Mickey Rourke and Penelope Cruz upped their chances for Oscar wins tomorrow night. On Saturday, both actors took home Independent Spirit Awards, honoring achievements in independent film, for their performances in The Wrestler and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, respectively. The Wrestler scored the best feature film prize. Melissa Leo, also nominated for an Oscar, won best female lead for her performance in Frozen River. James Franco took home the supporting actor prize for his performance in Milk. Woody Allen, snubbed by the Oscars this year, won Best Screenplay for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, while Dustin Lance Black, nominated for his Milk screenplay, picked up the Best First Screenplay award. Here’s the full list of winners:
Best Feature
The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin
Best Director
Tom McCarthy, The Visitor
Best First Feature
Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman
Best First Screenplay
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Best Supporting Female
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Supporting Male
James Franco, Milk
Best Female Lead
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Best Male Lead
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Best Cinematography
Maryse Alberti, The Wrestler
Best Foreign Film
The Class, Laurent Cantet
Best Documentary
Man on Wire, James Marsh
More award season news from EW:
Spirit Awards: Mickey Rourke gives props to Eric Roberts
Razzies: Mike Myers and Paris Hilton ‘win’ big
Dave Karger’s Oscar predictions
Oscars 2009: Who will win (and who should)
Oscars: How the stars would improve the show
I’ll admit up front that I haven’t seen all the Oscar nominated films this year, but seeing The Wrestler get best feature in The Independent Spirit Awards made me so happy. I was really upset that it wasn’t nominated for Best Film at the Oscars. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in many, many years, and I thought it got robbed in a lot of categories–director, screenplay and cinematography, among others. Sorry for the rant, but seeing this item really made me happy. I hope Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei win Oscars tomorrow night. They both deserve them.
This turn of events thrills me. Although Sean Penn is admittedly the front-runner, I’m more convinced than ever that Mickey Rourke will win, and that is awesome. The Wrestler is my favorite movie of the year and Rourke gave the best performance of this year, IMHO. I’d love if Tomei won, too (she’s amazing in everything, and the community doesn’t take her seriously), but Viola Davis was awesome and I’d love to see her win, too.
yey, I’m happy that James Franco won the supporting award. I mean he was so underrated in Milk and he really deserves a nomination for this bold role he had. Let me remind u guys that its quite rare that an actor/actress will win and Indie award then win the Oscar the next day. Take for example last year – Cate Blanchett won the supporting actress plum but lost at the Oscar despite two nominations. I dont think Penelope increased her chances its basically the same all through out and it will still be Rourke-Penn until the envelope is open. And Leo is a super long shot!!
I truly hope Sean Penn wins the Oscar — it’s one of the greatest performances of all time, in my opinion.
Sean Penn is horrible.
How the frak does any of this qualify as “independent filmmaking”??? The Spirit Awards jumped the shark years ago to become just another hyped event for movie stars to show up and collect gift bags.
Anne Hathaway deserved this. Her performance was a million times better than Leo’s, not that Leo was bad, I just thought that Anne’s performance was much more complex.
haha this one should have gone to heath ledger for his bad acting. spirit award would be perfect for a dead junkie
Going with Milk all the way, but I won’t feel bad if Rourke wins the award, although I did think Penn was better. His dog just died, and if this wasn’t Sean Penn’s year, in my opinion, he would be deserving.
where the hell is benicio del torrio. he was awesome in che
Heard all kinds of stuff about Rourke’s
bad boy history. People grow up eventually. In this case, his performance was incredibly moving as a
crusty old has-been. Outstanding! He’ll
win, no question.
I’m so stoked about The Wrestler’s win. I love Aronofsky and Rourke absolutely knocked it out of the park. Fingers crossed for ol’ Mickey tomorrow.
Although I’ve loved everything Mickey Rourke has ever done, in “Wrestler” he’s playing himself. On the other hand, Frank Langella, one of our most underrated actors, played a phenomenal Richard M. Nixon in “Frost/Nixon”. To me, he’s the one who deserves the award. Finally.
Ummmm how does this increase their chances when Oscar ballots have all been collected???
Sean Penn is horrible – serves him right to be sued by the litigious bastards at Jonesday.com