Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique in Precious (top); Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart (bottom)
Lee Daniels' urban family drama Precious swept the 25th Spirit Awards held this evening at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles.
Precious won a total of five awards out of five nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Gabourey Sidibe), Best Supporting Actress (Mo'Nique), and Best First Screenplay (Geoffrey Fletcher). Upon receiving his Best Director trophy from The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner and two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster, Daniels referred to the odds-on Oscar favorite: “Kathryn Bigelow isn’t here tonight. I am.” Lucky him, though, ironically, Bigelow was not nominated last year, when her Iraq War drama was eligible for the Spirits. (There had been no Oscar buzz at the time.)
Gabourey Sidibe, for her part, reminisced about her old moviegoing habits. “My mom used to pay me $2 to go to school," Sidibe told the audience, "… and I saved up my money for a week so that I could see Welcome to the Dollhouse and that's the first film I saw where I could say ‘I could do that.'”
Among the evening's other top winners were Best Actor Jeff Bridges, who rambled on after receiving his award from Crazy Heart co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal; Best Supporting Actor Woody Harrelson for his returning soldier in Oren Moverman's drama The Messenger; Best First Film Crazy Heart, directed by Scott Cooper; and Best Foreign Film An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig.
Kyle Patrick Alvarez won the Someone to Watch Award for his phone-sex drama Easier with Practice, while Bill Ross and Turner Ross' small-town documentary 45365 won the Truer Than Fiction award, presented by Roger Ebert, who received a heartfelt standing ovation.
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber won the Best Screenplay award for Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer. The fact that their film wasn't nominated for a single Academy Award is considered one of the major (and most absurd) snubs at this year's Oscars.
Lynn Shelton's Humpday won the John Cassavetes Award for the best film made under 500,000. Sacha Gervasi's Anvil! The Story of Anvil, about a failed but persistent heavy-metal band, was the Best Documentary winner. Karin Chien won the Piaget Producers Award for both The Exploding Girl and Santa Mesa, while veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins won a Spirit Award for his work on Joel and Ethan Coen's mordant A Serious Man, which also won the Robert Altman Award for its cast, directors, and casting director.
Gabourey Sidibe's quote: indieWIRE
Photos: Precious (Anne Marie Fox / Lionsgate); Crazy Heart (Lorey Sebastian / 20th Century Fox)