The 2011 Spirit Awards aren’t going to look too different from the 2011 Academy Awards. This morning’s nominees include studio movies like “127 Hours,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “127 Hours,” “Black Swan,” and “Rabbit Hole.”
Strangely enough, the Spirit Awards also nominated Oscar tipped “The King’s Speech” for Best Foreign Film. That’s because it’s in English–no, seriously, movies made anywhere abroad, including the UK, are considered foreign.
Best Feature Film nominees are ‘Black Swan,” “127 Hours,” “Greenberg,” “Winter’s Bone,” and “The Kids Are All Right.”
Best Actor: James Franco, Aaron Eckhart, Ronald Bronstein, John C. Reilly, and Ben Stiller.
Best Actress: Annette Bening, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicole Kidman, Michelle Williams, Greta Gerwig, and Natalie Portman.
Best Supporting Actor: John Hawkes, Bill Murray, Samuel L. Jackson, John Ortiz, and Mark Ruffalo.
Best Supporting Actress: Ashley Bell, Dale Dickey, Allison Janney, Daphne Rubin Vega, Naomi Rapace.
Robert Altman Award: to “Please Give” the terrific film by Nicole Holofcener.
But at this rate, with Kidman, Franco, Portman, Murray, Williams, and Bening all in probable Oscar contention, too, they’re going to have make a new Spirit Awards for the next level of films. I always thought the purpose of the Spirit Awards was not reward a Franco film like “127 Hours,” from Fox Searchlight with an Oscar winning director like Danny Boyle, but to highlight a little film like “Howl.” Ditto for “Black Swan,” Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman. That’s for the Academy Awards.
Also: if three of the five Spirit Award nominees for Best Feature wind up with Oscar nods for Best Picture–127, Swan, and Kids–what’s the difference at this point?
