We’ve got the SAG Awards tonight, we’re in the home stretch of awards season for movies. All that’s left are the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, and the Oscars.
Oh, and the Independent Spirit Awards.
Given the afternoon before the Academy Awards, the Spirit Awards in recent years turned into a mini-Oscars. Many of the nominees overlapped since a great number of quality movies came from the indie world.
But this year will be different. The nominees for the Spirit Awards are so twee and special, the total box office for the five titles in Best Picture was just about $20 million. Not only that, the Robert Altman Ensemble Award is going to a movie just about no one saw, the remake of “Suspiria” from Luca Guadagnino. Total US box office for that one: $2.5 million. How was it chosen, anyway? The Rotten Tomatoes score is 64%. “Suspiria” 2018 should not be getting an award.
Indeed, “If Beale Street Could Talk” should have gotten the Altman award. Well reviewed, with a terrific cast, Barry Jenkins‘ movie is exactly what Altman would have liked. The Indie Spirit people didn’t get this one at all.
Last year, the Spirit Awards managed to find only 95,000 people for the IFC Channel telecast. And that show was pretty star studded, with “Get Out”– an enormous box office hit– winning, “Lady Bird” in the mix, and people like Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, and Allison Janney — winners– on the show. Also, the hilarious Nick Kroll and John Mullaney hosted.
This year, the nominees– with the exception of Glenn Close— are fairly unknown. The host is Aubrey Plaza. (I already made a joke that Richard Johnson picked up– I thought Aubrey Plaza was a shopping center.) This could be the last time the Spirits are on TV. They should take a page from their cousin show, the Gotham Awards, held in New York in late November and not televised. That’s a great evening.
PS I don’t know who votes in this thing, but if you do, Josh Hamilton should get Best Supporting Actor for “Eighth Grade.” Just sayin’….
