Special Report: Spirit Awards Preview/Predictions

?????The Spirit Award nominations are announced a week from today. Here's special guest and our podcast cohort Joe Reid to preview/predict the nominations.

The 2015 Film Independent Spirit Awards will announce their nominations next Tuesday, the earliest full slate of nominations (the Gothams can call me when they get supporting categories) and for many the clearest opening bell for awards season. After them, the critics awards start rolling in, then the Golden Globe nominations, and by then we're off to the races. I have always found the Spirits to be the most difficult to predict and the most fun. Partly because they happen so early in the season but also partly because the qualifications are always just a bit mysterious.

A reminder, per the Spirits' rules and regs: to qualify, a film must be an American film made for under $20 million, and have either been released in theaters in 2015 or played one of six major U.S. festivals (Sundance, Los Angeles, New Directors/New Films, New York, Telluride, Toronto). Of course, even with those rules, there are splittable hairs. 

predictions after the jump

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The Oscar Eligibility List for Best Animated Feature

The 16 official submissions for the Best Animated Feature Oscar have been revealed. The finalists include expected high-profile entries like Pixar's Inside Out and the still-to-come festival darling Anomalisa, and some you are maybe hearing about for the first time. Here's the list:

• Anomalisa (US)
• The Boy And The Beast (Japan)
• Boy And The World (Brazil)
• The Good Dinosaur (US)
• Home (US)
• Hotel Transylvania 2 (US)
• Inside Out (US)
• Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (Multinational)
• The Laws Of The Universe – Part 0 (Japan)
• Minions (US)
• Moomins On The Riviera (Finland)
• The Peanuts Movie (US)
• Regular Show: The Movie (US)
• Shaun The Sheep Movie (UK)
• The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water (US)
• When Marnie Was There (Japan)

After racking up Pixar's second highest domestic gross, Inside Out is the early frontrunner. Its potential is also boosted by its Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay prospects, and it has the blend of brains and heart that have lead Pixar to more wins in the category than any other studio. There is also The Good Dinosaur coming for Thanksgiving and hoping to celebrate Pixar's first dual release year with dual nominations.

Pixar isn't alone in bringing a high pedigree. Anomalisa stands to benefit from its uniqueness among the pack: already boasting the Academy-approved pedigree of Charlie Kaufman, it's also a rare entry intended squarely at adults. GKIDS, who have found favor in this category with lovely low profile films, have three eligible candidates, including Studio Ghibli's When Marnie Was There. Will Blue Sky's The Peanuts Movie register with nostalgic love or will it have similar poor luck to the other releases by the studio?

This category also has some tricky qualifications to note. The short version is that there could be five nominees (provided every single one of these meets release qualifications), but that depends on how well the nominating committee rates each film. If they think the field is weak, we could see less than five.

YES, NO, MAYBE SO: Anomalisa

Coco here, ready to talk about the trailer for Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa. 

YES

- Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine... Even if you don't love Synecdoche New York, a Charlie Kaufman project deserves enthusiasm.
- We don't get enough stop-motion animation in our screens, and even fewer animated movies aimed at adult audiences.
- In a sea of computer generated mediocrity, it's always nice to see a strong voice be inspired by the medium of animation, which seems to be a good way for auteurs to find revitalizing force. Think, for example, of Wes Anderson's wave of success after Fantastic Mr. Fox. 

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7 Bullet Points: Fall Festival Fallout & Oscar Chart Updates

Before we begin, please to note: the four Oscar category acting charts are not yet updated. Everything else is for the purposes of this discussion.  

• That was exciting. Now... breathe!
With the fall film festival trifecta (Telluride, Venice, TIFF) behind us, the fourth and noisiest early rung in the climb to Oscar (the first being Sundance, the second being Cannes, the third being anything else that happened from January through August (i.e. summer box office, media &  audience response to early offerings), we are well on the way towards Oscar nominations. It's important to note that while many over-eager pundits begin to declare winners in all sorts of categories at this stage, that's silliness. We should be focusing on the battle for nominations (still days away) until they're announced. Many things can still happen and do regularly happen in October through January which alter that who might win landscape each year. And, a crucial reminder: you can't win if you aren't nominated!

six more topics to discuss after the jump

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An IndieWire TIFF Poll

We'll wrap up our TIFF coverage tomorrow with the full index of reviews for now I wanted to point you to IndieWire where they've published their "best of TIFF" critics survey and the results are interesting but also disheartening since they remind us that US critics rush to films that are about to open rather than to films without distributors when they hit festivals. (I'll never understand this really.) They also don't seem to care about foreign language films - only one picture from their entire top collective top ten is in a foreign language (Hungary's Son of Saul) and you have to go down into the #13 before you see them crop up with regularity.

The already wildly overrated Charlie Kaufman joint Anomalisa is #1 just barely in a photofinish with the only marginally overrated Spotlight. Hee. Lots more on the actors and a distinct Oscar possibility after the jump...

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