By giving Barry Jenkins\u2019 acclaimed drama its best feature award, along with five other honors, the Film Independent Spirit Awards once again gave its top prize to the nominee most likely to win the Academy Award for Best Picture at a slightly bigger ceremony that takes place the…<\/b>
Spirit Awards voters did their part for \u201cMoonlight.\u201d Will Oscar voters do the same?
By giving Barry Jenkins\u2019 acclaimed drama its best feature award, along with five other honors, the Film Independent Spirit Awards once again gave its top prize to the nominee most likely to win the Academy Award for Best Picture at a slightly bigger ceremony that takes place the day after the Spirits.
Four times in the last five years, including the last three in a row, that\u2019s exactly what happened: \u201cThe Artist\u201d won the Spirit Award and the Oscar on back-to-back days in 2012, and then \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d did it in 2014, and \u201cBirdman\u201d in 2015, and \u201cSpotlight\u201d last year.
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In doing so, voters made a mockery of the slogan that used to surround the Indie Spirit Awards: \u201cWin on Saturday, lose on Sunday.\u201d It made sense back when \u201cPulp Fiction,\u201d \u201cFargo,\u201d \u201cLost in Translation,\u201d \u201cBrokeback Mountain,\u201d \u201cLittle Miss Sunshine\u201d and \u201cJuno\u201d were winning Spirit Awards and then losing Best Picture to bigger, more mainstream movies.
But as the Oscars got more indie, the Spirit Awards edged toward the mainstream themselves.
Spirit voters tried to continue the trend on Saturday by giving \u201cMoonlight\u201d awards for feature, director, screenplay, editing and cinematography, in addition to the Robert Altman Award for its director, casting director and ensemble cast.
But while they\u2019ve given the awards to the only Spirit nominee with a real chance of winning the top Oscar on Sunday, to do that will require \u201cMoonlight\u201d to score a sizable upset over \u201cLa La Land,\u201d the Oscar front-runner that wasn\u2019t eligible for the Spirit Awards because its budget exceeded the (loose) $20 million limit for the Spirits, reportedly by about $10 million.
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In other categories, Spirit Awards voters stuck to their recent habit of going for the nominee who also has a chance to win the Oscar. \u201cToni Erdmann,\u201d the only Oscar nominee in the international-film field, won that award, and Oscar nominees took home Spirit Awards in the lead actor and actress categories (Casey Affleck for \u201cManchester by the Sea\u201d and Isabelle Huppert for \u201cElle\u201d), as well as for screenplay, editing and cinematography (all \u201cMoonlight\u201d).
Three Oscar nominees were also in the running in the Spirit Awards documentary category, and the voters opted for the one that\u2019s the favorite to win on Sunday, too: Ezra Edelman\u2019s \u201cO. J.: Made in America.\u201d
In fact, there was only one category in which an Oscar nominee lost to someone who wasn\u2019t nominated by the Academy: supporting male, in which \u201cHell or High Water\u201d actor Ben Foster won over Lucas Hedges, an Oscar nominee for \u201cManchester by the Sea.\u201d (Marhershala Ali, the supporting star of \u201cMoonlight\u201d who has emerged as the film\u2019s strongest contender for an Oscar win, wasn\u2019t even nominated in the Spirits category.)
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So \u201cMoonlight\u201d utterly dominated the one awards show that takes place in the daylight. As for the one that\u2019ll happen tomorrow after dark, that\u2019ll be a much tougher task for Barry Jenkins and crew.
But for now, hope springs eternal, even as that \u201cwin on Saturday, lose on Sunday\u201d motto looms.
Read original story \u2018Moonlight\u2019 Shines at Spirit Awards, But Could Oscars Be as Bright? At TheWrap<\/p>\n

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