November
27
Indie Spirit Noms: I'm Not There Leads Field
The Indie Spirit Awards announcement this morning raises some interesting questions:
Did I'm Not There, the front-runner with four noms and the Robert Altman award, really cost less than $20-million, the supposed cap for Indie Spirit consideration? The film's official budget is $20 million. No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood weren't eligible because they were well over the cap.
There's an abortion theme this year, with the Romanian 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and Tony Kaye's doc Lake of Fire both getting nominations in the foreign and doc categories, respectively. Even Juno features a teen girl who refuses to have an abortion. Juno also got an Oscar boost with four noms--actress Ellen Page and screenwriter Diablo Cody will keep moving forward during the awards season.
Philip Seymour Hoffman got nommed for The Savages--which also landed four noms, including two for Tamara Jenkins for directing and writing--over Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which landed a first screenplay nom for Kelly Masterson as well as a supporting nom for Marisa Tomei. I'm not feeling real Oscar heat for the hardboiled Sidney Lumet picture, which didn't land director or feature slots here. Unfortunately for its Oscar hopes, The Weinstein Co's Grace is Gone, which features a lauded performance by John Cusack as a military man who loses his wife to the Iraq War, was overlooked by the Spirits.
The French-language The Diving Bell and the Butterfly presumably was eligible for the best feature category because its two producers, Kathleen Kennedy and Jon Kilik, are American. Four Spirit noms will definitely help the pic, which is playing well at guild screenings as it pursues Oscar attention (although director Julian Schnabel's recent swing through L.A. may have set the movie back a few notches). Janusz Kaminski and Ronald Harwood, especially, are strong Oscar contenders for cinematography and adapted screenplay.
On the other hand, Ireland's English-language Once is nominated in the foreign language category! While Ang Lee's Chinese-language Lust, Caution didn't make the cut for foreign film or best feature, it did score best actor and actress for Tony Leung and Tang Wei. And Israel's The Band's Visit, which has too much English in it to be Oscar-eligible, nabbed a foreign nom here.
A Mighty Heart's Angelina Jolie will duke it out for best actress with Juno's Ellen Page, I suspect.
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