The Directors Guild of America has spoken. The 2007 DGA award nominees are:
Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood"
Joel and Ethan Coen for "No Country for Old Men"
Tony Gilroy for "Michael Clayton"
Sean Penn for "Into the Wild"
Julian Schnabel for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
The love for Sean Penn and Tony Gilroy seems to come at the expense of Sidney Lumet for the "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," Joe Wright for "Atonement," Tim Burton for "Sweeney Todd," and Ridley Scott for "American Gangster." They were all in the mix for DGA consideration, but the actor and the screenwriter beat them out. Meanwhile, since there is no front-runner (no decisive one, anyway), Paul Thomas Anderson is looking more and more like a winner. What this means for the Oscars is anybody's guess. But maybe the Academy's branch will hook up Lumet or even David Fincher ("Zodiac") or Todd Haynes ("I'm Not There").
