The 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards took place on Saturday, February 25th in Santa Monica. Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, handed out awards to such films as The Artist, The Descendants, Margin Call, My Week With Marilyn, Beginners, 50/50, Pariah, A Seperation, and The Interrupters. The event aired on IFC and was hosted by Seth Rogen (The Green Hornet), with the evening's announcer John Waters (Pink Flamingos), and musical performances from My Morning Jacket, K'Naan, Kate Micucci, and Garfunkel & Oats.

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick attended the 27th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards and was on the red carpet (it was actually purple) talking with many of the stars as they entered the ceremony. He had a chance to speak with actor Bryan Cranston about working with director Nicolas Winding Refn on Drive, and asked young actress Amara Miller about her experience working with director Alexander Payne on The Descendants, as well as speaking with Pariah director Dee Rees and producer Nekisa Cooper, Natural Selection director Robbie Pickering and actress Rachel Harris, actress Kelly Lynch (Drugstore Cowboy), actor Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher), actor Giancarlo Esposito (The Usual Suspects), and former Connecticut Senator turned President of the MPAA Chris Dodd about the importance of independent film and the Independent Spirit Awards.

There are just over twenty-four hours until the Academy Awards ceremony begins, and naturally, awards fever has descended on Los Angeles. Symptoms of Awards Fever include, but are not limited to: hives, fancy dressing, red carpet-walking, seizures, limo-riding, hemorrhagic bleeding, speechifying, and general hyperbole. On the eve of the Oscars, those most susceptible to Awards Fever are quarantined in a series of tents on the beach in Santa Monica, mere yards from the Pacific Ocean. 

This quarantine is, in fact, the Independent Spirit Awards, celebrating the very best in independent cinema from the past year. The 27th Annual Spirit Awards are hosted by Seth Rogen. This year, the nominees for Best Picture are 50/50, The Descendants, Drive, The Artist, Beginners,  and Take Shelter, while recognizable faces like Jessica Chastain, Ryan Gosling, Elizabeth Olsen, Corey Stoll, Michelle Williams, John Hawkes, Lauren Ambrose, and Jean Dujardin are nominees in other categories.

IAR is on the ground at the event itself, ready to share the winners at an awards show that is inarguably cooler and younger than those staid old Oscars. Check back for up to the minute news as we update with each and every new winner.

Several months from now, when we're totally tired of talking or thinking about movie awards while cancer researchers go unheralded, we'll look back on the days before awards season began.  Those days were pretty much yesterday, as today seemed to mark a shift into full-on awards craziness.  There were last night's Gotham Awards (The Tree of Life and Beginners both received Best Picture adulation), then this morning, Film Independent announced its 2012 Independent Spirit Award nominees.  Now, we have the full list of New York Film Critics Circle winners for 2011.

Love letter to silent film The Artist, which is also a Best Picture nominee at the Spirit Awards and seems destined to be an Academy Award favorite, won the top prize, and its writer and director Michel Hazanavicius took home the prize for Best Director.  Brad Pitt nabbed the actor award for his work in both Moneyball and The Tree of Life, while prestige-machine Meryl Streep was similarly recognized for playing Margaret Thatcher in the upcoming The Iron Lady.  The supporting categories were more interesting, with Albert Brooks deservedly winning based on his menacing turn in Drive and Jessica Chastain continuing The Year of Chastain with a win for The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, and The Help.

When investment bank Lehman Brothers imploded in 2008 and became an opening act in a global economic clusterfudge of truly epic proportions, Lehman headquarters must have been absolutely fraught with drama, including stuff like rampart scapegoating, merciless backstabbing, and general horror.  The upcoming drama Margin Call is inspired by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brother, taking place at an investment bank in a single 24 hour period during which a whole lot of people are presumably thrown under the bus.  In the case of Lehman, that bus was not a bus, but a debt of over $700 billion.  A new poster for Margin Call gets across the financial goings-on while wisely showcasing the tremendous cast, including Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Mary McDonnell, Paul Bettany, Aasif Mandvi, Simon Baker, and Penn Badgely.