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Kim Elsesser wrote:But separate is not equal. While it is certainly acceptable for sports competitions like the Olympics to have separate events for male and female athletes, the biological differences do not affect acting performances.

mfunk9786 wrote:Do they have a clear definition of what makes a film an independent film? I'd be curious to know what that criteria is.

Film Independent wrote:9. What makes a film eligible for a Spirit Award?

• All submitted films must be at least 70 minutes long (i.e., Chris Munch’s The Hours and Times—at 67 minutes—and Michael Winterbottom’s Nine Songs—at 69 minutes—were not eligible for Spirit Awards).

• Eligible films must have either played one week in a commercial theater in 2008, or have been shown at one of the following six film festivals: the Los Angeles Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, New York, Sundance, Telluride, or Toronto.

• Eligible films must be made for no more than $20 million, including post.

10. Who decides what films are nominated?

Experts in the field. Three nominating committees - one each for Domestic Narrative Films, Documentary Films, and Foreign Narrative Films - are made up of 15-20 members of the film community. Committees may include film critics, film programmers, actors, producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, and members of Film Independent's Board of Directors.

What's the nomination process?

It's a rigorous process. All films submitted are distributed to the committee and are discussed at regular meetings throughout the fall. Each committee member will take the nominating guidelines into consideration when determining the nominees. A final two-day meeting is held prior to the nomination announcement where all committee members discuss the films at length and vote on each category.How does the Nominating Committee determine if a film is “independent”?

The Spirit Awards Nominating Committee applies the following guidelines in making its selections:

• Uniqueness of vision

• Original, provocative subject matter

• Economy of means

• Percentage of financing from independent sources

Films that are made with an “economy of means” AND are fully financed by a studio or an indie studio division may still be considered “independent” if the subject matter is original and provocative. In other words, Film Independent does not—as of 1994—define “independent” strictly on the basis of financing. (The first studio film we honored was Darnell Martin’s I Like It Like That from Columbia Pictures in 1994.)

11. What does “economy of means” mean?

Films that are made with lower budgets (often microbudgets), up to $20 million. This included Tarnation ($220) and House of Sand and Fog ($18 million). But the idea is to value films made with lower budgets more highly, since lower budgets usually mean more creative control on the part of the filmmakers.

12. Didn’t the budget ceiling for nominated films used to be lower?

The Film Independent Board of Directors never actually set a budget ceiling for Spirit Award films prior to 2006. The task of setting a budget ceiling—of deciding which films to include in our nominations and which films to exclude—was given each year to the Spirit Awards Nominating Committee. Some years, like in 1995, the committee nominated films with budgets as high as $22 million (Bullets Over Broadway). Typically, the ceiling has hovered between $16 - $18 million. The Board of Directors was reluctant to set a hard-and-fast limit in the past, but, at the request of the Spirit Awards Nominating Committee to give the committee more specific direction, the Board fixed the budget ceiling at $20 million in 2006.

Lemmy Caution wrote:I found Food Inc. incredibly bland. I'm sure it's a useful primer for those who never thought about such things, but I don't recall learning one thing I didn't know already. Well, okay, I didn't know how long chickens are allowed to live before being grocery-stored. But the film was frustrating in not going into detail or providing info at many points. I also found all of the sinister language and innuendo, primarily in the intro, to be rather silly and dubious. My favorite part was the opening credits utilizing ordinary grocery store writing -- sale tags, aisle labels, special stickers, etc. It was a slickly put together film without anything new to say.

Then again I'm a vegetarian and pretty well-versed in such issues.
I also found it interesting that the film ends with a whole shopping list of eating recs, but never advocates or even mentions vegetarianism.

domino harvey wrote:

Lemmy Caution wrote:I found Food Inc. incredibly bland...
My favorite part was the opening credits utilizing ordinary grocery store writing -- sale tags, aisle labels, special stickers, etc. It was a slickly put together film without anything new to say.

I'm watching this now on Netflix streaming (I'm here to take a break from the monotony) and all the film does is sort of halfheartedly bring up an idea and then abandon it without much examination. Forget the nomination, how did this even get wide distribution?

domino harvey wrote:Who even watches the Oscars anymore

domino harvey wrote:Oh Christ me

Mr_sausage wrote:

Kim Elsesser wrote:But separate is not equal. While it is certainly acceptable for sports competitions like the Olympics to have separate events for male and female athletes, the biological differences do not affect acting performances. The divided Oscar categories merely insult women, because they suggest that women would not be victorious if the categories were combined. In addition, this segregation helps perpetuate the stereotype that the differences between men and women are so great that the two sexes cannot be evaluated as equals in their professions.

Surely I'm not the only one to notice the gap in causation here. Just who exactly is suggesting it's the females that would come up short on victories if the categories were combined? The exact same evidence proves equally well that it's the males who would suffer and that the segregation panders to them. If your evidence is so equivocal that it equally proves the exact opposite of your argument, you've embarrassed yourself.