The 2012 Independent Spirit Awards were announced tonight and—you’re not gonna believe this—the voters were smitten with The Artist.  The film won Best Feature, Michel Hazanavicius was awarded Best Director, Jean Dujardin was named Best Male Lead, and they threw in Best Cinematography to Guillaume Schiffman for good measure.  Some of the other winners have a good shot at repeating tomorrow night at the Oscars, like Christopher Plummer for Beginners (Best Supporting Male), Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn (Best Female Lead), or the script for The Descendants by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash (Best Screenplay).  The “independent spirit” was seemingly saved for the unique categories: see Will Reiser’s 50/50 script as Best First Screenplay, Pariah for the John Cassavetes Award, Take Shelter for the Piaget Producers Award.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

How do you deal cinematically with cancer? That’s the question of Jonathan Levine’s 50/50, which was based on the experiences of its writer Will Reiser. It’s a tough subject matter because cancer touches so many lives and rarely offers happy endings. But 50/50 manages to be charming, and more about friendship and family in crisis than just pain. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars with Seth Rogen, Bryce Dallas Howard and Anna Kendrick in this warm dramedy. Our review of 50/50 on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

As I’ve been covering awards season pretty extensively here on the site over the past few months, I figured it would be appropriate to (foolishly) try to predict the upcoming Oscar nominations. It’s been a fairly tame year, as a few frontrunners were singled out early in the race and have held their ground throughout the grueling awards season. We haven’t been without a few surprises, as Steven Spielberg’s War Horse took a massive tumble following snubs from most of the major guilds, and David Fincher has surged back into the race bringing his adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with him.

Though there are plenty of safe bets when it comes to the 2012 Oscar nominations, there are still a few wildcards and tricky categories. I’ve put on my prognosticating cap (those interested can purchase one of these nifty hats at your local Target) and compiled a list of who and what I think will make the cut. Hit the jump to see how I think the nods will stack up when they’re announced on January 24th.

The Writers Guild of America has announced their nominations for the 2012 Writers Guild Awards, and some of their nominations are pretty terrible.  It’s nice to see nominations for Young Adult, The Descendants, and Bridesmaids.  It’s less nice to see nominations for slavish adaptations of poorly written novels like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Help.  There’s also a major snub for awards-season favorite The Artist, and before you mention the “no dialogue” aspect, there’s still a script and the movie was in contention.  The documentary nominations also overlooked the terrific Project Nim in favor of Pina, which is borderline unwatchable for anyone who doesn’t love modern dance.

Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  Winners will be announced at the 2012 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday, February 19th. [Correction: The Artist was deemed ineligible by the WGA, but it's still a snub since the WGA's rules are kind of stupid in the first place]

The 2011 Golden Globes nominations have been announced.  I don’t pay them much attention as an awards barometer since their nominations can be purchased (the Globes are run by the shoddy Hollywood Foreign Press Association) and the event is more to get a bunch of celebrities in a room together and hand them an over-valued award.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not a fun show to watch and this year should be plenty entertaining with Ricky Gervais returning to host.

As for the nominees, you’ll find the usual suspects: The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, The Help, and Midnight in Paris.  I have to give the Globes credit for having a separate comedy category, which allows actors like Brendan Gleeson (The Guard) and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids) to get nominated.  As for “snubs” (again, it’s tough to take the Globes nominations seriously), nothing from The Muppets was nominated for Best Song .  Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  Winners will be announced on January 15th.

The National Board of Review has announced their honors for 2011.  As always, the wide selection allows the NBR to technically have a say in directing awards season, and their picks remain solid.  While I didn’t go nuts over Hugo, a lot of people did and so it’s not surprising NBR gave it Best Picture and named Martin Scorsese as Best Director.  For the most part, I like all of NBR’s choices.  I’m glad any time Drive gets attention, the acting picks are all worthy, and I’m happy Crime After Crime and 13 Assassins got some love.  Notable snubs include Young Adult, Moneyball, and Martha Marcy May Marlene.  Of course, anything Clint Eastwood does has to make NBR’s Top 10 so that’s why a spot is wasted on J. Edgar.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

The nominations for the 27th Annual Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning with The Artist and Take Shelter each nabbing five nominations. In addition to The Artist and Take Shelter, Drive, 50/50, The Descendants, and Beginners will duke it out for the top prize. Absent from the Best Feature list is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, though the film was recognized in Best Supporting Male (Corey Stoll) and Best Cinematography. Also of note, Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes landed nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Male for Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Ryan Gosling and Woody Harrelson were both singled out in Best Actor for Drive and Rampart respectively.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations. Recognizing the best in independent film, the awards will be handed out on February 25th, the day before the Oscars.

Earlier this week, it seemed like Paranormal Activity 3 was looking at an opening weekend in the $35-$40 million range, or just slightly less than what its predecessor took in on this week last year.  Instead, the three-quel has crushed all projections with an estimated take of $54 million from 3,321 locations.  At this point that stands as the highest October debut and the biggest supernatural horror opening of all-time, unseating 2010’s Paranormal Activity 2, of course.

On this installment of For Your Consideration John, Dennis and Soul Video discuss:

• The Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt film 50/50
• Can Seth Rogen convincingly lead a major film?
• The news flurry and misinformation regarding all of the Arrested Development hub bub (despite what you may have heard, nothing has been confirmed)
• The continuing difficulty Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is having trying to land a major lead actress to be in the film (like 6 have turned them down so far)

And many things more.  Hit the jump to watch.

With three new releases plus three strong holdovers, this weekend turned out to be one of the most difficult to predict in terms of box office numbers.  In the end, it was the week-old Dolphin Tale that emerged victorious: leaping over Friday’s champ Moneyball, the still-ferocious Lion King 3D and the critically-acclaimed newcomer 50/50.

With the fall film season now in full swing, I’m 100% ashamed to admit that I’ve yet to see two of my most anticipated fall films: Moneyball and 50/50. Now, I have every intention of ending this charade at some point this weekend but, for now, I hope you’ll give me a pass. If I’ve still yet to check them out when we meet here next week, I’ll understand if you choose to revoke my “mildly credible film blogger” credentials. In the meantime…

…In this week’s “Top 5″ installment, you can find all of our Fantastic Fest 2011 coverage. After that, interviews abound with the cast of Jonathan Levine’s dramedy 50/50, the cast, creators, and real-life inspiration for Machine Gun Preacher, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance director Brian Taylor, and Thor/The Avengers‘ Tom Hiddleston. Check out a brief recap and link to each after the jump.

Moneyball won the pot on its second Friday with an estimated $3.9 million, though there is a good chance that either of September’s family hits, Dolphin Tale or The Lion King 3D will end up the weekend winner.  With Friday numbers, I usually like to give some indication of what Sunday’s top ten will look like but, today, I’m not sure that will be possible.  On top of the very close estimates between the holdover titles, there are four new releases in the mix: three of which are running well below their pre-release projections.  So far, What’s Your Number? is lagging 85% behind Anna Farris’ last comedy hit The House Bunny.  50/50 is doing half the business of 2009’s cancer comedy Funny People and the Universal thriller Dream House looks like a winner by sticking to its projected three-day opening of $8 million!  That leaves Courageous.  Haven’t heard of it?  The Christian drama has come out strong, with a debut of $3.1 million and a projected weekend that should nearly double its studio’s expectations of $5 million.  Details tomorrow.

It’s important to have a sense of humor in all things.  Being able to laugh at misfortune doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re diminishing a tragedy’s importance or ignoring the feelings created by hardship.  Laughter isn’t the best medicine (that would be the polio vaccine) but it’s damn useful and Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 manages to find humor in cancer by bringing together great performances and a gentle approach that manages to skillfully balance foul-mouthed dialogue alongside honest drama.

The dramedy 50/50, directed by Jonathan Levine (The Wackness), is one of my favorite films of 2011.  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Anjelica Huston, the film is based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s real-life battle with cancer and focuses on the twists, turns, shock, sadness, and comedy he experienced along the way.

While at the Toronto Film Festival, I was able to speak with Rogen about the movie.  We talked about balancing the humor with telling an honest and real story, was it tough to get made, karaoke, what’s the last video game he played, and the great reaction at TIFF.  In addition, Rogen also gave me updates on the Green Hornet sequel, My Mother’s Curse,  Neighborhood Watch, and he tells me that he’s going to direct Seth and Jay vs. the Apocalypse this February.  Hit the jump to watch.

The dramedy 50/50, directed by Jonathan Levine (The Wackness), is one of my favorite films of 2011.  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Anjelica Huston, the film is based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s real-life battle with cancer and focuses on the twists, turns, shock, sadness, and comedic relief that he experienced along the way.

While at the Toronto Film Festival, I was able to speak with Kendrick about how she got cast in 50/50 and how she prepared for the role.  In the film, she plays a young therapist who helps Gordon-Levitt deal with his cancer.  In addition, we talked about her favorite karaoke song, the last video game she played (Scott Pilgrim), what Twilight fans always want to talk to her about (his initials are RP).  She also talks about her role opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in David Ayer’s End of Watch.  Hit the jump to watch