The 19th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards always kickstart awards season, and this year, they began festivities with a bang, awarding bomb-defusing suspense thriller “The Hurt Locker” with Best Feature. The Kathryn Bigelow hit, which some say is a longshot to get into the final ten at the Oscars, also took home the Best Ensemble Performance award. The Gothams are a pretty sparse affair, so the small-scale nominees are a change of pace from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, with “Hurt Locker” defeating other Best Feature nominees “The Maid,” “Big Fan,” “Amreeka” and “A Serious Man.”
Best Breakthrough Director went to Robert Siegel for his work on “Big Fan,” while “Food Inc.” won Best Documentary. In a surprise decision, Best Breakthrough Actor went to Catalina Saavedra, the grumpy housekeeper from “The Maid,” beating out Oscar hopeful Jeremy Renner of “Hurt Locker.” In the category of Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You, the winner was “You Won’t Miss Me,” a recent Sundance entry from director Ry Russo-Young co-written by and starring Stella Schnabel (yes, of THAT Schnabel family). We’ve included the trailer below so maybe you can see it if it ever does play at a theater near you.
The question is, how much does this help Summit’s Oscar chances for “The Hurt Locker”? Most consider the Gotham Awards small potatoes, but there’s no question that there’s legitimacy in slaying the Coen Brothers dragon. More worrying is, do these awards take a bit of steam out of “A Serious Man,” which left the awards empty-handed and is in danger of falling by the wayside for being too small and quirky for the (largely oblivious) Oscar voting body? And, much more importantly, have YOU seen these films, viewer? We fucking hope so, you philistine.
