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.

On the heels of announcing their nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011, the Directors Guild of America have announced their nominations for Best Documentary Director.  The nominees are Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky for Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Steve James for The Interrupters, James Marsh for Project Nim, Richard Press for Bill Cunningham New York, and Martin Scorsese for George Harrison: Living in the Material World.  Scorsese also picked up DGA nomination this year for Hugo, which brings his total number of nominations to ten.  He previously won for The Departed.

While I’m rooting for Project Nim, this is a fine collection of nominees.  It’s much better than the Academy’s short list, which only includes Project Nim, Paradise Lost 3, and Bill Cunningham New York.  The winner of the DGA’s 2011 Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary will be announced January 28th.

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.

A new trailer for Steve James’ documentary The Interrupters has been released. James is responsible for 1994’s Hoop Dreams, which is widely regarded as one of the best documentaries of all time. In The Interrupters, the director takes on violence in inner-city Chicago, examining how it affects the lives of those involved both directly and indirectly. Matt caught the film at Sundance, and while he found its premise honorable, he ultimately thought the pacing and runtime killed the movie as a whole.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.

Steve James’ documentary The Interrupters takes a strong subject, features compelling central figures, and is completely destroyed by its unwieldy runtime.  While James’ 1994 film Hoop Dreams was almost three hours in length, it never felt long because the story had momentum and a clear goal.  By contrast, The Interrupters feels redundant and aimless.  It’s endlessly frustrating to watch an honorable documentary be destroyed by poor pacing.  James’ desire to pay tribute to a group of modern-day heroes stops him from telling their story in the best way possible.

A trailer and poster for Oscar-nominee Steve James’ (Hoop Dreams) documentary The Interrupters have landed online.  The film, which will premiere at the upcoming 2011 Sundance Film Festival, follows the lives of three “violence interrupters” in inner-city Chicago as they attempt to dissuade the type of physical violence they themselves once utilized.  Although my own knowledge of the film spans only as far as the four-and-a-half-minute trailer takes me, James is one of my favorite documentary filmmakers and is a fellow Southern Illinois University alum to boot.  As such, it’s a lock that I’ll be checking out The Interrupters as soon as possible.

To check out both the trailer and the poster for yourself, hit the jump.

This year will be my first time attending the Sundance Film Festival and as a fan of documentaries, I couldn’t be more excited for some of the films that will be premiering.  Today, we have the first images from the documentaries These Amazing Shadows, Granito, and The Interrupters.  These Amazing Shadows is about the history and importance of the National Film Registry.  Granito centers on the turbulent history of Guatemala.  And The Interrupters is about ex-gang members who are now protecting their communities from gang violence.  I’m particularly excited for The Interrupters because it’s from Steve James, the director of the incredible 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.

We’re bringing you the first images from films that will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and today we bring you the first images from two documentaries that will premiere out-of-competition at the prestigious festival: Becoming Chaz and The Interrupters. Becoming Chaz follows female-born Chastity Bono (daughter of Sonny and Cher) and her deeply personal journey in transitioning from female to male.

The Interrupters comes from Steve James, director of the highly acclaimed 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams. In The Interrupters, James tells the story of ex-gang members who are now protecting their communities from the violence they themselves once employed. Hit the jump to check out images and a brief synopsis for both films, which will be playing out-of-competition.  The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 -30th.

Sundance has announced the premieres playing out-of-competition at this year’s 2011 Sundance Film Festival.  While we knew that Kevin Macdonald’s documentary Life in a Day and Kevin Smith’s Red State had already made the cut, we now have some other exciting films to add to the list.  Among the films in the “Premieres” category, I’m particularly stoked for Cedar Rapids (starring Ed Helms and John C. Reilly), My Idiot Brother (starring Paul Rudd), The Details (starring Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks), Margin Call (starring Kevin Spacey and Paul Bettany), Salvation Boulevard (starring Pierce Brosnan and Jennifer Connelly), and Tom McCarthy’s Win Win (starring Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan).

But I’m even more jazzed for some of the documentaries.  There’s a Reagan biopic from Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight), Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, and Steve James’ The Interrupters, just to name a few.  Hit the jump for the full line-up.  Click here for a list of the films playing in-competition and click here for a list of the other films playing out-of-competition.  The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20th – 30th.