December 3, 2008

A Great Day for Frozen River and Courtney Hunt


Oscar season is well underway and yesterday brought us the Independent Spirit Award nominations and the Gotham Awards. Courtney Hunt's Frozen River won best feature and Melissa Leo won the breakthrough actress award.

The film was also nominated for several Independent Spirit awards nominations including best feature, best director, best actress, best supporting actress, as well as for the prodcuer of the year award. Rachel Getting Married also got a lot of love for the film as well as Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt and Debra Winger.

Wendy and Lucy directed by Kelly Reichardt about a young woman on the economic margins and her love for her dog, opens next week got nominations for best film and best actress for Michelle Williams.

In the WTF category for me is the nomination of Summer Bishil in Towelhead. It was definitely challenging for a 20-year-old to play a 13-year-old, but best actress? I don't see it.

Here are some of the other womencentric nominations.

Best Feature
“Rachel Getting Married” (Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, Marc Platt)
“Wendy and Lucy” (Larry Fessenden, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani)
“Frozen River” (Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae)

Best Director
Courtney Hunt, “Frozen River”

Best Screenplay
Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, “Sugar”

Best First Screenplay
Courtney Hunt, “Frozen River”
Jenny Lumet, “Rachel Getting Married”


Best Female Lead

Summer Bishil, “Towelhead”
Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”
Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Tarra Riggs, “Ballast”
Michelle Williams, “Wendy and Lucy”

Best Supporting Female
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Rosemarie DeWitt, “Rachel Getting Married”
Rosie Perez, “The Take”
Misty Upham, “Frozen River”
Debra Winger, “Rachel Getting Married”

Best Cinematography
Maryse Alberti, “The Wrestler”

Best Documentary
“The Order of Myths” (Margaret Brown)
“The Betrayal” (Ellen Kuras & Thavisouk Phrasavath)

Robert Altman Award
Charlie Kaufman (Director), Jeanne McCarthy (Casting Director), Hope Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Tom Noonan, Emily Watson, Diane Weist, Michelle Williams, “Synecdoche, New York”

Piaget Producers Award
Heather Rae, “Frozen River”

Acura Someone to Watch Award
Lynn Shelton, “My Effortless Brilliance”
Nina Paley, “Sita Sings the Blues”

Lacoste Truer Than Fiction Award
Margaret Brown, “The Order of Myths”

Full list of nominations