Independent Spirit Awards

For a lot of casual moviegoers, the Independent Spirit Awards are just the weird little awards show that takes place in a big tent the night before the Academy Awards. Maybe, as you’ll see in the opening monologue above, the comedy is a little raunchier and more NSFW than we expected. Maybe the audience seems a bit more drunk than we’re used to. But for those of us who only catch snippets or highlights of acceptance speeches on social media, it can be hard to understand its place in the overall award scene.

Now that the seemingly infinite hell of election season has reached its merciful end, it’s time to move on to what is pretty much the election season of movies: awards season! The Golden Globes, Oscars, industry guilds and various critical bodies will soon hand down their rulings on the best films, performances, and technical achievements of 2016, but before that ball gets rolling and flattens all nuanced criticism in its way, the Independent Spirit Awards will have their say. The nominations for the slightly left-of-center awards program were announced yesterday, and the unusually stellar lineup provides a nice reminder that the whole “2016 was a disaster at the movies!” narrative only applies to Hollywood studio pictures.