Gotham Award Nominees

And so it begins (insert evil laugh and twirling of the handle-bar mustache), the awards season that is.  The Gotham Awards, a New York based society that showcases the best in independent American filmmaking.  They are also the first one's out of the gate every time, and while eventual Academy overlap may bear little on the group as a whole, recent films like Winter's Bone and The Hurt Locker were awarded the top prize here on their way to the Kodak stage.  The nominees are:

BEST FEATURE

• Beginners
• The Descendants
• Meek's Cutoff
• Take Shelter
• The Tree of Life

BEST ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE

• Beginners- Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurant, Goran Visnjic, Kal Lennox, Mary Page Keller, Keegan Boos
• The Descendants- George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Nick Krause, Amara Miller, Mary Birdsong, Rob Huebel
• Margin Call- Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Aasif Mandvi
• Martha Marcy May Marlene- Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet, John Hawkes, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzia, Julia Garner, Louisa Krause, Sarah Paulson
• Take Shelter- Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Tova Stewart, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, Kathy Baker, Ray McKinnon, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Robert Longstreet

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Better This World
• Bill Cunningham New York (available on Netflix instant play)
• Hell & Back Again
• The Interrupters
• The Woodmans

BREAKTHROUGH DIRECTOR

• Mike Cahill, Another Earth
• Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene
• Vera Farmiga, Higher Ground
• Evan Glodell, Bellflower
• Dee Rees, Pariah

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMER

• Felicity Jones, Like Crazy
• Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
• Harmony Santana, Gun Hill Road
• Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
• Jacob Wysocki, Terri

BEST FILM NOT PLAYING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU

• Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
• Green
• The Redemption of General Butt Naked
• Scenes of a Crime
• Without

HONOREES (Previously announced):

• Charlize Theron (handily right in time for her mainstream Oscar bid, Young Adult)
• Gary Oldman (likewise, for Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy)
• David Croenberg (what do you know, his A Dangerous Method opens next month)
• Tom Rothman (big studio hotshot- Meryl Streep famously thanked him for signing the checks in her hilarious Golden Globe acceptance speech for The Devil Wears Prada...aside)

I always find it a little strange when even organizations that go for the tiny, anti-establishment films, always tend to, in some way, pander to the exact opposite at the same time.  At the same time, where Drive in the Gotham selection?

Or we can rename this tribute to the I <3 Fox Searchlight Awards, as The Tree of Life, The Descendants, Martha Marcy May Marlene and Another Earth all got shout-outs today.  The one surprise of the nominations is that 2011's queen of ubiquity, Jessica Chastain wasn't acknowledged in the breakthough category, though she was spotlighted as part of the ensemble of Take Shelter and was a member of two of the films nominated for Best Feature; perhaps they just didn't quite know which of her four-thousand performances to acknowledge.

Best acknowledgement: Beginners in the Ensemble field, the warm and gentle father\son tragicomedy was one of most generous films so far in terms of its actors.

Best film title: Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeking Same; I feel a strong need to watch this immediately!