Salon.com > The Hurt Locker http://www.salon.com Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Oscar’s best picture nominee numbers vary http://www.salon.com/2011/06/15/best_picture_nominee_numbers/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/15/best_picture_nominee_numbers/#comments Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:49:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/06/15/best_picture_nominee_numbers Have you been annoyed and confused by the decision to allow 10 nominees for best picture during the Oscars for the last two years? Do you think the academy should allow more than five movies in that category if the year warranted it? Well, you're in luck!

According to a New York Times article today, the number of films up for the best picture award will now range from five to 10, depending on variables you couldn't possibly hope to comprehend, such as the addition of a film past the base five only if it has received 5 percent or more of the total vote. This will apparently keep Oscar contenders biting their fingernails up until the moment their movie is announced, at which time everyone goes back to not really caring how many films are up for best picture. (As long as we keep "Shrek" movies out of the race.)

According to the NYT, this decision was based on several factors, including the recent yo-yo'ing of Oscar viewership, the retirement of academy director Bruce Davis, and "the 2011 Oscar show that was widely criticized for ... the seeming diffidence of one of its co-hosts, James Franco."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/15/best_picture_nominee_numbers/feed/ 4 Pick of the week: The greatest war film ever made? http://www.salon.com/2011/04/15/armadillo/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/15/armadillo/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/04/14/armadillo Have things improved in Iraq and Afghanistan since we decided to gung-ho the hell over there and blow stuff up? Let's just say that expert opinion is divided on that question, but the movies have been amazing. You could curate a dynamite film festival out of post-9/11 war movies, both documentaries and narrative features, starting with Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's prescient "Gunner Palace" -- made in 2004, just as the Iraq conflict was going seriously south -- and moving forward through "The Situation" and "Iraq in Fragments" and  "Battle for Haditha" and, of course, "The Hurt Locker" and last year's Oscar-nominated, you-are-there documentary "Restrepo."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/15/armadillo/feed/ 52 The “Hurt Locker” reality show controversy http://www.salon.com/2010/08/27/hurt_locker_reality_show/ http://www.salon.com/2010/08/27/hurt_locker_reality_show/#comments Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:28:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/2010/08/27/hurt_locker_reality_show Earlier this week, the cable network G4 announced that it had added a prospective reality show called "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan" to a lineup that includes such newsworthy fare as "Cheaters" and "Ninja Warrior." The show, which plans to follow an Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit of the U.S. Navy from Stateside training into one of the deadliest places on the planet, is billed as a real-life "Hurt Locker," which G4 president Neal Tiles told the Hollywood Reporter was his favorite film of 2009. While acknowledging that the life-and-death duties of troops in a war zone are a far cry from G4's usual programming, Tiles characterized "Bomb Patrol" as squarely within the network's demographic wheelhouse. "G4 and the Navy like this for the same reason," he told the Reporter, arguing that the show will appeal to the "tech side" of G4's young male viewers.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/08/27/hurt_locker_reality_show/feed/ 19 “Hurt Locker’s” illegal downloading wars http://www.salon.com/2010/06/03/hurt_locker_piracy/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/03/hurt_locker_piracy/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/06/03/hurt_locker_piracy On Monday, "Hurt Locker" producer Nicolas Chartier made good on his promise to file suit against Internet users who downloaded the movie via BitTorrent. The suit, filed in a D.C. federal court, targets 5,000 unnamed users via their IP addresses, which lawyers for Chartier's Voltage Pictures will attempt to match up with flesh-and-blood individuals -- and, of course, their bank accounts.

The practical merits of the lawsuit aside, Chartier's actions, and particularly his angry rhetoric, have become a flashpoint for arguments over the legal and ethical implications of sharing content over the Internet. The tech blog BoingBoing reproduced an exchange between Chartier and a Canadian user calling himself Nicholas. In response to Nicholas' e-mail, which protested the "inhuman" use of litigation to defend Voltage's copyright, and promised to boycott all Voltage-related products until the suit was withdrawn, Chartier shot back an angry response. (It was not Chartier's first intemperate e-mail; he was barred from this year's Oscar ceremony for denigrating other best picture nominees.) Apart from calling Nicholas a "moron," and adding "I hope your family and your kids end up in jail," Chartier characterized downloading as a cross between physical theft and home invasion: "[P]lease feel free to leave your house open every time you go out and please tell your family to do so, please invite people in the streets to come in and take things from you, not to make money out of it by reselling it but just to use it for themselves and help themselves."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/03/hurt_locker_piracy/feed/ 77 Oscars: Hollywood’s war against itself (continued) http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_wrap_2/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_wrap_2/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:09:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/03/08/oscar_wrap I'm grateful to have been thoroughly and completely wrong about the best-picture race -- as were a great many other supposedly knowledgeable stooges -- for a whole bunch of reasons. First and foremost, Kathryn Bigelow's historic sweep was a genuinely moving and surprising capper to one of the most tedious Oscar broadcasts in recent memory. All that industry hand-wringing, a much-touted new production team, and what do we get? Interpretive dance numbers set to fragments of the nominated scores. Seriously? If they'd hired the Sparkle Motion dance team out of "Donnie Darko," it couldn't have been any lamer. (Actually, that would been a lot more fun to watch.)

Although I have mixed feelings about "The Hurt Locker" itself, and about the cultural-psychological reasons for its ascendancy, Bigelow herself is a genuine and strange cinematic genius who has paid her dues several times over and richly deserves her moment of triumph. (Is "Hurt Locker" her best film? Probably not. Her second-best? Not even sure about that.) I wish producer-screenwriter Mark Boal hadn't complicated Bigelow's big moment on the stage of the Kodak Theatre by persistently tugging on her elbow, like a kid in a department store who needed to use the john. That was odd.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_wrap_2/feed/ 18 How top Oscar Winners fared at the box office http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:49:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/oscars/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1 Domestic box-office totals through February for the most-honored films at the 82nd annual Academy Awards:

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MOVIE: "The Hurt Locker," Summit Entertainment.

OSCARS: Six, including best picture and director.

RELEASED: June.

BOX OFFICE: $12.7 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Avatar," 20th Century Fox.

OSCARS: Three, including best art direction and visual effects.

RELEASED: December.

BOX OFFICE: $706 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Crazy Heart," 20th Century Fox.

OSCARS: Two, including best actor and original song.

RELEASED: December.

BOX OFFICE: $25 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." Lionsgate.

OSCARS: Two, including best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay.

RELEASED: November.

BOX OFFICE: $47 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Up," The Walt Disney Co.

OSCARS: Two, including best animated feature and original score.

RELEASED: May.

BOX OFFICE: $293 million so far.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1/feed/ 0 List of winners at the 82nd annual Oscars http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_list/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_list/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:36:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/oscars/2010/03/08/us_oscars_list List of winners at the 82nd annual Academy Awards:

-- Motion Picture: "The Hurt Locker."

-- Actor: Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart."

-- Actress: Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side."

-- Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds."

-- Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."

-- Director: Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker."

-- Foreign Film: "El Secreto de Sus Ojos," Argentina.

-- Adapted Screenplay: Geoffrey Fletcher, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."

-- Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, "The Hurt Locker."

-- Animated Feature Film: "Up."

-- Art Direction: "Avatar."

-- Cinematography: "Avatar."

-- Sound Mixing: "The Hurt Locker."

-- Sound Editing: "The Hurt Locker."

-- Original Score: "Up," Michael Giacchino.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_list/feed/ 0 Best Oscar night ever? http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/heather_havrilesky/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness How did they do it? As crazy as it sounds, this year's Oscar festivities were dynamic, funny and moved along at a good clip. Hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were hilarious, there were great jokes by everyone from Tina Fey to Ben Stiller, and the speeches were less long and dull than they've been in years. For once, no one rambled on forever and agents were rarely thanked. Not only that, but the usual endless tributes that serve no purpose whatsoever were gone, cut down to a great John Hughes segment and an entertaining horror-movie montage. Best of all, the best original songs were not performed, which means we weren't forced to sit through two more blandly upbeat tunes with those old familiar Randy Newman melodies you've heard on every Oscar night for decades now. And I think we can all agree that an Oscar night without a Disney ballad performed or a long, rambling Lifetime Achievement acceptance speech is a winner in anyone's book.

Here are a few of the highs and lows of the night:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness/feed/ 91 Bigelow and “Hurt Locker” win big at Oscars http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_1/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_1/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:49:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2010/03/07/us_oscars_1 The Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker" won best picture and five other prizes Sunday at the Academy Awards, its haul including best director for Kathryn Bigelow.

Bigelow is the first woman in the 82-year history of the Oscars to earn Hollywood's top prize for filmmakers.

"There's no other way to describe it. It's the moment of a lifetime," Bigelow said. "It's so extraordinary to be in the company of my fellow nominees, such powerful filmmakers, who have inspired me and I have admired, some of them for decades."

Among those Bigelow and "The Hurt Locker" beat are ex-husband James Cameron and his sci-fi spectacle "Avatar." Bigelow and Cameron were married from 1989-91.

Cameron was seated right behind Bigelow at the Oscars and joined a standing ovation for her, clapping vigorously and saying, "Yes, yes" after she won.

First-time winners took all four acting prizes: Sandra Bullock as best actress for "The Blind Side"; Jeff Bridges as best actor for "Crazy Heart"; Mo'Nique as supporting actress for "Precious"; and Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for "Inglourious Basterds."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_1/feed/ 8 Movie News Now: “Hurt Locker” plagued by last-second controversy http://www.salon.com/2010/03/04/movie_news_mar_3/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/04/movie_news_mar_3/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:04:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/03/04/movie_news_mar_3 Oscar controversy! Oscar controversy! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has banned Nicolas Chartier, a producer of "The Hurt Locker" (which is nominated for best picture and several other awards) from attending the most prestigious fête in Hollywood. According to reports, "the move came after Mr. Chartier was found to have sent a message via e-mail in mid-February to academy members urging that they vote for 'The Hurt Locker,' a low-budget Iraq war drama, rather than endorsing an ultra-high budget film that he did not identify by name, but clearly hinted was 'Avatar.'" If that seems rather mild compared to, say, your average city council campaign -- let alone national politics -- it is. But Academy rules specifically prohibit Oscar campaigners from projecting "a negative or derogatory light on a competing film or achievement."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/04/movie_news_mar_3/feed/ 1 Bomb disposal expert to sue “Hurt Locker” http://www.salon.com/2010/03/03/us_hurt_locker_lawsuit/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/03/us_hurt_locker_lawsuit/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:33:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/2010/03/03/us_hurt_locker_lawsuit A bomb disposal expert who served in the Iraq war plans to sue the makers of "The Hurt Locker," claiming the film's lead character is based on him and that they cheated him out of "financial participation in the film."

Attorney Geoffrey Fieger says he plans to file the multimillion-dollar lawsuit in Detroit federal court on behalf of Master Sgt. Jeffry Sarver. He planned a news conference for later Wednesday.

Sarver claims the film's screenwriter, Mark Boal, was embedded in Sarver's unit and that the information he gathered was used in the film. The film is nominated for nine Academy Awards, including best original screenplay.

The movie's U.S. distributor, Summit Entertainment, says it "distributed the film based on a fictional screenplay" and hopes "for a quick resolution to the claims made by Master Sgt. Sarver."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/03/us_hurt_locker_lawsuit/feed/ 4 ‘Lockergate’?: Producer apologizes for e-mails http://www.salon.com/2010/02/27/us_oscars_hurt_locker_violation/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/27/us_oscars_hurt_locker_violation/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:28:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/2010/02/27/us_oscars_hurt_locker_violation The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is considering action against a producer of "The Hurt Locker" who sent out multiple e-mails urging academy members to vote for his movie in the Oscar best-picture category and "not a $500 million film," an obvious reference to close-competitor "Avatar."

The e-mails by Nicolas Chartier, one of four nominated producers for "The Hurt Locker" and who put up the financing to make the front-running film, violated the academy's rule against sending mailings that "attempt to promote any film or achievement by casting a negative light on a competing film or achievement," according to academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger.

The initial e-mail was sent Feb. 19 and obtained by The Associated Press. Subsequent e-mails, posted by the Los Angeles Times, showed Chartier giving more specific instructions, asking Oscar voters to rank "The Hurt Locker" at No. 1 and "Avatar" at No. 10 on this year's preferential ballot for the newly expanded best-picture category.

"Hurt Locker" distributor Summit Pictures said in a statement it was "completely unaware of any e-mails that were sent until we were alerted by the academy earlier this week."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/27/us_oscars_hurt_locker_violation/feed/ 7 Oscar 2010: Jeremy Renner dismantles the war hero http://www.salon.com/2010/02/27/jeremy_renner/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/27/jeremy_renner/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:27:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/stephanie_zacharek/2010/02/26/jeremy_renner At times Jeremy Renner's performance in "The Hurt Locker" is all fingers, though it's never all thumbs. Sometimes it seems that director Kathryn Bigelow shows more of his hands than of his face: Renner's character, Staff Sgt. William James, is a bomb-squad team leader in Iraq circa 2004. He's just been installed as a replacement for the squad's previous leader (Guy Pearce), who's been killed in action. James is a cowboy, at first annoying and angering his team by the way he takes unnecessary risks when he's disarming bombs. But for all his physical swagger -- he's cock of the walk even when he's suited up in the restrictively padded sand-colored snowsuit worn by bomb specialists -- the essence of his job boils down to what he can do with his hands. We see his slightly stubby fingers tracing a length of colored wire from a safe "here" to a lethal "there," or pulling an explosive mechanism apart the way you might pick at the meat of a chicken wing.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/27/jeremy_renner/feed/ 40 Kathryn Bigelow: Feminist pioneer or tough guy in drag? http://www.salon.com/2010/02/24/bigelow_3/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/24/bigelow_3/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/02/24/bigelow In "The Hurt Locker," Sgt. 1st Class Will James (Jeremy Renner) is the second coming of John Wayne. Just not as cuddly.

What's the point of this metaphor? It's that I'm still coming to grips with how a woman could possibly have dreamed up this spartan American soldier in Iraq, who, while obsessively romancing death as a bomb-squad ace, outdoes the most extreme images of machismo ever produced by mainstream America. While Wayne set the testosterone standard in playing characters who lived to fight, his guys also found time to love women -- Ethan's Martha (Dorothy Jordan) in "The Searchers" and the Ringo Kid's Dallas (Claire Trevor) in "Stagecoach," to name two.

When they bonded with young, earnest boys, Wayne's men became meaningful mentors -- Gillom Rogers (Ron Howard) in "The Shootist" couldn't have grown up without the wit and wisdom of Wayne's John Bernard Books. But Will, with his Wayne-ian steely gaze, his laconic ease at the portals of death, and his patented hero saunter, loves "just one thing," as he tells his baby boy before leaving him, maybe forever, to return to the killing fields of Iraq. And it isn't women or kids.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/24/bigelow_3/feed/ 137 Kathryn Bigelow’s big BAFTA win http://www.salon.com/2010/02/22/bigelow_wins_big/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/22/bigelow_wins_big/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:23:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2010/02/22/bigelow_wins_big Continuing her hot streak, "Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow added few more accolades to her resume Sunday night. At the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, the tense Iraqi war drama won six awards, including best screenplay, best picture -- and best director.

Bigelow, who is set next to direct a pilot for HBO, bested ex-husband James Cameron and "Avatar" to become the first female to win a BAFTA for directing. Last month she became the first female honored with the DGA award. (She lost to Cameron at January's Golden Globes). Speaking to reporters backstage after her win, Bigelow said, "With Jim, we’re very good friends. I think we’re proud of each other and I think that’s there for a long time.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/22/bigelow_wins_big/feed/ 3 “Avatar” vs. “Hurt Locker”: Battle of the exes http://www.salon.com/2010/01/28/bigelow_cameron_open2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/01/28/bigelow_cameron_open2010/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:28:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/01/27/bigelow_cameron_open2010 On Saturday, Jan. 30, the Director’s Guild of America will give out its annual awards, including the most prestigious: Best Directorial Achievement in Feature Film, which generally reveals who will later win the Academy Award for best director (since the two awards share a nearly identical voting pool).

The big question this year is: Will an ex-husband prevent a woman from finally winning best director?

Since the first Academy Awards were given out in 1929, only three women have even been nominated for the directing Oscar: Lina Wertmuller in 1976 for "Seven Beauties," Jane Campion in 1993 for "The Piano" and Sofia Coppola in 2003 for "Lost in Translation." That’s right: It took nearly 50 years for Oscar to even wink in (or at) a woman’s direction. But then, there’s a very small pool of women to draw from for this award. Despite the gains women have made in almost all other careers, female directors are still a rarity, especially when you’re talking about movies that get major award consideration.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/01/28/bigelow_cameron_open2010/feed/ 14 “The Hurt Locker” and Bogart’s 1943 “Sahara” http://www.salon.com/2010/01/12/double_bill/ http://www.salon.com/2010/01/12/double_bill/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/01/12/double_bill The best double bill I ever witnessed was an inadvertent one. Between the hours of 2 AM and 5 AM, somewhere in the late 1970s, on San Jose, Calif.'s late, unlamented Channel 36 ("the Perfect 36," as legendary stripper Carol Doda would leer in on-air promos), I saw Busby Berkeley's 1943 surrealist masterpiece "The Gang's All Here" in an unholy coupling with Ingmar Bergman's equally surreal "The Seventh Seal."

Simply.

Wow.

Life, death, chess and giant bananas, in one mesmerizing, miscegenationist vision. The whole became oh so much more than the parts.

Of course, that kind of lightning does not strike twice in one's lifetime. And the near death of the local repertory cinema at the hands of home video has reduced the odds of celebrating the classic double bill. Might I suggest a way to keep this glorious tradition alive in the privacy of our own homes?

I propose to conduct a semi-regular conversation between two films, one recent and just out on DVD, and the other a less visible offering, also available on DVD (or easy, legal download) that in some strange way complements the "A" part of our bill.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/01/12/double_bill/feed/ 27 Early odds on the Oscar derby http://www.salon.com/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff/ http://www.salon.com/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:23:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//feature/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff

 

A still from "Up"

It's an autumnal phenomenon, as predictable in its own way as the first signs of red and gold in the treetops: As dozens of new movies flood the fall marketplace, most of them without a hope in hell of reaching a paying audience, people in the industry begin to protest that the film economy is finally and permanently broken. This year the alarm has been sounded by indieWire blogger Anne Thompson, long among the most levelheaded and reality-based of Hollywood reporters, and that fact has momentarily transfixed the attention-impaired elite of movieland.

"The old independent market is over," wrote Thompson last week, summing up the aftermath of the just-completed Toronto International Film Festival, which saw only a handful of modestly scaled distribution deals. "A new one will take its place. But we are smack in the middle between the end of one paradigm and the start of another, and it's a scary place indeed." Added Thompson, "I saw one movie after another [at Toronto] that was unreleasable in the current climate," predicting that most of the 145 films for sale at Canada's huge film marketplace "will wind up streamed, downloaded and viewed on a small TV or computer or mobile screen."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff/feed/ 17 Defusing bombs at 115 degrees http://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/bigelow/ http://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/bigelow/#comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:26:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//feature/2009/06/26/bigelow

Courtesy Summit Entertainment

Listen to the interview with Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal

If she wanted to play the role, Kathryn Bigelow could easily present herself as Exhibit A of the enduring sexism of Hollywood. Beginning with her vampire cult-fave "Near Dark" in 1987 and then the 1991 surf-heist classic "Point Break," Bigelow has directed some of the most visually inventive and exciting films in recent action-cinema history. (Yes, I am willing and even eager to defend "Strange Days" and "K-19: The Widowmaker." Let's leave that for another time.) She has virtually no interest in the kinds of talky, intimate dramas the world expects female filmmakers to crank out (and her one, only partially successful attempt to move in that direction, "The Weight of Water" in 2000, suggests she shouldn't bother).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/bigelow/feed/ 10 Oscar season’s bewildering kickoff http://www.salon.com/2008/12/04/goth_spirits/ http://www.salon.com/2008/12/04/goth_spirits/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:44:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//feature/2008/12/04/goth_spirits

Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics/Jory Sutton

Melissa Leo, looking more and more like a plausible Oscar nominee for her role in "Frozen River."

There's nothing organizers of the two indie-oriented year-end awards -- those would be IFP's Gotham Independent Film Awards and Film Independent's Spirit Awards -- hate worse than being perennially confused with each other. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. Given that the two organizations' transcontinental rivalry has resulted in a train wreck of competing press releases this week, I'm guessing that your average entertainment consumer is even more confused than I am, if that's possible.

Herewith, some clarity. The Spirit nominations were announced on Tuesday morning in Los Angeles (with the awards ceremony to be held, as usual, on Santa Monica Beach one night before the Oscars). Then, on Tuesday night, the Gothams -- traditionally the kickoff event of awards season -- actually held their ceremony in New York.

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