FYC: Lulu Wang for Best Director

by Cláudio Alves

With the advent of Awards Season, we have to contend with the disappointment that always comes hand-in-hand with the excitement and the joy. No matter how much great work is nominated and rewarded, there's always a snub to point out and cry over. The recent Independent Spirit Awards nominations perfectly exemplify such dynamics. This year, they decided to spread the wealth and ignored the Siren's call of just nominating Oscar-viable titles. All in all, it's a wonderful collection of honors and achievements, but even here there is cause to complain about the dreaded snubs.

Why didn't Lulu Wang score a nomination for Best Screenplay or Best Director? How can The Farewell be up for Best Feature and not for either of those awards?...

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Spirit Award nominations spread the wealth for 2019.

by Nathaniel R

Nominations for the 35th annual Independent Spirit Awards have been announced with the wealth really being spread. For example the 5 nominees for the top prize “Feature” only crossover with “Best Director” on a single film, the Safdie brothers Uncut Gem which co-led the nominations with 5 prizes though it’s yet to open in theaters. Tying that films lead for most nominations was The Lighthouse even though that black and white oddity did not score a nomination for Best Feature!

Interestingly enough, the just-opened indie Waves was (almost) entirely shut out even though it’s a Best Feature nominee at the often quite parallel Gotham Awards. On a similar note the acting nominations aren’t heavily dependent on Best Feature love, either. 

A complete list of nominations plus commentary after the jump...

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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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