 Potentially previewing tomorrow night’s Oscar ceremony, Silver Linings Playbook had an excellent showing at the Independent Spirit Awards. Winning in all but one of the categories that it was nominated for, there’s clearly some love for David O. Russell’s film. You can take issue with the way the Spirit Awards handles its business (including this year giving Best First Feature to someone who’s already made a film, but I digress), but overall they honored a solid crop of winners. I even did much better than I was expecting with my predictions, going 9 out of 13, though if you include my alternate selections, I managed to get them all. Take a gander at the winners below…
BEST FEATURE:
“Silver Linings Playbook”
BEST DIRECTOR
David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”
BEST SCREENPLAY
“Silver Linings Playbook”
BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to the director and producer)
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
Read more on ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ nearly sweeps the Independent Spirit Awards!…
 I’ve often said that my favorite awards show each year usually winds up being the Independent Spirit Awards. Part of that has to do with how the nominees often reflect my tastes more so than many other awards, but also I just really enjoy how unpredictable they can be. It’s not a total love affair though, as there’s an odd commercialism that’s at play and runs counter to the supposed indie spirit of it all. Filmmaker Vincent Pereira actually commented on a Facebook post I did stating that I was finishing this piece and his thoughts on the show only reminded me more about the sort of false independence on display. Still, any show that once upon a time gave Kevin Smith an award can’t be all bad in my book. As is always the case right before the Oscars, I’m here to preview the Spirit Awards. My predictions are usually way off, though this year I may actually do better here than with the Academy Awards…go figure. Anyway, I know you all are mostly interested in this piece for the predictions, so I’ll shut up and get right to it. Enjoy this spin off of the Will Win/Should Win series focused on the Spirit Awards!
Read more on Previewing the Independent Spirit Awards!…
 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…the Independent Spirit Awards are consistently my favorite of all the awards shows/precursors during the slow march to the Oscars (and most of the time, I honestly prefer it to the Academy Awards anyway). Of course, this means I get irrationally excited for the show well in advance of it actually occurring, so this news from The Hollywood Reporter here on the dates for the show is a nice tidbit for me. You can see the details after the jump, but feel free to speculate on what indie flicks will catch Film Independent’s fancy this year. You can find more below…
Read more on Independent Spirit Awards will be held February 23, 2013!…
 Directed By: Benh Zeitlin
Written By: Lucy Alibar, Behn Zeitlin
Cast: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry
Synopsis (from IMDB): Faced with her father’s fading health and environmental changes that release an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs, six-year-old Hushpuppy leaves her Delta-community home in search of her mother.
Read more on Awards Profile: Beasts of the Southern Wild…
 Definitely not the outcome that I was expecting (or predicting for that matter), but hey…that’s the name of the game. Below is full list of winners from the Spirit Awards, and the rare group of winners from this show that will likely closely mirror Oscar. Go figure. Anyway, here they are:
Best Feature: “The Artist”
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Best Male Lead: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Best Female Lead: Michelle Williams, “My Week with Marilyn”
Best Supporting Male: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Best Supporting Female: Shailene Woodley, “The Descendants”
Best First Feature: “Margin Call”
Best First Screenplay: “50/50″
Read more on ‘The Artist’ dominates the Independent Spirit Awards…
 There’s probably no awards show I like more year in and year out than the Independent Spirit Awards. It’s quirky as can be and tends to honor films the Academy wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole. As always, there’s some crossover with Oscar, but no more than usual (though ‘The Artist’ did as well here as indie favorites ‘Drive’ and ‘Take Shelter’, so make of that what you will). As for how the ceremony might go, I admit to not always being the greatest with these predictions, but I always take a crack at it. This year is as hard a one to decipher as ever, but that’s not going to stop me from doing my best to give you a complete look at the potential wins, upsets, and everything in between, since…well, it’s my job and all. Anyway, enough of me waxing poetic on my love of the Spirit Awards, since that’s not what you want to read. You want a real preview of the show, so it’s time for that. Let’s go ahead now and take a look at how the Spirit Awards might turn out on Saturday night, starting right off with the big categories!
Read more on Previewing the Spirit Awards…
 “I am broken. I am broken open. Breaking is freeing. Broken is freedom. I am not broken. I am free.” – Alike (Adepero Oduye).
Dedication and commitment to a message have made many film projects become realities. For Dee Rees, it was her own life’s experiences which made her 2007 short film Pariah blossom into a feature-length film of the same name. With her feature film completed in 2009, raising the money necessary to have Pariah actually seen became her next task. Rees tirelessly spent the next two years trying, trying, and trying some more to have her film get in front of the eyes it needed to for possible distribution. Maneuvering through an endless sea of festival hopefuls, Rees finally found the right set of eyes when Focus Features acquired Pariah at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, following the film’s winning of the Excellence In Cinematography prize there. After a rapturous response from attendees of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2011, and with the scoring of two 2011 Independent Spirit Award nominations, Focus finally released Pariah into theaters in late-December 2011, just in time for Oscar consideration.
Read more on Pariah (***½)…
 I’m always a big fan of the Independent Spirit Awards, especially since their host usually gets to have more fun than most. This year should be a real treat, since Seth Rogen was asked to host the show. Here’s the story from The Hollywood Reporter:
Film Independent has tapped Seth Rogen to host the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
The 50/50 star will emcee the 27th annual awards ceremony, to be held on the Santa Monica beach on Saturday, Feb. 25 with the telecast to air at 10 p.m. ET/PT on IFC.
“We’re incredibly excited to have Seth as the host for the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards and join us in celebrating this year’s exquisite films and talented filmmaking artists. Seth’s charm, intelligence and quick wit are sure to light up the room and will make for a truly entertaining afternoon,” said Film Independent senior director Sean Mc Manus.
Read more on Seth Rogen will Host the Spirit Awards!…
 Best Feature:
50/50
Beginners
Drive
Take Shelter
The Artist
The Descendants
Best Director category:
Mike Mills (Beginners)
Nicholas W Refn ( Drive)
Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter)
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
Best Int’l Film:
A Separation
Melancholia
Shame
The Kid With a Bike
Tyrranasaur
Read more on Independent Spirit Award Nominations…
 The Independent Spirt Award nominations are fast approaching and they’re one of my very favorite awards of the season. Besides being s slightly edgier show, one of their many other charms is how unpredictable their nominee slate usually is, and I expect that to be the case again this year. That makes predicting their nominees a fool’s errand, but one can still get an idea of what they might be looking towards honoring, if not specifically so. One thing to be aware of is the budgetary limitations that often exclude films you’d expect to do well with Film Independent. It’s just a matter of waiting and seeing what gets nominated, but in the meantime, we can do some guessing. Consider this a broad look at what each category might have in store for us at the Spirit Awards. Perhaps I’ll be able to catch that Indie Spirit…
Read more on Independent Spirit Awards Preview…
Since the Awards Season is near, I am here to make sure everybody is up to speed on when nominations will be announced and when the awards will be handed out. Below is a calender of all the events to keep an eye out for this Awards Season.
Read more on Awards Calender…
The Big Boys
By Robert Hamer
And so the summer flies by, and we Oscar prognosticators can steel ourselves for the “real” contenders to roll out over the fall and winter months. But as we look forward to how this season shapes up, what can we take from this year’s summer slate? What interesting events happened the last three months as far as the big, massive blockbusters go?
One trend that is not unusual or noteworthy is the number of sequels and remakes that hit us in that time. It does amaze me how seemingly every August some pundit will declare “The Summer of Sequels” or some such nonsense as if franchise pictures haven’t plagued the multiplexes at this time every year for the past decade. True, seven of the ten highest-grossing films of the year domestically were part of franchises (nine of you count The Avengers preludes), but that’s commonplace in this era of shareholder cinema. Read more on Sayonara, Summer!…
Categories: Article Tags: Another Earth, Attack The Block, Beautiful Boy, Beginners, Bellflower, Bridesmaids, Captain America: The First Avenger, Cars 2, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, collaborative article, Crazy Stupid Love, Everything Must Go, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, Hesher, Independent Spirit Awards, Mel Gibson, Midnight in Paris, Oscar hopefuls, Passion Play, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Project Nim, Sarah's Key, Senna, Submarine, Super 8, Sympathy for Delicious, Terri, The Beaver, The Future, The Guard, The Help, The Tree of Life, Thor, Transformers: Dark of the Moon
|
