Thursday, May 21, 2026

“Train Dreams,” Rose Byrne Win Indie Spirit Awards, But Only 32,000 People Watched Hobbled Show on YouTube

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The Indie Spirit Awards — once a force — took place today in earnest.

The stealth event took place at the Hollywood Palladium. “Train Dreams” and its director, Clint Bentley, won the top awards. A Netflix movie, “Train Dreams” — a great film — really didn’t even play in theaters.

Rose Byrne won Best Performance for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” The awards are stupidly gender free, so there was no Best Actor.

In golden days, the Spirit Awards took place the day before the Oscars in a huge circus tent at the Santa Monica Pier. It was an event.

Now it’s just a schleppy kind of rat fuck. There’s no occasion to it, and the attendees dress like they’re going to Ralph’s for a quart of ice cream.

Why wasn’t it on the pier for the first time in three decades? THe excuse has something to with the 2028 Olympics, but host Ego Nwodim oked that they missed the deadline to get permission for the tent.

About 32,000 views on YouTube, not much, but the show wasn’t promoted. I actually forgot about it.

LOL. The new director of Film Independent is in over her head. As George Harrison once sang, All things must pass.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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