LOS ANGELES — The Directors Guild of America on Saturday night named Louie Psihoyos the best documentary director of 2009 for “The Cove.” The film, a shocking piece of advocacy filmmaking about dolphin slaughter in Japan, follows a group of determined environmental commandos as it attempts to document the clandestine killing of the mammals in a small fishing village of Taiji. The team includes Ric O’Barry, who became famous decades ago as the man who both captured and trained the five dolphins who collectively became TV’s Flipper.
After one of the trained dolphins died in his arms, O’Barry had a major change of heart and became an uncompromising free-the-dolphins zealot.
The award for outstanding directorial achievement in the feature film category had not been announced by Los Angeles Times press time.
Nominees for the award included Kathyrn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), James Cameron (“Avatar”), Lee Daniels (“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”), Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air”) and Quentin Tarantino (“Inglourious Basterds”). The DGA Awards have become one of the most dependable forecasters for the Academy Awards — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the DGA have disagreed just six times in the last 61 years. The Oscar nominations are scheduled to be announced Tuesday; the awards will be handed out March 7 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
The 62nd annual DGA ceremony was held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza with Carl Reiner making his 22nd appearance as master of ceremonies. Last year, Reiner was forced to cancel his emcee duties after he became ill from food poisoning. He was replaced by “Two and a Half Men” star Jon Cryer.
Other winners Saturday night: TV drama series: Lesli Linka Glatter for “Mad Men” (AMC) TV comedy series: Jason Winer for “Modern Family” Musical variety: Don Mischer for “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial” (HBO) Daytime serials: Christopher Goutman for “As the World Turns” (CBS) Reality TV: Craig Borders for “Build It Bigger” (Discovery Science) Children’s programming: Allison Liddi-Brown for “Princess Protection Program” (Disney Chanel) Commercials: Tom Kuntz ——— (c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
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