Once again, the Spirit Awards has some powerful contenders this year - the mightiest being the Female Lead category and the most difficult to choose. Everything else was a pretty clear choice.

And as usual, because nitpicking comes with award nominees, there were a few snubs. But the only thing I can’t wrap my head around is how Stephen Chbosky’s THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER got nominated for Best First Feature when he made a film called THE FOUR CORNERS OF NOWHERE, which played at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995. According to Film Independent’s guidelines, the film submitted must be at least 70 minutes long. Both THE FOUR CORNERS and PERKS are 110 minutes. I may have missed something else in my research, but this just seems odd.

If you read this blog regularly or following me on Twitter or Facebook, then you know there’s one film I’ve been very loud about: HOLY MOTORS. This is unmistakably the best International Film of the year, and Its lead, Denis Lavant, gave the best performance of the year. The film didn’t make the guidelines required for eligibility, so I’ll just complain here while I can and IT’S MY PARTY AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO. C’est la vie.

Despite those nags, I do adore some of the films nominated––SMASHED, AMOUR, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, and SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK being a handful of them. I’m a member of the Film Independent Spirit Awards, and voting started on the 25th––my picks are below in bold. Cross your fingers, eyes, toes, and torso that a few or all of them win.

The winners will be announced on Saturday, February 23rd at 10pm ET/PT.

BEST FEATURE
Beasts of the Southern Wild
~~Bernie~~
~~Keep the Lights On~~
~~Moonrise Kingdom~~
~~Silver Linings Playbook~~

BEST DIRECTOR
~~Wes Anderson~~
~~David O. Russell~~
Benh Zeitlin
~~Julia Loktev~~
~~Ira Sachs~~

BEST FEMALE LEAD
~~Linda Cardellini, Return~~
~~Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere~~
~~Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook~~
~~Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild~~
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Smashed

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE LEAD
~~Rosemarie DeWitt, Your Sister’s Sister~~
~~Ann Dowd, Compliance~~
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
~~Brit Marling, Sound of My Voice~~
~~Lorraine Toussaint, Middle of Nowhere~~

BEST MALE LEAD
~~Jack Black, Bernie~~
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
J~~ohn Hawkes, The Sessions~~
~~Thure Lindhardt, Keep the Lights On~~
~~Matthew McConaughey, Killer Joe~~
~~Wendell Pierce, Four~~

BEST SUPPORTING MALE LEAD
~~Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike~~
~~David Oyelowo, Middle of Nowhere~~
~~Michael Péna, End of Watch~~
Sam Rockwell, Seven Psychopaths
~~Bruce Willis, Moonrise Kingdom~~

BEST SCREENPLAY
~~Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom~~
~~Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks~~
~~Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths~~
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
~~Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On~~

BEST FIRST FEATURE
~~Fill the Void - Rama Burshtein (director); Assaf Amir (producer)~~
Gimme the Loot - Adam Leon (director); Dominic Buchanan, Natalie Difford, Jamund Washington (producers)
~~Safety Not Guaranteed - Colin Trevorrow (director); Derek Connolly, Stephanie Langhoff, Peter Saraf, Colin Trevorrow, Marc Turtletaub (producers)~~
~~Sound of My Voice - Zal Batmanglij (director); Brit Marling, Hans Ritter, Shelley Surpin (producers)~~
~~The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky (director); Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich, Russell Smith (producers)~~

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
~~Rama Burshtein, Fill the Void~~
~~Derek Connolly, Safety Not Guaranteed~~
Christopher Ford, Robot & Frank
~~Rashida Jones & Will McCormack, Celeste and Jesse Forever~~
~~Jonathan Lisecki, Gayby~~

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
~~Yoni Brook, Valley of Saints~~
~~Lol Crawley, Here~~
~~Ben Richardson, Beasts of the Southern Wild~~
~~Roman Vasyanov, End of Watch~~
Robert Yeoman, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST DOCUMENTARY
How to Survive a Plague - David France (director); David France, Howard Gertler (producers)
~~Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present - Matthew Akers (director); Maro Chermayeff, Jeff Dupre (producers)~~
~~The Central Park Five - Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon (directors-producers)~~
~~The Invisible War - Kirby Dick (director); Tanner King Barklow, Amy Ziering (producers)~~
~~The Waiting Room - Peter Nicks (director-producer); Linda Davis, William B. Hirsch (producers)~~

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
Amour (France), Michael Haneke
~~Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (Turkey), Nuri Bilge Ceylan~~
~~Rust And Bone (France/Belgium), Jacques Audiard~~
~~Sister (Switzerland), Ursula Meier~~
~~War Witch (Democratic Republic of Congo), Kim Nguyen~~

It’s that time of year again where all your favorite movie websites, cinephile friends, and film journalists start posting their flashy year-end lists. After narrowing it down from 13 titles, below are my 10 Favorite Films of 2012. I know it’s early and there are a few big films that haven’t been released yet. And I’m certain at least one is going to be unchained and awesome, but these are the films I’ve seen over and over this year (as much as possible, anyway.) There are some big, bad studio movies on here, but the independent ones dominate it. They are the reason why my heart beats. I want to shout about these films on top of a mountain, then get ice cream and watch all of them back-to-back.

Collectively, these films have a cabin with tricks up its sleeves, game-changing fight scenes, young alcoholics, time traveling assassins, a mother’s undying love for her son with Down syndrome, Avenging superheros, The Bathtub, sleepwalking comedians, Denis Lavant at his best, and a rich 35-year-old bum. All of these rolled with the punches and moved me in one way or another. This is perhaps my favorite Favorite list that I’ve ever compiled. Enjoy.

(Note: these are in no particular order.)

(Note #2: Adding OSLO, AUGUST 31ST to this list. I put it on my Top 10 last year (Best Undistributed FIlm) but just remembered it finally got picked up this year. OSLO deserves the recognition more than most films currently getting attention. Watch the trailer HERE.)