2006 Calvin Awards: Best Director

February 24, 2006

And they said I was foolish to leave E.R.

In the five year history of The Calvins, Best Director has never been a close vote. The narrowest margin of victory is 13 points, indicating that while the staff at BOP might have our differences, we universally line up on this category. To be fair, a lot of that is because Peter Jackson won each of the first three years. But in 2005 when we no longer had Jackson's name eligible for consideration, Michel Gondry's work in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind blew us away so much that he won the nod in a walk over BOP fave Brad Bird. With Jackson returning to the director's chair this year with King Kong, you might expect him to be a lock to win again but alas, we finally decided he's got enough awards for a while.

Our choice for Best Director in the 2006 Calvins is George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck. He has pulled off an impressive, unprecedented feat with our awards this year. With a win in Best Screenplay, a third place finish in Best Supporting Actor and a second place finish in Best Actor for Syriana, Clooney manages to achieve two victories and four different top three finishes in the same year. This feat is unlikely to be matched ever again. Envisioning a scenario were it could be surpassed would involve Lindsay Lohan becoming a writer, director and winning Best Album in the same year. We'll leave it to you, the readers, to determine which one of those scenarios is most unlikely. Let's just say that BOP isn't betting on any of them occurring.

In the 2003 Calvins, we were the only group in North America to nominate George Clooney for his edgy directorial debut in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. With Good Night, and Good Luck, he justified our earlier praise by somehow exceeding his dynamic rookie effort. This treatise on the ethical responsibilities of journalists is as measured as any in recent memory. Good Night, and Good Luck makes its point with the sharpness of an epee thrust. Failing modern news organizations are all skewered in a methodical exploration of how passionate men of professional discipline stood up to a politically powerful blowhard, and called his bluff on national television. The precision and clinical exploration of how events transpired is exemplary, demonstrable proof that Clooney paid close attention to his friend and directorial tutor, Steven Soderbergh. George Clooney runs away with the vote for Best Director in the 2006 Calvins, proving that he is the true renaissance man in Hollywood.

The transition from the television medium into the realm of cinema is oftentimes overwhelming. How else would we explain the innumerable recent failures of movie adaptations of proven television shows? Joss Whedon, our second place finisher for Best Director, stood out from the crowd by deftly hiding the budgetary constraints his science fiction production faced. Focusing upon group chemistry and impossibly witty dialogue, Whedon proved himself as a capable director of more than just great television. Like a good baseball manager, he didn't ask his Firefly crew to do anything outside their skill set. Instead, he recognized that the best films are the ones where talent is put in the position to take advantage of their strengths. All he needed was to give them a story worth telling and a foe of equal caliber to their combined aptitudes. Sure, it's not re-inventing the wheel by any stretch, but this sort of egoless patience in trusting professionals to do their jobs is what separates the greats from the soon-to-be-unemployed.

Robert Rodriguez wanted to make Sin City so much that he started filming the project before there even was a project. He invited friends Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton down to his Texas complex and filmed the first scene as something of a trial run for the comic book's creator, Frank Miller. So impressed was the normally gruff writer that he agreed to finally overlook his well-earned dislike of Hollywood enterprises and co-direct Sin City. The duo created the most stylized, visually stimulating project of the year. And, oh yeah, the pristine adatptation of the graphic novel story kicks a lot of ass, too.

Nick Park et al. have a labor of love with the characters of Wallace and Gromit. Even the five minute shorts take months to complete due to the laborious nature of claymation. Imagine what an undertaking a movie length version of the duo would be. Park and his team at Aardman Animation chose to do exactly this, though, and the result is an instant family film classic. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit got more than one vote as Best Picture in this year's Calvins, and its impeccable quality earns Park and his crew fourth place in our Best Director vote.

Rounding out the top five is Christopher Nolan for his daring reboot of the Dark Knight in Batman Begins. The new title is a gripping epic that eliminates any lingering bitter aftertaste from the Joel Schumaker era. Nolan demonstrated with Memento that he was capable of creating his own memorable story, but there were concerns about how well his unique vision would mesh with such an iconic character. To our pleasant surprise, the staff discovered that they were two great flavors that taste great together. Nolan's clever spin on the villainous Scarecrow allows rising star Cillian Murphy to be himself while still seeming impossibly evil. Even better, Nolan made a daring casting decision that allowed him to hide Bruce Wayne's true threat in plain sight. It's the sort of revolutionary thinking Hollywood all too frequently ignores in its rush to pigeonhole. We are so impressed with Nolan's Batman Begins that we cannot wait for the sequel...or at least casting news about who will play The Joker.

You have to admire Ang Lee's ability to absorb criticism and move on. The performance and quality of The Hulk was such that it became a punchline, its director a joke. A less confident man would work from a place of insecurity, seeking to win back the adoration of the masses with a safe, comfortable follow-up film. Ang Lee made a movie about gay cowboys. The results were *ahem* positive. In the future when you hear comments that the biggest risks offer the largest potential rewards, remember Ang Lee's name in association with these words. Ang Lee's sumptuous choice of settings enriches an already memorable story of doomed lovers who regret living in a world where they could never be together. He has created the work for which his career will always be remembered, and while we at BOP don't love it to the degree some critics do, we know greatness when we see it.

For Hustle & Flow, it was necessary for helmer Craig Brewer to properly illustrate the streets of Memphis and the characters who live in that world. His film was a success because it emphasizes the gritty, sometimes desperate nature of the environment where the pimp (and hopeful hip hop artist) DJay (Terrence Howard) and his cohorts exist. Also to Brewer's credit is his ability to elicit fantastic performances from all players. Naturally, Terrence Howard has emerged as the star of the film, but Hustle & Flow couldn't have succeeded had Brewer not been able to draw strong work from cast members like Anthony Anderson and D.J. Qualls as well. We're hoping for good things from Brewer in the future.

Love him or hate him, you simply cannot deny the fact that David Cronenberg's work is attention-grabbing. He always makes a statement. Now, what statement happens to be is a matter of some conjecture, probably enough material to do a doctoral dissertation. The fact remains, though. Cronenberg's work always merits consideration and discussion. With A History of Violence, the noted auteur takes on his most digestable subject matter since 1986's The Fly. Stubbornly off-putting as a rule, Cronenberg lets his guard down (if only a little bit) to tell the story of a family man carrying a dark secret about his past. The result is one of the most enigmatic, remarkable productions of the year, and a tie for seventh place finish in the Best Director category.

As referenced in the introduction, perennial BOP Best Director Peter Jackson did not win first place in this category and has to settle for being a bridesmaid this year. As a group, we loved King Kong. The action sequences on Skull Island were amazing and when the story shifts to New York City, it's impossible to not be on the edge of your seat and at times, close to tears. While there's not a person among us who is unwilling to admit that the movie is bloated and could use the gentle touch of an editor, it's still a magnificent thrill ride and a tender tale in its own right. It's hard work making a giant ape lovable, but Jackson was more than up to the task.

Our final two selections for Best Director are Fernando Meirelles for The Constant Gardener and Stephen Gaghan for Syriana. It's fitting that they are grouped together at the bottom of the list in a tie for tenth place since both men accomplished the same feat. Each was given absurdly complicated source material and asked to make it readily available for mainstream consumption. The fact that we (mostly) understood what was going on in both movies is a tremendous credit to each director. Sure, we needed a couple of dry erase boards and multiple flow charts to break it all down. All things considered, though, both men are to be commended for making dense stories accessible to attentive viewers.

Just missing nominations are Anand Tucker (Shopgirl), Danny Boyle (Millions), Bennett Miller (Capote), Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), Steven Spielberg (Munich), Chan-wook Park (Old Boy), Paul Haggis (Crash), Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) and Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin). (David Mumpower/BOP)



Top 10
Position Person Film Total Points
1 George Clooney Good Night, and Good Luck 72
2 Joss Whedon Serenity 39
3 Robert Rodriguez Sin City 33
4 Nick Park, Steve Box Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit 29
5 Christopher Nolan Batman Begins 25
6 Ang Lee Brokeback Mountain 24
7 David Cronenberg A History of Violence 23
8 Peter Jackson King Kong 22
9(tie) Fernando Meirelles The Constant Gardener 20
9(tie) Craig Brewer Hustle & Flow 20
9(tie) Stephen Gaghan Syriana 20




     


 
 

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