I've Got Spirit, How About You?
A rather odd list from the Indie Spirit crew this year. No one can really accuse the group of pandering to celebrity with its version of Best Picture
April 25, 2024
Awards
Susu on: The Letters From Iwo Jima review
Krillian on: 20 Weeks To Oscar: Rush To Poor Judgment?
Kristopher Tapley on: 20 Weeks To Oscar: Rush To Poor Judgment?
Kristopher Tapley on: 20 Weeks To Oscar: Rush To Poor Judgment?
Hallick on: 20 Weeks To Oscar: Rush To Poor Judgment?
Joe Parts on: Welcome To The Future
qbtqpidc on: Oscar Morning Coming Down
IOv3 on: 20 Weeks Extra: Could There Be One More Turn?
20 Weeks To Oscar: Rush To Poor Judgment?
20 Weeks Extra: Could There Be One More Turn?
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” â some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it â I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury â he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” â and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging â I was with her at that moment â she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy namedâ” “Yeah, sure â you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that Iâm on the phone with you now, after all thatâs been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didnât seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereâs not a case of that. He wasnât using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had â if that were what the accusation involved â the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. Iâm not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, âYou know, itâs not this, itâs thatâ? Because â let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, thatâs what it lacked. Thatâs what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
I get to vote in this every year and the randomness of the nominations baffle me. I remember when “The Sweet Hereafter” was considered a foreign film, but now “Diving Bell” isn’t, but “Once” is?
They also have a tendency for nominating unexceptional performances while ignoring great ones. How do you nominate “The Savages” in all those categories and omit Picture and even worse, Laura Linney, for Actress when her performance was what made the movie for me? Or was Marisa Tomei the only performance in “Before The Devil” worth nominating?
It’s beginning to look like The Golden Globes have more integrity than the ISP awards. Frigging nuts.
But it was nice to see “Lake of Fire” get some love. That is hand’s-down the best doc I’ve seen all year.
Perhaps even the Indie Spirit people found the premise of Lars and the Real Girl off-putting. Or, the flip side, they found it not off-putting enough (I personally wish it had been made by Cronenberg with all that entails).
You really CAN’T be suggesting Lars is Cronenberg material if you have seen it, J-Mc. Can’t.
I’m saying I would have liked it better if it had been.
To qualify for the Spirits, a film has to be “American” in the same way, I suppose, that a foreign Oscar selection has to be “from” the submitting country. By which they mean the creative principals (director/writer/producer) are from that country. That’s why Diving Bell is American (Schnabel/Kennedy) and not French. I guess that’s also why Away From Her (Canada) and Once (Ireland) aren’t eligible in any category other than foreign film. Crazy, I know.
HUGE HUGE HUGE PROPS to Aaron Katz/QUIET CITY getting a Cassavettes Award nomination!!!!! Holy shit….that’s HUGE!! Such an outstanding little film…
Christ the ISAs are so stupid. On one hand it’s utterly baffling that they didn’t nominate Linney (or Kidman for that matter), but I’m glad Sienna Miller is getting some awards love. It really is bizarre though.
Maybe they can finally get around to releasing Paranoid Park though. I’m slightly desperate for new Van Sant.
For my money, Manufactured Landscapes was the best movie of 2007. Should please fans of Baraka and An Inconvienient Truth. The opening tracking shot of a Chinese iron making factory is one of the most stunning openings I’ve ever seen.
Why doesn’t Lars get nominated for best foreign picture? It was shot in Canada, after all-even though they hint at Michigan in the office.
That seems to be the quintessential Canadian story.
SPOILER?
You leave someone alone, mostly. When he responds by getting weird, everyone adjusts a little until he heals.
Dave, you’re selling Juno short!! The Academy that in recent years honored Eminem, The Departed, Three Six Mafia, and Crash is not going to be turned off by a teenage pregnancy… especially one as heartwarming and well done as Juno. If anything, I think it stands a better chance at winning than last year’s lighter BP nominee, Little Miss Sunshine, because it is the ONLY real feel-good film that is likely to make the nomination cut. People of all ages respond to it–laughing, crying, whatever–in large part because the joke is that Ellen Page is a smartass adult stuck in a 20 year old body. And Dave… she is SO good. When voters walk out of that screening drying their tears and with a big smile on their face… I’m telling you, man! đ