The big lesson of this year’s awards season: Don’t snub Ben Affleck.

After Affleck failed to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, many Oscar prognosticators (yes, those are real people) assumed “Argo” had lost all chance for Best Picture glory. After all, no movie since “Driving Miss Daisy” has won a Best Picture Oscar without securing a Best Director nomination.

The snub incited Internet rage, more so than the snub of director Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty.” Bigelow won just a few years ago for “The Hurt Locker,” but Affleck’s exclusion seemed like an intentional derailment of Hollywood’s feel-good, comeback story of the year.

“Remember Ben Affleck in all those awful movies?” “Well now he’s a really great director!”

But you can’t keep a good Affleck down. Many now consider “Argo” to be the frontrunner for Best Picture, and Affleck would earn an Oscar as producer alongside George Clooney and Grant Heslov. (more…)