5 Other Ways to See the Best Director Nominees

This year's crop of best director nominees is an interesting one, with the exception that Tom Hooper seems to be the front-runner at the moment. The King's Speech doesn't have much in the way of tonal personality; it's mostly acting, writing, and set design, but I thought Hooper's last film, The Damned United, was a terrific looking picture, with tons of unique touches. With that in mind, here's a deeper look at the five nominees and their most revealing movies.


Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
This is Aronofsky's fifth film, and I think it's the culmination of all his work, the perfect combination of all his themes thus far. Pi (1998) is a terrific low budget debut, and Requiem for a Dream (2000) was a surprisingly mature follow-up. Then came The Fountain (2006), a baffling, ambitious work that probably only Aronofsky understood, and thus everyone else resisted it. I didn't understand it, but I found it too mesmerizing to write off. Regardless, Aronofsky retreated to a much lower budget for The Wrestler (2008) and struck paydirt, and he used the same style for Black Swan. If I had an Academy vote, Aronofsky would get it.


Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, True Grit
What can you say about the Coen brothers other than the fact that they're among the greatest living film directors, and that they keep getting better and better? Their major drawback was a chilly tone and a snarky attitude toward some of their characters, but those things are fading away. They won this award for No Country for Old Men (2007), and were nominated for Fargo (1996). But check out some of their more underrated masterworks like Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008) and A Serious Man (2009).


David Fincher, The Social Network
This music video director didn't make a very auspicious debut with the would-be summer blockbuster Alien 3 (1992), but I didn't care; I liked it and I knew he would be someone to keep my eye on. His next film, Seven (1995), proved me right. The Social Network is only his eighth film, and it looks like at least half of those may qualify as masterworks: Seven and The Social Network, plus Fight Club (1999) and Zodiac (2007). The less said about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), the better.


Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
Hooper comes from TV, and has only directed three feature films, a little-seen thing called Red Dust (2004), The Damned United (2009) and The King's Speech. He has yet to develop any kind of personality or theme. He's easily the weakest link in this category, and yet he's the front-runner. WTF? This has happened a lot in the history of the Academy, like the year that Robert Redford beat out David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Roman Polanski, or the year that Sydney Pollack beat out Akira Kurosawa...


David O. Russell, The Fighter
I have met Russell twice, and he can be charming or a troublemaker. Thanks to a YouTube video of Lily Tomlin going head-to-head with him on the set, he has mainly become known as the latter. The Fighter is his first film in six years, and it's clearly a concession for him. His first two films, Spanking the Monkey (1994) and Flirting with Disaster (1996), show him playing with the then-popular "indie" style and learning a few things. Then Three Kings (1999) showed the emergence of a brave, daring and exciting filmmaker. I Heart Huckabees (2004) continued the "brave" part, but also showed a filmmaker that may be off his rocker. The Fighter shows that he can play nice, but I hope to see him get crazy again someday...