3. Paul Greengrass - Captain Phillips
Unlike the first two entrees in this article, Paul Greengrass has been here before. Back in 2006, Greengrass received a Best Director nomination from his fellow directors for his film recreating another "taken from the headlines" story, United 93, dealing with the plane crash of the titular flight that was hijacked by Islamic terrorists on 9/11. This time, yet again dealing with another hijacking, Greengrass has brought to cinematic life the true story of a U.S. cargo ship that was taken hostage by Somali pirates, led by the eponymous Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks). Given the fact that the Academy has already shown their love for Greengrass' style in the past, and that if the Best Picture "race" were truly a race, Captain Phillips would surely be in third place at the moment, I feel pretty confident that Greengrass will be among the five nominees for Best Director. If he were to miss to the cut though, here are some possible reasons why. The first primary reason why the Directors branch might consider passing Greengrass over is the "been-there-done-that" effect. As I eluded to above, there really are a lot of similarities between Captain Phillips and the previous film Greengrass was nominated for, United 93, so given what a competitive field Best Director is this year, some in the branch may look elsewhere to reward something that hasn't already been awarded before. Greengrass' now patented cinematographic style, with shaky camera, uncomfortable close-ups, and lightning fast editing (which I thought frankly detracted from an otherwise well made film), a style which seemed new and edgy back in 2006 but feels a bit played out now, could also count against Greengrass. Finally, and unfortunately, some rumblings of inaccuracies in the film could conceivably prevent Greengrass from a nomination as well. Personally, I think we can count Greengrass as a fairly certain nominee, but I also thought that about Kathryn Bigelow last year for Zero Dark Thirty, and given how competitive of a year this is shaping up to be, we can't be too certain about anything.
Nomination Chances: 80%