Normal and Angels in America snag DGA nominations

HBO on Thursday scored three of the five nominations for the Directors Guild of America's best television movie in 2003. The HBO nominations for outstanding directorial achievement went to Jane Anderson's Normal, Richard Loncraine's My House in Umbria, and Mike Nichols's Angels in America. The other nominees were Jeff Bleckner's Meredith Willson's The Music Man, which was broadcast on ABC, and Rod Holcomb's The Pentagon Papers, from FX. "These five directors have used their considerable talents to illuminate the human condition, to tell heroic stories and to entertain," DGA president Michael Apted said. The winners will be announced during the DGA Awards dinner February 7 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City. For out filmmaker Anderson, it was her first DGA Awards nomination, while the veterans of the group were Bleckner and Nichols with their fourth nominations. It marked Loncraine's second and Holcomb's third. Nichols will also receive a previously announced lifetime achievement award at the ceremony.