{"id":10425,"date":"2016-02-26T18:04:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T18:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shows4.com\/mobile\/?p=10425"},"modified":"2016-02-26T18:04:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T18:04:33","slug":"never-mind-the-oscars-the-spirit-awards-get-indie-and-diverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/?p=10425","title":{"rendered":"Never Mind the Oscars: The Spirit Awards Get Indie \u2013 and Diverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In a change from most recent years, the Spirit Awards won\u2019t be parading a lineup of likely Academy Award winners. For the last few years, it seemed as if voters for the Film Independent Spirit Awards had thrown out the old catchphrase, \u201cWin on Saturday, lose on Sunday.\u201d But this year, when the Spirit Awards take place on Saturday afternoon in Santa Monica, that phrase might be appropriate once again. The phrase had originated during the years when acclaimed films would routinely win the Spirit Award for Best Film, which is always handed out the day before the Academy Awards, but then lose the Best Picture Oscar the next day, usually to something bigger and less indie.<\/p>\n

There was \u201cSex, Lies and Videotape\u201d winning the Spirit Award before \u201cDriving Miss Daisy\u201d took the Oscar; \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d at the Spirits, then \u201cForrest Gump\u201d at the Oscars; \u201cFargo,\u201d then \u201cThe English Patient\u201d; \u201cSideways,\u201d then \u201cMillion Dollar Baby\u201d; \u201cBrokeback Mountain,\u201d then \u201cCrash\u201d; \u201cLittle Miss Sunshine,\u201d \u201cThe Departed.\u201d Over the first 26 years of the Spirit Awards, only one film was named Best Picture by both groups: \u201cPlatoon,\u201d back in 1987. But in the last four years, it has happened three times, with \u201cThe Artist,\u201d \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d and \u201cBirdman.\u201d Suddenly, the catchphrase morphed into \u201cwin on Saturday, win again on Sunday,\u201d as the line between the Oscars and the Spirits grew increasingly blurry.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not just in the top category. Of the last eight acting winners at the Spirit Awards, for example, seven went on to win the Oscar: Julianne Moore, J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette last year, and Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong\u2019o the year before. This year, though, the Film Independent Spirit Awards are emphasizing the Independent in their name, and there\u2019s little chance for that kind of Spirit\/Oscar correlation. Only one Oscar Best Picture nominee, \u201cSpotlight,\u201d is up for Best Film at the Spirit Awards. The other Spirit nominees are \u201cAnomalisa,\u201d \u201cBeasts of No Nation,\u201d \u201cCarol\u201d and \u201cTangerine,\u201d with the low-budget Oscar nominee \u201cRoom\u201d conspicuously missing from the lineup chosen by a Film Independent jury. But even if \u201cSpotlight\u201d wins the Spirit Award and the Best Picture Oscar, which it could, the acting winners will be wildly different, with \u201cRoom\u201d star Brie Larson the only Saturday favorite who could also win on Sunday.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not a single male acting nominee at the Spirit Awards who is also in the Oscar Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor race, and not a single supporting female nominee. In fact, the only overlap is in the Spirits\u2019 Best Female Lead category, where Larson is up against Oscar Best Actress nominee Cate Blanchett and her \u201cCarol\u201d co-star Rooney Mara, who the Oscars put in the supporting category.
\nAnother way to tell these are not the Oscars acting categories: Five of the 20 nominees aren\u2019t white. African actors Abraham Attah and Koudous Seihon are in the Best Male Lead category, Idris Elba is in supporting and black transgender actresses Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor were both nominated for \u201cTangerine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spirit Awards juries went aggressively indie this year, partly because many of the big Oscar contenders are well over the Spirits\u2019 $20 million budget limit. That\u2019s a good thing, because these awards are at their most interesting when they stop trying to be Oscars Lite and get idiosyncratic. So the Best Male Lead category, for instance, consists of Christopher Abbott in \u201cJames White,\u201d Abraham Attah in \u201cBeasts of No Nation,\u201d Ben Mendelsohn in \u201cMississippi Grind,\u201d Jason Segel in \u201cThe End of the Tour\u201d and Koudous Seihon in \u201cMediterranea.\u201d The combined grosses of those five films don\u2019t even hit $4 million, less than half as much as the box office tally of \u201cTrumbo,\u201d the lowest-grossing of the five films containing the Oscar Best Actor nominees. The tricky thing about the Spirit Awards is that while the nominations are chosen by blue-ribbon panels that can often be adventurous, the final vote is open to all members of the non-profit organization Film Independent, which consists of both filmmakers and movie fans who pay yearly dues. That means the winners tend to be the highest profile, most mainstream films. On Saturday, that favors Tom McCarthy\u2019s journalism drama \u201cSpotlight,\u201d although Todd Haynes\u2018 \u201cCarol\u201d certainly has a chance to pull off an upset. (It led all films with six Spirit Award nominations, to five for \u201cBeasts of No Nation\u201d and four for \u201cSpotlight.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In the acting categories, Larson seems to be the one sure thing, though Jason Segel could be a lead-actor favorite on visibility alone. For supporting, Paul Dano (\u201cLove & Mercy\u201d), Idris Elba (\u201cBeasts\u201d) and Michael Shannon (\u201c99 Homes\u201d) are strong male contenders, while the female favorites are probably Jennifer Jason Leigh (nominated for her voiceover performance in \u201cAnomalisa,\u201d not for the ineligible \u201cThe Hateful Eight\u201d) and transgender performer Mya Taylor in \u201cTangerine.\u201d<\/p>\n

And maybe, with \u201cHow will this mirror the Oscars?\u201d less of a question than it has been in recent years, we\u2019ll be able to focus on categories at the heart of the Spirit Awards \u2014 like Best First Feature, whose nominees are \u201cThe Diary of a Teenage Girl,\u201d \u201cJames White,\u201d \u201cManos Sucias,\u201d \u201cMediterranea\u201d and \u201cSongs My Brother Taught Me,\u201d or the John Cassavetes Award for ultra-low-budget films, with \u201cAdvantageous,\u201d \u201cChristmas, Again,\u201d \u201cHeaven Knows What,\u201d \u201cKrisha\u201d and \u201cOut of My Head.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show will be hosted by Kate McKinnon from \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d and Kumail Nanjiani from \u201cSilicon Valley,\u201d and broadcast live at 2 p.m. PT \/ 5 p.m. ET on IFC.<\/p>\n