Oscar Nominees: Best Director

My predictions: 4/5, picking Nolan over Joel & Ethan Coen
My ballot: Come back next week!
The nominees: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David O. Russell (The Fighter), Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), David Fincher (The Social Network), Joel & Ethan Coen (True Grit)

Disbelief, horror, and fury are good emotions to describe my feelings on the inexplicable snub of Christopher Nolan. There was talk that Hooper was vulnerable and that Russell might not make it, but they did. And it’s not because of an interesting choice like David Michod (Animal Kingdom), Mike Leigh (Another Year), Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), Roman Polanski (The Ghost Writer), Danny Boyle (127 Hours), John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole), or Sofia Coppola (Somewhere). Instead, it’s because of a directing duo whose latest film is extremely overrated and hardly indicative of their best work, earning them their third nomination over the far superior “No Country for Old Men” and the incredible “Fargo.” But mostly it’s because Nolan, who had before been snubbed for both “Memento” and “The Dark Knight,” was so incredibly close to an Oscar nomination that there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that he would make the cut. The film still made it in for Bes Picture and earned a total of eight nominations, but there was still a way for Nolan to be snubbed, cutting off the film where it really counts by not citing its direction and editing, the two most impressive and important elements of its construction. This category used to have a lone director slot, and as if snubbing Nolan in itself wasn’t enough of a crime, there’s no reason for it. That’s all I have to say.

My current bet to win: Fincher