Now it's just getting ridiculous: Hollywood squandered its only shot at a competitive Oscar season on Saturday when the Directors Guild of America gave its top prize to Danny Boyle.

The man behind Slumdog Millionaire won Best Director at the weekend ceremony, which didn't even have Sean Young to drunkenly mix up the proceedings. Instead, it was all class and dignity, as per Boyle's usual, thanking the defunct Warner Independent for offloading his Indian fantasia to Fox Searchlight and intoning humbly to up-and-comers: "If I can get here, so can you. Dream kind, and dream hard." That was little consolation to David Fincher, whose polished and practiced Rimjob Address remained sequestered in his tux for the next to last time; he and fellow nominees Ron Howard and Gus Van Sant will, in all likelihood, watch Boyle pick up a directing Oscar three weeks from now.

In slightly less foregone conclusions, Ari Folman won the Best Foreign-Language Film prize for his animated doc Waltz With Bashir, while Paul Feig (The Office) and Dan Attias (The Wire received the respective awards for TV comedy and drama directing. Jay Roach won the TV movie prize for Recount.

But... sigh. Boyle. Again. Comments and suggestions for enlivening Oscar-night viewing are welcome below; we're stumped for now.