In what is sure to be a scene repeated come Oscar night, the Director’s Guild of America handed its outstanding feature film director award to Joel and Ethan Coen on Saturday. The brothers picked up the award for the thoughtful and violent No Country for Old Men. Four directors tied for second place (or last place, depending on your general outlook in life): Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), Sean Penn (Into the Wild), and Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).
The Coen’s have won the lion’s share of the critic’s awards and their win in the DGA ceremony makes them director to beat when the Academy Awards are handed out on February 24th. Schnabel won the Golden Globe award for best director, but that award is something of a joke and shouldn’t really slow down the Coen’s freight train of glory.
The DGA also gives out television and documentary directing awards but unless you really want to know which episode of Amazing Race Betram Van Munster won for (yeah, that’s a real name), you’re probably focused on the feature film category. I think even if another film comes in to steal best picture from No Country it will be almost impossible for the Coen’s to lose out on the directing Oscar.
