My Spirit Award Ballot

Please welcome guest contributor Chels Eichholz for this preview of the Spirit Awards...

by Chels Eichholz

Anybody with $100 can be a member of Film Independent. Some people join solely for the screeners and the privilege of voting for the Independent Spirit Awards. Others, like myself, are filmmakers that use the other membership perks to help network and get our projects created, and voting is just a fun little cherry on top. The nominees are decided by small juries and winners are decided by all members. The awards will be held tomorrow Thursday, April 22 at 10:00 pm, exclusively on IFC and AMC+.

If you’re looking for a lineup that balances both an independent spirit and Oscar love, look no further. I do prefer when award shows have their own identity and don't try to predict the Academy Awards. The Oscar race itself isn’t a meritocracy, and Film Independent is great at highlighting  unsung gems of the year (along with a few more celebrated Oscar hopefuls). I’ve been a member for a few years now and always make it a point to watch every nominee before voting and this year gave us a great selection.  The categories and my own votes after the jump...

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John Waters @ 75 : Female Trouble (1974)

Team Experience is celebrating John Waters for his 75th birthday this week

by Jason Adams

If you'd like a new addition to your "Damn why wasn't I there?" list of super-cool world events of the past, have I ever got a doozy -- circe 1973, not long after Pink Flamingos had become a cult sensation, a screening of the film was set up by Fran Lebowitz (because obviously) for Andy Warhol and his various hangers-on at Warhol's Factory in New York. John Waters was already a big fan of the soup-can man -- he still owns a "Jackie O" print that pre-dates his homosexuality, gifted by his then-girlfriend in 1964 -- and so this was no doubt a big deal for the famed Baltimorean, and he's recalled the night fondly in interviews:

"... [Andy] had been shot recently, and the last thing he needed was to meet a bunch of new lunatics.... I brought my gang and Candy Darling was there, and that's when Divine met Candy, and they got along great. Andy watched it sort of hiding it in the closet, and then when it was over he went in the back with me and said, "Why don't you make the exact same movie over again?" And then he said he would back my next movie, which shocked me because no one was saying that, but I think I wisely said no, because it would have been Andy Warhol's Female Trouble...

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Emile Mosseri: The king of 2020's film music

by Cláudio Alves

He may have only been composing film scores since 2016, but Emile Mosseri has quickly become one of the most exciting composers in today's Hollywood. At least, he's got a prime spot on my list of ones-to-watch. Two years ago, he made a big splash with the hauntingly beautiful compositions for The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Joe Talbot's delicate tone poem about a city and its people earned much critical acclaim and even a couple of awards for the young composer. Flash forward to today, and Mosseri's at the top of the world, having conquered his first Oscar nomination for Minari. What's more, that wasn't even the only masterful score he delivered in 2020…

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Yes No Maybe So: "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"

by Nathaniel R

The Marvel Cinematic Universe stands alone among franchises in that it may well reap great benefits from the pandemic. Avengers Endgame had brought the franchise to a world-saturating record-breaking close in the spring of 2019 followed by the digestif of the much smaller scale Spider-Man Far From Home in July 2019 (though smaller scale with these gargantuan budgeted action movies is relative). And then just as a new wave of heroes was set to emerge, an unexpected intermission;  Kevin Feige couldn't have timed the pandemic better. Not that we're starting any daft conspiracy theories!

With Black Widow's release pushed to July 2021, moviegoers have essentially had a full two year break from the MCU (apart from recent Disney+ tv shows). We think this will actually benefit the MCU (which was at an oversaturation point culturally and bound to begin to falter) as demand is now theoretically pent-up to Endgame heights again without the studio having to do any of the narrative work to get there...

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Review: Sebastian Stan and Denise Gough shine in "Monday"

by Matt St Clair

The film may be called Monday but it’s all about the thrill of living for the weekend. It opens with a tracking shot of people, including our two American protagonists Mickey (Sebastian Stan) and Chloe (Denise Gough), getting their groove on in the dance floor as “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer starts playing. Everyone dancing to the rhythm with hardly a care in the world reflects the picture's tone as Mickey and Chloe engage in a blissful romance under the Greek Sun. Both act as if they’re stuck on that disco floor and hoping that dread day Monday never comes...

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