independent spirit award nominations

12 Years a Slave leads with 7 nominations.

BEST FEATURE

12 Years a Slave

All Is Lost

Frances Ha

Inside Llewyn Davis

Nebraska

BEST DIRECTOR

Shane Carruth, Upstream Color

J.C. Chandor, All Is Lost

Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave

Jeff Nichols, Mud

Alexander Payne, Nebraska

BEST SCREENPLAY

Woody Allen, Blue Jasmine

Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke & Richard Linklater, Before Midnight

Nicole Holofcener, Enough Said

Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, The Spectacular Now

John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to the director and producer)

Blue Caprice

Concussion

Fruitvale Station

Una Noche

Wadjda

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

Lake Bell, In A World

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Don Jon

Bob Nelson, Nebraska

Jill Soloway, Afternoon Delight

Michael Starrbury, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD - Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. Award given to the writer, director, and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.

Computer Chess

Crystal Fairy

Museum Hours

Pit Stop

This is Martin Bonner

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Julie Delpy, Before Midnight

Gaby Hoffmann, Crystal Fairy

Brie Larson, Short Term 12

Shailene Woodley, The Spectacular Now

BEST MALE LEAD

Bruce Dern, Nebraska

Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station

Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Robert Redford, All Is Lost

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Melonie Diaz, Fruitvale Station

Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine

Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave

Yolonda Ross, Go For Sisters

June Squibb, Nebraska

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave

Will Forte, Nebraska

James Gandolfini, Enough Said

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Keith Stanfield, Short Term 12

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Sean Bobbitt, 12 Years a Slave

Benoit Debie, Spring Breakers

Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis

Frank G. DeMarco, All Is Lost

Matthias Grunsky, Computer Chess

BEST EDITING

Shane Carruth & David Lowery, Upstream Color

Jem Cohen & Marc Vives, Museum Hours

Jennifer Lame, Frances Ha

Cindy Lee, Una Noche

Nat Sanders, Short Term 12

BEST DOCUMENTARY (Award given to the director and producer)

20 Feet From Stardom

After Tiller

Gideon's Army

The Act of Killing

The Square

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM (Award given to the director)

A Touch of Sin

Blue is the Warmest Color

Gloria

The Great Beauty

The Hunt

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD - (Given to one film’s director, casting director, and its ensemble cast)

Mud

Director: Jeff Nichols

Casting Director: Francine Maisler

Ensemble Cast: Joe Don Baker, Jacob Lofland, Matthew McConaughey, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard, Tye Sheridan, Paul Sparks, Bonnie Sturdivant, Reese Witherspoon

film score tu(n)esday!

Here are some of my favorite film scores so far from this year!

Shane Carruth - Upstream Color

The score by the film's director / actor / writer (impressive) was really alluring, inventive and was my key into a movie which, at times, was a bit murky.

Alexander Ebert - All is Lost

Ebert's (of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros) melodic score made Robert Redford's trials and tribulations at sea a little more interesting to watch.

"Popular music usually has a chorus that needs to repeat, and people need to remember the song. That's sort of the major guideline when you're writing a song. And to be able to write something that did not have a chorus — and that would play for as long as it needed to and naturally disappear and come back whenever it needed to ... for me, that was very natural, actually. It was super liberating." -Alexander Ebert

Explosions in the Sky & David Wingo - Prince Avalanche

"Alone Time" is my favorite cue and its placement in the film is quite lovely.

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Prisoners

So I fell for this wacky, overlong melodrama mystery set in a wintery suburb in Pennsylvania.  The laconic score by Icelandic composer Jóhannsson is a good match with Roger Deakins' beautiful, moody photography.

Cliff Martinez - Only God Forgives

After Drive, this movie and its use of music was a bit of a letdown but Martinez offers a memorable cut "Wanna Fight?" that's pretty much the film's only highlight.

Thomas Newman - Side Effects

Chilly and repetitive, but with a slight playful tone, Newman's score to Steven Soderbergh's is very fitting and guides the movie's eeriness and myriad of plot twists.

Steven Price - Gravity

Some have complained that Price's score is a bit overwrought but I thought it added nicely to the tension and the movie's thrill-ride mentality.  It makes sense that Price was previously a music editor, since this score plays a lot with bombast and silence.

"The visuals are incredibly beautiful, but equally, it's the most terrifying thing you've ever seen in lots of ways. So the music had to do both of those things and feel kind of very organic and very textural, but equally kind of help your stomach to drop when things were spinning around you." -Steven Price

Max Richter - Wadjda

Modern classical composer Richter provided some soulful music for this deceptively simple Saudi Arabian tale.

Rob - Maniac

Throbbing mosaic of music from the Phoenix bandmate with traces of Air and John Carpenter.

"I wanted to do something very melancholic and sentimental that's related to his childhood trauma—very naive melodies and a very soft and childish mood, so that it can contrast with the violence and the horror." 

-Rob

Skrillex & Cliff Martinez - Spring Breakers

The garishness of Skrillex and the moodiness of Martinez's usual music is well-matched to the vibe of this raw, neon-hearted farce.

Hans Zimmer - 12 Years a Slave

I guess the main complaint is that Zimmer's music sounds so similar to his work on Inception and The Thin Red Line. I definitely get it and Zimmer has never been one of my favorite composers, but I found the dreamy string motif "Solomon" was used so hauntingly and beautifully throughout--doggedly stuck in different scenes of different emotions.

all is lost

After the babbling economic collapse pastiche Margin Call, director / writer J.C. Chandor returns with the basically wordless All is Lost.  Robert Redford plays a man alone on a yacht that hits a shipping container and then a major storm, leaving him out to sea with little hope.  This is an experiment for Chandor who nimbly executes his piece. But it's also sort of a boring and wonky movie about pragmatic decisions in perilous oceanic situations and Redford's face.  There are some undeniably beautiful shots throughout, exquisite editing and sound design, and a pretty score by Alex Ebert (of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes). Quietly expressive, Redford carries the pic solidly, quite fit and able for his near 80 years in a physically demanding role. He is also someone the average indie film goer (pretty much the audience for this flick) automatically cares about since he is primarily responsible for shaping American independent cinema today. But I found him slightly better in the recent mixed-bag The Company You Keep where I sensed a glimmer of nostalgia and pathos for him.  It doesn't help that this year (and this week) also offers mayhem-at-sea thriller Captain Phillips with a super showy comeback for Tom Hanks and the similarly-plotted survivalist tale Gravity which is a space barn-burner and a visual effects stunner; as flimsy as the script in Gravity is, at least it kind of attempts to characterize its heroine. Critics have heaped praise upon Chandor and Redford's work as meditative and "somberly spectacular" but in the end I found it too slight.  **1/2


-Jeffery Berg