Indie Spirit Revue: "Dìdi (弟弟)"

by Nick Taylor

The 40th Film Independent Spirit Awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, February 22nd. Every voter has until February 13th to submit their choices. I'm enamored with most of this crop of nominees, and in celebration of an amazing year for independent cinema, I'll be profiling some of these lineups and nominated films. First up are the firsts: Best First Feature and First Screenplay, two categories with phenomenal taste and considerable overlap. Oscar will likely nominate none of these films, and that's their loss. But we get to celebrate them, and if any Academy voters are reading this, do your duty on behalf of good art! Nominate these movies!!! You'll be better and cooler for it! 

The first film in this series of reviews is Oscar-adjacent in a way. After all, its director was just nominated last year for Best Documentary Short. It's Sean Wang's Dìdi…

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Category Confusion '24: COMEDY or DRAMA – Part One

by Cláudio Alves

Is THE SUBSTANCE a comedy or a drama? What gives?

This year, I am part of the voting body for the Golden Globes, which gives me access to a cornucopia of screeners and FYC material that was erstwhile inaccessible to me. This also means I get a front row seat for the absolute circus that is category fraud from studios and distributors alike. Not just in terms of finagling distinctions between lead and supporting performances. Because this is the Globes, there's also the matter of which films compete in Drama, and which others battle it out in the presumably less competitive realm of Musical or Comedy. Because we all need distractions right now, let's ponder these inconsequential genre divides and enjoy some benign polls whose results don't really matter beyond these awards obsessive circles of ours…

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