Award Season - Juno and Dylan Have Plenty of Spirit

November 29, 2007

It's the official start of award season as the Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced. Several films received nods, but I'm Not There and Juno were the big hits.

The categories and nominations are...

BEST FEATURE

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST FIRST FEATURE

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
(Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)

BEST SCREENPLAY

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

BEST FEMALE LEAD

BEST MALE LEAD

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

BEST DOCUMENTARY

BEST FOREIGN FILM

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD

I'm Not There

Also announced were the nominees for the three Filmmaker Grant Awards.

IFC/Acura Someone to Watch Award

The 12th annual Truer Than Fiction Award is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant attention.

The 11th annual Producers Award honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity, and vision required to produce quality, independent films.

Notes and Reactions...

  • I'm not surprised Juno earned so many nominations given its early reviews. On the other hand, three of the other four Best Picture nominations earned less than 80% positive reviews, which is rather low for award contenders.
  • Ellen Page's nomination was also not a surprise. She's been great when it comes to acting and picking out challenging projects.
  • The Savages didn't earn a nomination for Best Picture, but did pick up four other nominations, include two for writer / director Tamara Jenkins.
  • Lust, Caution was nominated for three awards, but strangely, Best Foreign Film wasn't among them.
  • It was nice to see Great World of Sound pick up two nominations. It earned excellent reviews but didn't make any noise at the box office. The DVD comes out just a week before the awards are handed down, and that should prove to be good publicity.
  • I'm happy to see Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor pick up nominations, but I was hoping for more from Talk To Me.

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Filed under: Juno, Waitress, The Namesake, Once, A Mighty Heart, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Savages, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon, Rescue Dawn, Se jie, The Lookout, Talk to Me, Persepolis, Deux jours à Paris, I’m Not There, Bikur Ha-Tizmoret, Margot at the Wedding, Year of the Dog, 4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile, Broken English, Starting Out in the Evening, Rocket Science, Lady Chatterley, Paranoid Park, Interview, Manufactured Landscapes, Crazy Love, Youth Without Youth, Vanaja, The Pool, August Evening, Owl and the Sparrow, Shotgun Stories, Lake of Fire, Great World of Sound, Quiet City, The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, Four Sheets to the Wind, The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun