MOB: Independent Spirit Awards Predictions

How exciting! Oscar season has kicked off unofficially today with the surprise news that Anne Hathaway and James Franco have agreed to co-host next year's Academy Awards ceremony. Earlier tonight, we saw the Gotham Awards hand out the first awards of the season, where Winter's Bone came out on top with wins in the top prize as well as for its accomplished ensemble cast. Gotham's prizes in the past have gone for the likes of The Departed and, most recently, The Hurt Locker. They're less successful more often than not, though. Special shout out to recognizing the brilliance of The Oath this year in its Documentary category, which got left off the Academy's shortlist. Shame, though, since it really went about the topic of terrorism in an unconventional way that communicates and enlightens in volumes.

Before I go on to my predictions of what will be announced tomorrow as the nominees of the Independent Spirit Awards, a quick run-through of the immediate calendar of awards being handed out soon: we got the ISA nominations tomorrow, nominations from the Annies and the Satellite Awards the day after that, and then the more "official" kickoff to the precursor season with the announcement of the National Board of Review's awards on Friday. DC kicks off the first of the local critics awards the following Monday.

Note: One really ought not to trust my opinion on the following choices. I wrote these up quite a while ago out of boredom, but most of them are fillers for lack of coming up with anything else and I'm not even exactly sure what constitutes an "independent" film these days.

Best Feature:
Black Swan
Cyrus
The Kids Are All Right
Rabbit Hole
Winter's Bone

Best Male Lead:
Jim Carrey - I Love You, Phillip Morris
Robert Duvall - Get Low
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Jack Goes Boating
James Franco - Howl
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Best Female Lead:
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right
Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Best Supporting Male:
John Hawkes - Winter's Bone
Richard Jenkins - Let Me In
Bill Murray - Get Low
John Ortiz - Jack Goes Boating
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right

Best Supporting Female:
Greta Gerwig - Greenberg
Ann Guilbert - Please Give
Sissy Spacek - Get Low
Marisa Tomei - Cyrus
Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole

Best Director:
Darren Aronofksy - Black Swan
John Cameron Mitchell - Rabbit Hole
Lisa Cholodenko - The Kids Are All Right
Debra Granik - Winter's Bone
Matt Reeves - Let Me In

Best Screenplay:
Cyrus
The Kids Are All Right
I Love You, Phillip Morris
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Life During Wartime

Best First Screenplay:
Blue Valentine
Happythankyoumoreplease
Howl
Night Catches Us
Tiny Furniture

Best First Feature:
Blue Valentine
Get Low
Howl
I Love You, Phillip Morris
Jack Goes Boating

Best Foreign Film:
Animal Kingdom
I Am Love
I Killed My Mother
Micmacs
Wild Grass

Best Documentary:
Babies
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
The Oath
Restrepo
The Tillman Story

Best Cinematography:
Black Swan
Blue Valentine
Howl
Let Me In
Winter's Bone