(Image source: Extracine)
BY BRICE SANDER
A jam-packed weekend of award shows kicked off Saturday night with the 27th Independent Spirit Awards. ABC -- which airs the Oscars -- calls the awards “Oscar’s irreverent half brother” - and has a clip of host Seth Rogen’s opening remarks to prove it.
“The only award show that is completely inconsequential - nothing will come from this if you win. If anything, it proves you’ll work for nothing.”
The Independent Spirit Awards honor the best in films that are funded independently, before -- hopefully -- being picked up by big studios for wide release. The New York Times reports a lot of the indie winners mirror those set to be honored by The Academy Sunday night.
“... some of the Spirit winners will probably repeat at the Oscars … like Christopher Plummer. Mr. Plummer, who won supporting actor for ‘Beginners,’ displayed his usual debonair humor … [and] Michelle Williams, after five nominations finally a winner, as best actress for ‘My Week With Marilyn,’ gave what was easily the best received speech of the night.”
The big winner Saturday was “The Artist” with four awards. Many expect the silent film to take top honors at the Oscars. But as the Daily Beast suggests, it’ll have to break the so-called “Indie Spirit Curse” if it wants to take home the golden guy Sunday.
“...the independent world has become a certified genre of Hollywood filmmaking … [but] only once before have the Spirits voters picked the same film as the Academy: Platoon in 1987. Instead it has more served to give a consolation prize to the smaller, critical-favorite also-rans that just fall short on Oscar night...”
Even though the Spirit Awards and Oscars seem to be becoming more alike, Entertainment Weekly says the Spirit Awards still have a bit of quirk -- they’re held on the beach.
“The show was, at least, a brisk one, clocking in at just over two hours, an unusually short time span for any awards show … The most pointed, and peculiar, break in the flow of the show were the four thank-you videos played by emerging filmmakers … The sentiment was certainly noble — financially encouraging artists who most need the money...”
For a full list of the Indie winners, you can click on the link in on transcript section.
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