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Hey movie fans, it's Sandie here to bring you the first of many awards-related posts. The nominees for the Spirit Awards -- formerly known as the Independent Spirit Awards -- were announced today, and the dysfunctional-family dramedy 'Little Miss Sunshine' and gritty relationship-drama 'Half Nelson' lead with five nominations a piece. This is particularly amusing to our team, because four of us here at Hold the 'Fone have been debating (OK, arguing really) which movie is better since we saw them both at Sundance in January. Two of us are firmly in the 'Sunshine' camp and two in the 'Nelson,' but we haven't gone so far as designing "Team ______" shirts ... yet. Alas, the Spirit Award nominations have done absolutely nothing to settle the score.

As it stands, the nominees for Best Feature are: 'Half Nelson'; 'Little Miss Sunshine'; 'American Gun'; the tale of three communities touched by gun violence; 'The Dead Girl,' a crime drama about the female victims of a serial killer; and 'Pan's Labyrinth,' which truth be told, all of us agree is one of the best movies of the year, so perhaps we should forget the Sundance-flick rivalry and root for Guillermo del Toro's Spanish-language fantasy masterpiece instead.

The Best Male Lead category is, in my mind anyway, Ryan Gosling's to lose for his "flawless performance" (Maggie Gyllenhaal's words, not mine) as a junkie junior-high teacher in 'Half Nelson.' His competitors, however, are nearly as impressive: Aaron Eckhart as a fast-talking tobacco lobbyist in 'Thank You for Smoking'; Edward Norton as an uptight scientist in the period drama 'The Painted Veil'; Ahmad Razvi as a Pakistani immigrant in 'Man Push Cart'; and the always amazing Forest Whitaker as a driven inner-city principal in 'American Gun.'

Not only was Gosling recognized, but so was his young co-star, Shareeka Epps, who is a Best Female Lead nominee for her heart-wrenching portrayal of a middle-schooler who gets emotionally attached to her crack-addicted teacher. Her fellow nominees are Catherine O'Hara as an Oscar-obsessed C-lister in 'For Your Consideration'; Elizabeth Reaser as a 1920s immigrant in 'Sweet Land'; Michelle Williams in the Wim Wenders drama 'Land of Plenty' and Robin Wright Penn for her bitter TV exec in 'Sorry, Haters.' Have to admit that I'm a bit dumbstruck that Maggie didn't score a nod for 'Sherrybaby': a. She's the indie "It Girl" b. The film debuted at Sundance and c. It stars Gyllenhaal as a hedonistic ex-convict mama trying to reconnect with her young daughter. If that doesn't merit a Spirit Award, what is the indie world coming to?

The Spirit Awards did manage to acknowledge two of the breakout performances we're thankful for this year in the Best Supporting Male category: Paul Dano, who we loved as the Nietzche-loving brother Dwayne in 'Sunshine' and Channing Tatum as Shia LaBeouf's hot-headed best friend in 'A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.' Both up-and-comers face 72-year-old Alan Arkin for his role as the foul-mouthed grandpa in 'Sunshine'; Daniel Craig for his very non-Bond role as vulnerable killer Perry Smith in the (other) Capote biopic 'Infamous'; and veteran "That Guy" Raymond J. Barry as an exacting military man in 'Steel City.'

Want to see who else was nominated? Get the complete list of Spirit Award nominees.

And if you're now in the mood for a fix of good indie films, check out our Independent Film Guide, where you'll find reviews of nearly all the nominated actors and films.

Tags: Spirit Awards, Little Miss Sunshine, Half Nelson, American Gun, Ryan Gosling, Paul Dano, Channing Tatum, indie movies, movie awards

Nominees for the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning by Don Cheadle and Felicity Huffman, and it's no surprise that two of this year's most buzzed-about indie pics lead the pack. Little Miss Sunshine and Half Nelson each picked up five nominations, while four pics (American Gun, The Dead Girl, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Man Push Cart) nabbed three nods, and eight flicks ended up with two each.

Sunshine (which, personally, was one of my favorite films of the year) will compete in the Best Feature, Supporting Male (Alan Arkin and Paul Dano), Directing (Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton) and Best First Screenplay (Michael Arndt) categories. On the other hand, Nelson is up for Best Feature, Best Male (Ryan Gosling) and Female (Shareeka Epps), Directing (Ryan Fleck) and Best First Screenplay (Fleck and Anna Boden). The other three pics looking to snatch up an indie spirit award for Best Feature are American Gun, The Dead Girl and Pan's Labyrinth.

And hey, check out Four Eyed Monsters -- this little indie film (directed by Arin Crumley and Susan Buice) managed to snag two nods, one for Cinematography and one for the John Cassavetes Award (otherwise known as the best feature made for under $500,000), despite the fact that it never found a distributor. Having met Crumley and Buice, I must say these two represent the hardest working indie filmmakers out there, constantly trying to push the envelope through their MySpace video blogs, while slowly building a gigantic fanbase resulting in a tremendous amount of buzz for the pic. And, after screening their film anywhere and everywhere, Crumley and Buice finally managed to get CacheFly.com to sponsor a limited run at New York's Cinema Village beginning December 1. Go see this film. Pretty please.

The Independent Spirit Awards (currently in its 22nd year) will be held on February 24, and broadcasted live on IFC. Check out the full list of nominees after the jump.

Comcast and IFC Entertainment will today announce their deal (first outlined by Karina a month ago) to simultaneously release independent films in theaters and on television, via video-on-demand. Kicking off on March 24 with American Gun, the agreement will have films in theaters across the nation (in IFC's theaters as well as in Mark Cuban's Landmark Theaters; negotiations are on-going with other chains) while they are being offered to Comcast subscribers in 22 major markets for $5.99/viewing. Despite the fact that the agreement lacks a DVD element, Comcast's reach is dramatically greater than that of the HD Channel on which Bubble aired, and there's a good chance that Comcast/IFC's films will be seen by a much larger audience than Soderbergh's film.

Because VOD is very hard to pirate, and because Comcast could theoretically pick and choose the markets in which these films are offered, it's hoped that the Comcast/IFC approach will be less threatening to supporters of traditional distribution than the Bubble experiment. IFC actually quietly test the system with a day-date release for C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America this month, and the film, despite being available via VOD to Cablevision subscribers, has done record business in IFC theaters - this, too, should suggest to studios and theater owners that the approach is not necessarily a death knell for exhibition. Among the two dozen or so films IFC and Comcast will release are I Am a Sex Addict, Three Times (by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien, whose work is virtually impossible to see in the US), and The Russian Dolls, which stars Amelie's Audrey Tautou).

Look, the fact is that fans of independent film want to see these movies - to some degree, this is going to work. Day-and-date releasing is not going away, and it's time for theater owners and studios to stop whining and, instead, figure out how they can get involved, and use the approach to their advantage. Times change. Deal with it.