Eastwood turns favorite to win Oscar

Perhaps Martin Scorsese isn’t as sure a lock as most people think for the Oscar next month. Sunday night the Directors Guild handed out their top honor to Clint Eastwood as director of the year for his film ‘Million Dollar Baby’.

Martin Scorsese’s drive for his first career Oscar keeps running into a roadblock that looks an awful lot like Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood, who downed Scorsese for directing honors at the Golden Globes, did it again Saturday night in Beverly Hills, scoring the big win at the 57th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards.

This year’s battle for the top Oscars is seen largely as a contest between the two veteran directors. Scorsese has never won an Oscar but Eastwood has a best director’s Academy Award for his 1992 Western “Unforgiven”.

The Academy Awards (news - web sites) are announced on Feb. 27 but before then several industry groups like the Directors Guild announce their awards. “The Aviator” was named best picture of the year by the Producer’s Guild last week.

While important barometers of how Academy members are thinking in the run-up to the Oscars, the craft guilds awards are by no means infallible.

An interesting little statistic; in the last 57 years, only 6 winners of this award have failed to go on to win the Oscar for best director… so it would seem things may stand in Eastwood’s favor.