Independent Spirit Award Nominations

[Precious Doll]

Great to see Tangerine pick up 4 major nominations, even if one of them is in the wrong category and Kevin Corrigan receive some well deserved recognition for Results.

I saw a trailer to Room last weekend when I went to see 99 Homes. I appreciate that it has gotten positive reviews and people seem to love it but the trailer makes it look utterly insufferable. Oscars aside I will only watch it because of my fondness for two previous films What Richard Did & Adam and Paul that Abrahamson has directed. So far he is 2 for 2 (I'm very much on the fence with Frank & Garage).

[Mister Tee]

Because I'm never sure which films are eligible, I can never make full sense of the Spirit nominations -- some films that seem excluded (Youth, Brooklyn, 45 Years, The Danish Girl) may have been disqualified for foreignness. Room does seem the big "loser", but it's not uncommon for random films to be left out here and do pefectly well elsewhere.

Apropos what BJ says about those three non-lead actress categories: as I started to think about predicting the NY critics awards, I realized I have no confidence about who will even be the contenders in any of those slots. (Actually, one from here who might score in NY is Jason Segel, who's pretty transformative in The End of the Tour). And it's great that the Spirits have joined the Globes in properly placing Mara, but the insistence of the bloggers might negate the push.

I do agree that Mya Taylor is evety bit as much the lead in Tangerine. I'm afraid Tangerine is going to be one of my not-with-the-cheering-section films this year. For me it had the qualities of indies I least like -- a cheap look and lots of shrill acting. I didn't hate the movie -- I thought it gathered momentum, finally, in the last half hour (partly due to having a professional actor, Ransone, grounding the screeching matches a bit), but I think the extravagant praise it's received is at least partly (understandable) support for its subject matter.

[The Original BJ]

This Indie Spirit roster seems pleasingly off-Oscar this year -- after a year where the Spirits were dominated by major Oscar players like Birdman, Boyhood, Selma, and Whiplash, this year's slate seems a lot more old-school in terms of honoring tinier stuff that won't have a ton of other award shows to receive recognition.

Carol and Spotlight stand out immediately as the two films nominated heavily here that will likely carry over to the Oscars, though the fact that none of Spotlight's actors got nominated sticks out as this year's fluky omission from a movie they otherwise liked. On the other hand, Room probably had the worst day of Oscar-player entries, missing Best Feature, Director, and any actors outside Larson.

Once again, Rooney Mara's attempt at category fraud gets thwarted -- -- yet apparently voters had no problem splitting up the Tangerine girls into two categories, which maybe lends some credence to flipp's argument that it's much harder to commit fraud when it's flying under the radar rather than being the only thing anyone can talk about. (As for those Tangerine actresses, are they the first transgender actors to get nominations here? I imagine even if they're not, that list is pretty short.)

Couldn't you see a scenario where NONE of the nominees from Actor, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress make the Oscar lineup? Only the trio of Best Actress nominees (Blanchett, Larson, Mara) seem like top-tier Oscar players at this point, though I'm starting to feel like my Cynthia Nixon hunch might be building some traction, and I do really hope Idris Elba hangs on there in the Supporting Actor category. (Certainly Beasts of No Nation's strong showing this morning gives that movie a much-needed jolt.) Paul Dano, of course, could Oscar contend too, as well as Jennifer Jason Leigh, albeit for a different film, with the extra-credit Anomalisa performance only helping those odds. (Is she the first-ever voice-over performance nominated here?)

[The Original BJ]

Best Feature
Anomalisa
Beasts of No Nation
Carol
Spotlight
Tangerine

Best Director
Cary Joji Fukunaga – Beasts of No Nation
Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson – Anomalisa
David Robert Mitchell – It Follows
Sean Baker – Tangerine
Todd Haynes – Carol
Tom McCarthy – Spotlight

Best Female Lead
Bel Powley – Diary of a Teenage Girl
Brie Larson – Room
Cate Blanchett – Carol
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez – Tangerine
Rooney Mara – Carol

Best Male Lead
Abraham Attah – Beasts of No Nation
Ben Mendelsohn – Mississippi Grind
Christopher Abbott – James White
Jason Segel – The End of the Tour
Kudos Seihon – Mediterranea

Best Supporting Female
Cynthia Nixon – James White
Jennifer Jason Leigh – Anomalisa
Marin Ireland – Glass Chin
Mya Taylor – Tangerine
Robin Bartlett – H.

Best Supporting Male
Idris Elba – Beasts of No Nation
Kevin Corrigan – Results
Michael Shannon – 99 Homes
Paul Dano – Love & Mercy
Richard Jenkins – Bone Tomahawk

Best Screenplay
Charlie Kaufman – Anomalisa
Donald Marguiles – The End of the Tour
Phyllis Nagy – Carol
S. Craig Zahler – Bone Tomahawk
Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer – Spotlight

Best Cinematography
Cary Joji Fukunaga – Beasts of No Nation
Ed Lachman – Carol
Joshua James Richards – Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Michael Gioulakis – It Follows
Reed Morano – Meadowland

Best Documentary
(T)error
Best of Enemies
Heart of a Dog
Meru
The Look of Silence
The Russian Woodpecker

Best Film Editing
Julio C. Perez IV – It Follows
Kristan Sprague – Manos Sucias
Nathan Nugent – Room
Ronald Bronstein and Benny Safdie – Heaven Knows What
Tom McArdle – Spotlight

Best First Feature
James White
Manos Sucias
Mediterranea
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Best First Screenplay
Emma Donoghue – Room
Jesse Andrews – Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
John Magary, Russell Harbaugh, and Myna Joseph – The Mend
Jonas Carpignano – Mediterranea
Marielle Heller – The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Best International Film
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Embrace of the Serpent
Girlhood
Mustang
Son of Saul

John Cassavetes Award
Advantageous
Christmas, Again
Heaven Knows What
Krisha
Out of My Mind

Robert Altman Award
Spotlight