Dreamgirls director gets nod from DGA

The Director's Guild of America is considering Dreamgirls director Bill Condon among the five nominees for this year's award honoring the best director for a feature film.

The other four nominees include Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the directorial team behind Little Miss Sunshine; Stephen Frears for The Queen; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Babel; and Martin Scorsese for The Departed. The list was announced Tuesday.

For Condon, Inarritu, and Dayton and Faris, this is their first nomination. Scorsese has been nominated for the award seven times for such work as The Aviator, Gangs of New York, and Taxi Driver. Frears was nominated with codirector Marty Pasetta for their 2000 television movie Fail Safe.

The DGA award is usually a predictor of who will take home the Academy Award for the best director. According to the DGA's Web site, the DGA winner has won the Oscar for the same film that year all but six times since 1949.

The winner will be named at the 59th Annual DGA Awards dinner on February 3 in Los Angeles. (The Advocate)