Spirit Awards Will Be a ‘Moonlight’ Serenade, Not an Oscar Rehearsal

The Film Independent Spirit Awards are supposed to be loose, fun and low-pressure, but in recent years the show has labored in the shadow of something big and tension-filled: the Academy Awards.

Because “La La Land” cost too much money to qualify for the Spirits, it’s unlikely that the streak of duplicate Spirit-Oscar winners could reach a fourth consecutive year.

[...] its victories are likely to feel similar to the wins three years ago for David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook,” when everybody in the tent pretty much knew that the film would lose at the Oscars the next day to the Spirit-ineligible “Argo.”

[...] maybe that’ll let people relax and enjoy the Spirit Awards for what they are: a daytime-casual awards show that nominates some big movie stars and some people you’ve never heard of, and salutes a few movies that are making a lot of money and a few movies that aren’t making any money.

The small blue-ribbon panels that nominate at the Spirit Awards can be deliciously idiosyncratic — witness this year’s supporting-female category, in which the nominees are Edwina Findley in “Free In Deed,” Paulina Garcia in “Little Men,” Lily Gladstone in “Certain Women” Riley Keough in “American Honey” and Molly Shannon in “Other People.”

[...] the final voting can be anything but idiosyncratic; it’s open to anyone who pays for a Film Independent membership, which means that winners tend toward the mainstream even when nominees veer toward the indie.

In the 16 years and 64 acting winners since 2000, an actor or actress who wasn’t nominated for an Academy award has only beaten an Oscar nominee three times: