Dylan Pic Takes Most Spirit Noms
November 27, 2007

I'm Not There, the adventurous biopic of Bob Dylan in which actors as varied as Cate Blanchett and Richard Gere play the legendary songwriter, led the way on Tuesday when the Independent Spirit Awards nominees were announced. That's right. It's that time of year again. The Indie Spirit noms kicked off awards season and I'm Not There, courtesy of The Weinstein Company and writer/director Todd Haynes, was the first big winner of the year. I'm Not There was nominated for best film and also earned nods for Todd Haynes for best director, Cate Blanchett for best supporting actress, and Marcus Carl Franklin for best supporting actor. The film has already won the first annual Robert Altman Award, bringing its total of mentions to five.

The other big winners on Tuesday were The Diving Bell and the Butterfly from director Julian Schnabel and Jason Reitman's Juno. Both films were nominated for best film and best director. The other two best film nominees (all nominations are courtesy of Reuters) were Paranoid Park from director Gus Van Sant (also nominated in his category) and A Mighty Heart, which tells the tale of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Michael Winterbottom couldn't make it a five for five picture and director match as he was edged out by Tamara Jenkins and her work on the acclaimed The Savages. Haynes, Schnabel, Reitman, Van Sant, and Jenkins - it's a great group of five directors and one unlikely to be repeated by the Academy when they announce early next year.

Nominees for best actress included two from best film nominees - Ellen Page for her work in Juno and Angelina Jolie for her work in A Mighty Heart. Those two likely Oscar nominees will face off against Sienna Miller for Interview, Parker Posey for Broken English, and Tang Wei for Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Their male counterparts include Don Cheadle for Talk to Me, Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Savages, Frank Langella for Starting Out in the Evening, Tony Leung for Lust, Caution, and Pedro Castaneda for August Evening.

The supporting acting nominees for the Independent Spirit Awards this year include the aforementioned nods for Cate Blanchett and Marcus Carl Franklin in I'm Not There, along with Jennifer Jason Leigh in Margot at the Wedding, Anna Kendrick in Rocket Science, Tamara Podemski in Four Sheets to the Wind, and Marisa Tomei in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. The men include Steve Zahn in Rescue Dawn, Chiwetel Ejiofor in Talk to Me, Kene Holliday in Great World of Sound, and Irrfan Khan in The Namesake.

Dawn Hudson, the executive director of the group Film Independent, which gives out the awards, told Reuters, "We have a huge array of talented filmmakers with movies in many different genres. It has been an exciting year for independent film and this shows a deep pool of talent."

The Independent Spirit Awards will be handed out on February 23rd, the night before the Oscars, on the Independent Film Channel.