Game over, everybody. Alejandro G. Inarritu upset Richard Linklater (below) to win the Directors Guild award tonight, which means that Birdman has now taken PGA, SAG and DGA- all three of the major guild awards. The last time a movie swept all three of those and lost Best Picture was Apollo 13 in 1995 (the year that Ron Howard was not nominated for director at the Oscars). So, in light of this new information, it would be unwise to predict anything other than Birdman to win Best Picture. I can hardly believe that a movie that dark, weird and bizarre is going to win- there's literally no precedent for it that I can think of, but the lesson here is clearly never to forget that Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood more than any other subject.
This is also another year where the industry has totally overturned the critics choice, Golden Globe winner, and presumed frontrunner, choosing to reject Boyhood outright in favor of Inarritu's Hollywood satire (last time this happened was when The King's Speech beat down The Social Network). The only question now is can Michael Keaton beat Eddie Redmayne for Best Actor in the end? It seems likely- if the love for Birdman is this strong, how does Keaton not get swept up in it? That one's going to be a coin toss. I also believe there may still be a chance for Linklater to win Best Director, while Birdman takes Picture- which would give us our third Picture/Director split in a row. It's possible, given the achievement he pulled off, although at this point, it would also be unwise not to predict Inarritu. Tomorrow we'll see if the BAFTAS can tell us anything new, but with these three guilds sewn up, the Best Picture race looks pretty damn over. Now, we try to figure out how of if they're going to spread the wealth around in the smaller categories.
