Sean Weitner | Instant feedback

Congrats to Mr. Stilp for his stellar Karnak routine. (I know, I know, if I hadn't told you to pick Judi Dench for Best Supporting Actress instead of Best Actress, you would have done even better.) I haven't even really gotten a grasp on all the nominees yet, but I'm pretty resolutely not surprised across the board. Many of my favorites got no or next to no nominations (A.I., The Man Who Wasn't There), although I have to say that I had much less faith in the Academy recognizing David Lynch for Mulholland Drive than most of the rest of you. As with Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive's sole nomination was his direction. This year, he joins Ridley Scott of Black Hawk Down in the category of nominated directors whose film isn't up for Best Picture. (Going the other way, In the Bedroom's Todd Field and Moulin Rouge's Baz Luhrmann were ousted.) I don't know how many it's-all-about-the-director hard-liners there are among you, but what is the Academy saying when it nominates a film independent of its director, and vice versa? That, like a gourmet, the director prepared the escargot perfectly, but they just don't care for snails?

Also, can anyone give me a good reason that some categories get less than five nominees? It can't be for lack of viable candidates. For instance: Only Monsters Inc. and Pearl Harbor were nominated for Best Sound Editing. It's written into the rules that there must be two and can only be three, but are there any logics behind the guesses for that restriction?

Eric Wittmershaus | Splitting the difference

I think it's entirely possible for a movie to be good in spite of or outside of the influence of its director.

Stay with me for a second here. In the Bedroom, for example, has been lauded for its extremely powerful acting but damned (by Sean anyway) for a reliance on rote cliche. Thus, it's conceivable that the Academy would nominate it for Best Picture but snub Todd Field for Best Director. They've done the exact opposite, however, so maybe that isn't the best example.

Another Best Picture-but-not-Best-Actor nominee might be an ensemble movie in which much of the acting/script are improvised. Were a movie like Robert Altman's Best Picture-nominated M*A*S*H made today, I think you might see it get nominated for Best Picture but not Best Director. At the time of its release, however, it was fairly rare for a Hollywood director to give his actors that much liberty with the script and Altman was rewarded for his laissez-faire style with a nomination. Would that happen today? Well, yes if it's Robert Altman directing, but no if it's an unknown.

As far as Best Director nominations without a Best Picture nomination, that's obviously not ideal, but if you're gonna have Best Picture without director, a natural consequence is either to have fewer Best Director nominees or have one who doesn't get nominated for Best Picture.

Andy Ross | They're a different breed

That comment about the denizens of L.A. loving Randy Newman's music in the other thread applies here as well. I think that Hollywood — critics ever since the French New Wave — only takes the auteur theory as far as the bank. If Nathan Glazer gets mentioned everytime A Beautiful Mind comes up, then somebody out there realizes the importance of those besides the director in making a good film.

The Academy is made up of people who try to get lunch with a producer before lunch with a director.