At Long Last Love?

After this weekend’s DGA awards, we can all start slouching towards Oscar night with one last round of debates and soothsaying. If Scorsese does emerge victorious, then I think his chances of taking his long-denied Academy Award are pretty strong. Should this happen, it would he his first DGA as well as his first Oscar. People seem to forget, when bemoaning the fact that he’s never been acknowledged with the little golden guy, that the members of the Directors Guild have been equally withholding.

Also, if Bill Condon or Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton take the prize, it will be the first time since Ron Howard won for Apollo 13 (1995) that the DGA would have honored a director without an Oscar nomination. And here’s where it gets really tricky: Apollo 13, like LMS, was at least nominated for Best Picture. If the DGA actually crowns Bill Condon, and granted this is unlikely, then he would be the first victor whose film failed to earn a Best Picture nomination from the Academy. That would be fun. Can you just imagine how much havoc that would cause? After all, it’s these little moments –like the surprise BP nomination for Letters - that nourish our love-hate affair with this thing called Oscar.