening.

Of course, if he wins the DGA and then is snubbed again, they may as well tell him to shoot himself. I think he has the strongest chance, but everything is a bit messy this year...

RE: Malick. Reality is, I´ve just "read" people talking about it, but not actual reviews. But, an epic movie and all, maybe it has a chance at being nominated being respected, but not loved.

I think Ang Lee has a good chance, but for me the frontrunner is George Clooney. Actor turned director works always with the academy. Plus the movie is getting better reviews than any of the contenders, except maybe Brokeback and King Kong. They won't give it to Jackson again, so that leads to Clooney vs. Lee and there's where the actor bonus sets in