Hidden gems populate Gotham Independent Film Award nominations

Oscar nominations won't be announced until January 5th. The Gotham Independent Film Award nominations, which come far before the Oscars, Globes, or the multitude of critic association awards, stand apart not only on the calendar, but in content. If you look at IndieWire's current list of potential Oscar nominees, for example, there's almost no crossover with the Gotham Awards. In the list of nominations below, I provide links to Film Journal reviews, and give a few recommendations of my own.

Best Feature
Bernie: This arthouse feature has earned $9 million to date, with steady returns week after week. It's also nominated for "Best Ensemble Performance," with the unlikely trio of  Jack Black, Shirley
MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey sharing the screen.
The Loneliest Planet: This one hasn't released yet, but it's about an engaged couple (one half of which is the handsome Gael Garcia Bernal) who go on a hike, and bad things happen. If the Gotham people like it, it must be good.
The Master: This is the only one of Gotham's nominations that's also polling high in the Oscar race. Though our critic Chris Barsanti felt it lacked some of director Paul Thomas Anderson's "characteristically thunderous panache," this Scientology-esque biopic is high-profile enough everyone should see it in order to weigh in.
Middle of Nowhere: The story of a woman "who cares for her imprisoned husband while struggling to keep her true self afloat," as described by critic Tomris Laffly, "reinstates one’s at times
diminishing faith in independent film," refusing to give out "louder
statements about social injustice" but instead letting the audience draw its own conclusions. Participant Media helped finance, and they only back "socially conscious" films.
Moonrise Kingdom: One of director Wes Anderson's most successful films in recent years, the charming story of young love is a natural fit for the director's reflexive, nostalgic style. Some think this one can slide into the Oscar race, with at least some chance of picking up nominations. Another nominee for "Best Ensemble Performance," this movie will likely do even better in critics' awards and the Spirit Awards.

Best Documentary
I've seen a number of docs this year, but none of these are among them. Here's a roundup of these films, and hopes that they'll be in a theatre near you or on Netflix soon.
Detropia: "A tone poem soaked in the
blues," as described by Barsanti, about Detroit's continuing decline from its manufacturing glory days, is a haunting look at what forty plus years of recession
looks like.
How to Survive a Plague: A victorious look over how AIDS has gone from a death sentence to a treatable disease.
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present:  A countdown to the performance artist's solo show at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Room 237: Reviewed here as part of a NYFF recap, Room 237 interviews "a handful of die-hard [Stanley] Kubrick fans and scholars
who make largely preposterous, hilarious and only sometimes sober
arguments for symbols that permeate his work." Anyone who's speculated about the blood coming out of the elevator doors might find this movie a worthy follow-up to Kubrick's masterpiece.
The Waiting Room: A fly-on-the-wall look at an ER waiting room.

Among the other nominations, there are two for Beasts of the Southern Wild, "Breakthrough Director" for Benh Zeitlin and "Breakthrough Actor" for Quvenzhané Wallis. I recommend it as one of this summer's best and most successful indies. The "This American Life" crowd may take a shine to Sleepwalk with Me. Star/writer/director Mike Birbiglia was nominated for his performance in the "Breakthrough Actor" category. Everyone I know who has seen it found it sweet and recommended it to others. Awards frontrunner The Silver Linings Playbook grabbed one nomination for "Best Ensemble Performance," which is probably only a small precursor of what's to come. The Gotham Independent Film Awards are on November 26th, right in the midst of the awards releases onslaught.

'Think Like a Man' stays ahead of four new releases

Four new wide releases opened this weekend, but all of them underwhelmed. The winners were holdovers, especially Think Like a Man. The ensemble romantic comedy, which features a primarily black cast, dropped by half to earn $18.8 million, making it the most successful movie to open this April. Audiences' foreknowledge of comedian/author Steve Harvey probably helped distinguish this feature from similar offerings, and the thumbs-ups from audiences in exit polls last week likely drove their friends to the box office this week.

British animation company Aardman Entertainment has never opened a film above $20 million in the U.S. However, since it's been two months since a new animated film graced the screen, many were hoping Pirates! The Band of Misfits could open above $11.4 million. It didn't, and audiences gave the stop-motion animated 3D film a so-so "B" rating in exit polls. Still, the family-friendly feature has earned over $60 million overseas, so the totals stateside are just one piece of the pie.

The Five-Year Engagement was trounced by the holdover romantic comedy Think Like a Man, debuting to just $11.1 million. Universal expected the Jason Segel-Emily Blunt vehicle to open close to 50% higher. While there are a lot of reasons flying around for this discrepancy, age and exit polls are the biggies. 57% of viewers were over thirty, while younger people are more avid moviegoers, indicating the plot may have turned off younger audiences. Exit polls gave the movie a "B-" rating, not surprising since it was billed as "from the producer of Bridesmaids" while being quite a bit different from that raunchy comedy.

Safe opened on the low end even for a Jason Statham movie, finishing with $7.7 million. Core Statham fans, older-skewing males, did turn out, but they were lukewarm on the action outing, giving it a "B+" CinemaScore.

The Raven, which finished with $7.2 million, generated some of the most creative critical put-downs I've seen in some time. My favorite was this Gawker headline, "I Fell Asleep 17 Times During The Raven." The only people who seemed to think this Edgar Allan Poe-tracks-down-a-serial-killer-who-quoth-his-stories tale was cool were under the age of 25. I think it’s fair to say that audiences still showing their IDs for R-rated movies are more easily wowed.

Bernie, a dark comedy starring Jack Black, opened amazingly well with a $30,000 per-screen average on three screens. Despite a lot of indie street cred, Sound of My Voice had a more tepid debut, averaging $8,000 per screen in five locations.

The Avengers will kick off the "summer" movie season this Friday. No other studio dares open a film against this superhero extravaganza, which will set the tone for summer 2012.