Winners of the 34th annual Independent Spirit Awards

by Nathaniel R

Richard E Grant getting his supporting actor trophy from Glenn Close at the Spirit AwardsBy the time the Spirit Awards roll around each year we've completely forgotten about their nominations. They're the group with the the longest annual stretch between nominations and trophy handouts each year! As a reminder We the Animals led in number of nominations this year despite not showing up in the top category. Unfortunately it was entirely shut out of actual wins. The nomination leaders within the Best Feature category were Eighth Grade, First Reformed, and You Were Never Really Here, which all at least won something.

After the jump the winners list and cute photos and such...

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Podcast: Green Book, Widows, and the Best Supporting Actor Race

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl talk new films and the Oscar race

Index (68 minutes)
00:01 We didn't see Fantastic Beasts 2
01:46 Steve McQueen's Widows is more than a heist movie. We dive into its themes, best scenes, and particularly its all star ensemble: Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Brian Tyree Henry, Cynthia Erivo, Robert Duvall, Michelle Rodriguez,and Olivia the dog!
25:44 Widow's Best Picture chances?
28:09 'Crowd-Pleaser' Green Book does not please Murtada. Thoughts on the movie, escapist laughter, road trip tropes, and Mahershala Ali's Oscar clip.
42:05 Best Supporting Actor discussion including Richard E Grant, Mahershala Ali, Michael B Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, Sam Rockwell, Adam Driver, Steven Yeun, etc...
52:00 Spirit Nominations: Suspiria for ensemble? We the Animals, Blame and other micro-indies that did well. Who is going to win?
1:07:00 Byeeee

Further Reading / References
• Shadow & Act's pan of Green Book
• Vox's pan of Green Book
• Middleburg's Green Book audience win
• The Spirit Award nominations
• Murtada's We the Animals interview
• Supporting Actor Oscar Chart

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Green Book and Widows

The Spirit Award Nominations are Here

by Nathaniel R

Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians) and former Spirit Award winner Molly Shannon (Other People) announced the Spirit nominations for the 2018 film year. No film truly dominated the announcement because, while We the Animals led with 5 nominations (YAYYYY) it wasn't nominated in the top category. Eighth Grade, First Reformed, and You Were Never Really Here each had 4 nominations. The highest profile expected contenders with not so great results this morning were BlacKkKlansman (only Adam Driver was recognized) and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (the Screenplay and Richard E Grant only). 

so happy for this little gem!

An important note before the full list of nominees: Unlike other major awards bodies, film festival releases are (sometimes) eligible here, overseas films even if they're in english are (mostly) ineligible outside of foreign film, and anything over a $20 million budget is (usually) ineligible here, so the eligibility pool is slightly different. Some examples of 'not eligible' this year for those reasons are: The Hate U Give and Beautiful Boy (too expensive) The Rider (festivals and nominated last year), Roma and The Favorite (both foreign film only though The Favourite led the Gotham nods). The Spirit Awards has multiple nominating committees assigned to different categories. Even better they meet several times throughout the fall before selecting the nominees which is, we think, why the nominations sometimes have a better spread of titles (in terms of release dates) than the Oscars do.

The full list of nominees along with a few comments are after the jump...

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Spirit Award Winners

by Nathaniel R

Get Out won Feature and Director at the Spirit Awards (but no other prizes)

The headline prizes
BEST FEATURE "Get Out"
BEST FEMALE LEAD Frances McDormand “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri”
BEST MALE LEAD Timothée Chalamet “Call Me by Your Name”
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE Allison Janney “I, Tonya”
BEST SUPPORTING MALE Sam Rockwell “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri”
BEST DIRECTOR Jordan Peele “Get Out”
BEST SCREENPLAY Greta Gerwig “Lady Bird”

It says a lot about the intrinsic problems of awards season and rampant conformity that even at the Spirits they aren't willing to budge from the Oscar frontrunners, except when they're forced to (Gary Oldman wasn't eligible here so we happily get one big Timothée win)...

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Spirit Award Nominations 2017

by Nathaniel R

The Film Independent Spirit Award nominees hit today. Tessa Thompson and Lily Collins were on hand to announce the awards with the longest stretch of time between nominations and awards. The ceremony, as ever, will be held the day before the Oscars. So that's Saturday, March 3rd 2018 this time.

It was a huge day for Sony Pictures Classics (the company received 13 nominations in total) and for A24, too. Almost every single movie A24 released this year was nominated for at least a little something. As far as underseen pictures the happiest nominee this morning has to be Sony Pictures Classics' The Rider (reviewed here) which was a busy film on the festival circuit but has yet to be released. 

The Nominees Are...

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