Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Indie Spirit Nominations

Oscarwatch has them. Check it out. It's a good day for Half Nelson, Pan's Labyrinth, Little Miss Sunshine, and a couple that haven't gotten much ink yet elsewhere: The Dead Girl and The Painted Veil. What's most interesting this year is the lack of similarity to Oscar's presumed shortlists in the acting categories. In the past few years it seems like the ISA nominators have skewed very Oscary but not so this year. Seems like they're actually looking at smaller scale indies --good for them.

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Shareeka Epps Half Nelson
Catherine O'Hara For Your Consideration
Elizabeth Reaser Sweet Land
Michelle Williams Land of Plenty
Robin Wright Penn Sorry, Haters

of these I'd say only O'Hara has any Oscar possibility (unless Epps is pushed hard for supporting and rides on the Gosling hoopla) and even O'Hara is a longshot at best, playing an Oscar-baiting actress and the desperation might hit too close to home.

BEST MALE LEAD
Aaron Eckhart Thank You For Smoking
Ryan Gosling Half Nelson
Edward Norton The Painted Veil
Ahmad Razvi Man Push Cart
Forest Whitaker American Gun

some longshot Oscar hopefuls and Globe probables in Eckhart and Gosling. But obviously Whitaker will be competing with The Last King of Scotland rather than for American Gun.

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Melonie Diaz A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Marcia Gay Harden American Gun
Mary Beth Hurt The Dead Girl
Frances McDormand Friends with Money
Amber Tamblyn Stephanie Daley

probably not an Oscar contender in the bunch but an interesting grouping.

BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Alan Arkin Little Miss Sunshine
Raymond J. Barry Steel City
Daniel Craig Infamous
Paul Dano Little Miss Sunshine
Channing Tatum A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

The Oscar is looking more and more like it is Arkin's to lose, isn't it? Interesting that Dano was the other pic rather than Carrel or Kinnear. I guess it's that L.I.E. indie spirit hangover.

What do you think?

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm totally not getting the Alan Arkin buzz. What's that about? I saw Little Miss Sunshine, and he hardly resonated with me. (And yikes, it's not because he was an old man who loved porn and drugs, is it? Pleh. Seems awfully obvious to . . . wait, if we're talking about Oscar noms, nevermind.)

Joe R. said...

Arkin was great, but I'm happy to see Dano there also. And good to see Frances McDormand with a Friends With Money nod! Good to see that'll get recognition somewhere.

Amy said...

These nominations are a joke. Where's Little Children? Where's Toni Collette? The woman has TWO films nominated for Best Film and not a single nomination!

And I don't know what the hell American Gun even is, but I'm happy to see Harden nominated.

ePastor James said...

Yes! You believe in Arkin too! I was hoping that he might get a veteran-love win, a la Jack Palance or something. He has such an eccentric role and gives a memorable performance that sticks with you throughout the movie...I hope our hunches are right and Arkin could potentially walk away with the golden boy.

And I think this should be proof enough to some people that Carell is not likely to grab a nom over him. I love him, but I'm happy Dano got some attention. He seemed the most likely to be overlooked.

Beau said...

I also don't get the Arkin buzz. He was fine, sure, but Oscar-worthy?
Hardly.

Give it to Wahlberg and be done with it.

Anonymous said...

Abigail Breslin? Where is she? The heart and soul of the movie didn't get a nomination.

adam k. said...

Yeah, indie spirit noms are always weird. But if Little Children qualified, I'm surprised not to see it anywhere.

Nice to see Dano get some love, though. He was one of my favorites in his film.

I also don't get the Arkin buzz. When did people start think he'd WIN this year? With Jack, Brad, and Eddie Murphy in the running? I don't know. That's kinda hard to picture. Arkin's not even the best in his own film.

Anonymous said...

Nice to see some Saints love. A very uneven picture, but parts of it really resonated. (Plus I felt like a twittering schoolgirl swooning over The Channing.)

Also pleased to see Eckhart and McDormand recognised. After the embarrassment of North Country, FMcD redeemed herself in my eyes a little with FWM.

Anonymous said...

I'm thrilled that Half Nelson award buzz is growing. GO GOSLING AND EPPS!

Yaseen Ali said...

CHANNING TATUM???!

I must say I'm quite pleased with these - not Oscary selections at all, you're right.

Yaseen Ali said...

Hey, where's Maggie G. for Sherrybaby? I definitely thought she would be included in the lineup, but maybe they're trying to spread the wealth? (She already has two nominations, one just last year.)

adam k. said...

Yeah I thought Maggie and Gretchen Mol would be shoo-ins for indie spirit nods.

Anonymous said...

Good News? Little Children wasn't qualified for the Indie Spirits! So that's the reason it didn't get nominated.

And tommorrow is my birthday so I shall be known as 16 YEAR OLD BLOGGER! 2 days until I get my license!!!

NicksFlickPicks said...

Leaving out Gretchen Mol strikes me as incredibly perverse, especially as I have never heard a single good thing about Robin Wright Penn in Sorry, Haters. And The Notorious Bettie Page is more than "indie" enough to fit in, even with these nicely adventurous noms.

adam k. said...

I think the indie voters just really like Wright-Penn in general.

Beau said...

Actually, if you listen to Ebert's podcast when he reviewed the film, you'll hear nothing but raves for Wright-Penn coming from him. I'm not too sure anymore, it's been so long since I listened to it, but I believe he referred to her as the best American-actress working in cinema today.
Or something along those lines. All I know is, she was the deciding factor in him giving the film a thumbs up as opposed to a thumbs down.

Beau said...

And where is the love for Sandra Bullock and Toby Jones?

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure Gretchen Mol's performance was one of the best female performances of the year. Why is no one noticing?! :(

nhp bob said...

Yayy for FOUR EYED MONSTERS (go Arin & Susan!!), WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY (go Goran!!), and most especially...

...a big yayyyy for SWEET LAND, which is showing itself (525K so far) at being a slow and steady winner with moviegoers and critics (93% positive on Rotten Tomatoes),and this could start the ball rolling on its chance at being the verrrry dark horse at the Globes and the Oscars.

I don't work for the film, but I wish I did. It resonates with me everytime I revisit the trailer and clip #4 @ sweetlandmovie.com.

par3182 said...

i'm glad they nominated paul dano for little miss sunshine; his silent seething teen was my favourite performance in the film

interesting they went with edward norton in the painted veil and ignored naomi watts

RC said...

wow, that is interesting that dano was chosen.

i always wonder if marcia gay harden has a chance whenever she does anything.

who knows...could it happen?

and daniel craig...I could see that too.

--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com

Glenn Dunks said...

"I also don't get the Arkin buzz. When did people start think he'd WIN this year? With Jack, Brad, and Eddie Murphy in the running? I don't know. That's kinda hard to picture. Arkin's not even the best in his own film."

Adam, how quickly you forget? The Academy likes to award old geezers in Supporting Actor just like they like to award hot newcomers in Supporting Actress. Alan Arkin is an already twice nominated aforementioned old geezer who gives a buzzed performance in a likely BP contender. Jack Nicholson? If they give it to him it'll just be cause he's JACK and not for the perf. Eddie? a nomination sure, but I don't see them giving him the award. Brad? Nope. Not for Babel. I've been saying for a while that it's Arkin's for the taking. I personally didn't think it was an Oscar worthy perf, but it's good for him. If they're giving makeup Oscars to Peter O'Toole. At least his film will be higher on the nom tally.

ANYWAY.

I'm glad about these nominations. I would've loved to see people lile Gretchen Mol show up, but they went predominantly INDIE which is better than what they had recently become (a celebrity fashion show). THis is shown even more by nominated Dano over Carell.

I still can't believe though that there are people complaining about the nominations in general for being, wait for it, "too indie" and asking "Who cares?" LOL. The producers of movies like Half Nelson, The Dead Girl, American Gun and so forth care I'm sure.

And the reason a lot of people were inelligable is because the funding for a movie has to come from predominantly American sources (Pan's Labyrinth is mostly American financed, whereas stuff like The Queen or The Last King of Scotland weren't) and the funding needs to be from a certain quota of independent sources.

I suppose they thought New Line was too big of a studio to count as "independent" so Little Children was disqualified.

Who knows, really.

Anonymous said...

yeah! this will help PAN'S LABYRINTH so much!!!, so they snubbed VOLVER right? it WAS elegible...

Yaseen Ali said...

Glenn - how is Gretchen Mol and The Notorious Bettie Page *not* indie? Even if they didn't like the movie, Mol's spectacular work is impossible to overlook. How did such an embarrassing omission occur? I just saw the film and it may be one of my top four fave performances of the year.