Generally recognized as the starter pistol for Oscar season, IFP's Gotham Awards spotlighted both heavyweights and underdogs today when announcing its 2009 nominees. As predicted, The Hurt Locker made an impression on the indie-minded nomination committees, tying Patton Oswalt's surprising psychodrama Big Fan with three nominations. The Coens didn't fare so poorly themselves. Click through for a full list of this year's nods.
First off, yes: Any awards show that announces its annual nominations with more than two months left to the year is technically incomplete. But in the few years since the Gothams scaled back from their humiliating sell-out to The Departed, Babel, Marie Antoinette and other high-wattage, big-budget nominees -- and especially since the festival circuit has yielded an increasing number of awards-season darlings -- the Gotham committees have already seen pretty much everything they can get away with nominating in the first place. This isn't where Avatar, for example, starts its campaign for a Best Picture slot.
Having said that, this might be where The Hurt Locker launches its own. Director Kathryn Bigelow and Breakthrough Actor nominee Jeremy Renner are also in the running. It probably bears noting that the Academy has nominated at least one of the Gothams' Breakthrough Actor candidates each of the last five years; this might be Renner's year to continue that tradition, though Ben Foster is terrific, too, in the year's other acclaimed quasi-Iraq film, The Messenger.
Nether Patton Oswalt not Robert Siegel are likely to kick their ways into the Oscars with Big Fan, meanwhile, which -- along with fellow Sundance faves The Maid and Amreeka -- claimed the spot that pretty much everyone presumed would go to Precious. Gabourey Sidibe's exclusion in the Breakthrough Actor category for that same film is beyond absurd, as is Carey Mulligan's for An Education, but whatever. The Gothams can set the bar wherever they want, now it's up to others to raise it. The awards go off Nov. 30 in New York.
· Gotham Awards [IFP]
Best Feature
Amreeka
Big Fan
The Hurt Locker
The Maid
A Serious Man
Best Documentary
Food, Inc.
Good Hair
My Neighbor My Killer
Paradise
Tyson
Best Ensemble Performance
Adventureland
Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Ryan Reynolds
Cold Souls
Paul Giamatti, Dina Korzun, Emily Watson, Katheryn Winnick, David Strathairn
The Hurt Locker
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, David Morse, Evangeline Lilly
A Serious Man
Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed
Sugar
Algenis Perez Soto, Rayniel Rufino, Michael Gaston, Andre Holland, Ann Whitney, Richard Bull, Ellary Porterfield, Jaime Tirelli
Breakthrough Director
Cruz Angeles, Don't Let Me Drown
Frazer Bradshaw, Everything Strange and New
Noah Buschel, The Missing Person
Derick Martini, Lymelife
Robert Siegel, Big Fan
Breakthrough Actor
Ben Foster, The Messenger
Patton Oswalt, Big Fan
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Catalina Saavedra, The Maid
Soulémane Sy Savané, Goodbye Solo
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Everything Strange and New
Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
October Country
You Won't Miss Me
Zero Bridge