A two show weekend! And over all, the Indie Spirits kept the fun of the SAGs the night before rolling.
There was, as it will become obvious in the clips below, a damper put on the afternoon by a group of anti-war activists who began playing a chant for Palestinian liberation over a loudspeaker outside of the show. For those of you who don’t know the Indie Spirits are held on a beach in a tent, so the chant was very much heard throughout the show. I’m conflicted about this, the message that protestors were promoting is a good one, and I see the power of disrupting a Hollywood event to bring more attention to the plight of people in Gaza. Fully on board. But I don’t know what the people in the tent were actually meant to do? They clearly weren’t going to just cancel the show, and although the flippant attempts at diffusing the situation with jokes didn’t work, I can see where the impulse behind them came from, and I have compassion for the team behind the show doing their best to keep it going. It feels ironic that the protestors were able to disrupt this show in particular where, though there are plenty of fancy Hollywood people, there are also a lot of struggling artists telling stories of the marginalized. Some of the winners did an admirable job of trying to address the incongruity, but it was a strange vibe.
Anyway, that being said, not that my opinion is worth anything, but I’m praying for a ceasefire and I hope my government will somehow find the bravery to change course towards peace.
It’s a weird pivot, but, let’s get back to the thing I’m much more equipped to comment on, frivolous discussion of film and pretty dresses.
Aidy Bryant was a fun host! Please more hosts that don’t hate awards shows!
I continue to be glad that they are not segregating performing categories by gender, but think they should consider genre-segregation because 10 nominees and 1 winner feels wild to vote on!
That being said: Da’Vine! Has anyone ever swept this strongly through a season?
Nick Offerman started off with a giggle and then told homophobes to fuck off, which makes for a great acceptance speech:
Four Daughters is still on my too-watch list for the Oscars, but I pushed it up in priority because this director was wonderful:
Not ever going to watch The Last of Us, because even seeing pictures of those fungus monsters is enough to put my body into full convulsions, but this child was very cute in his little jacket-cape:
As a person who has sat through many an awful post-show Q&A at the IFC (best movie theater in America), I really appreciated this bit:
I think we should give Justine Triet an award each week so I can keep listening to her talk every day:
Samy Burch has a wonderful energy, and though I was ambivalent about May December, I hope that we find a way to make David Zaslav and Warner Brothers release the movie of her second screenplay, which they said they are going delete as a tax-write off, which fucking sucks and makes me so angry I want to cry. Anyway, she’s a delight:
Cord! I think, we might be giving him an Oscar in a couple of weeks! I’m not mad about it:
As you will hear, the protests began during the introduction for the Jury Duty‘s cast Best Ensemble Award, which was kind of a bummer, because they are really joyful and people didn’t yet know what was going on:
I just saw Fremont and it’s lovely and the director was the only one who reacted well in the moment to the protests:
Dominic Sessa won Best Breakthrough which is objectively and personally the right choice, but it also would have been hilarious for Marshawn Lynch to have an Indie Spirit Award:
I still need to see Showing Up, but the fact that Kelly Reichardt didn’t already have like 4 Robert Altman Awards feels wrong to me, so I’m glad we’ve rectified that:
Celine Song won best director!!!!!!!
Jeffrey Wright won best lead! And I am so excited that he got to have a moment on stage this season, because he is wonderful in American Fiction and his speech was lovely:
Past Lives win Best Feature! And, I will keep Indie Spirits on my list forever because it’s the kind of awards where Past Lives (my number one film of the year) can have it’s moment:
Fashion wise, this event is always weird, it’s in a tent on a beach, but it’s an awards show, it would be hard to style anyone for (and it is often hard to find designer info for looks…I do my best), but I did have a few favorites. I tend to like stranger looks for this one than the galas because if you can’t take a risk on Santa Monica Pier when can you?
I Get a Bit Obsessive 