The Gotham Awards are among the first prizes handed out in the annual Hollywood awards season, but if you're already sick of Oscar bait and pre-canned speeches, the Gothams are something a little bit different Honoring the best in independent film, the Gotham Awards frequently highlight some of the oddballs that won't get attention in the wider awards season-- or at least, Oscar hopefuls that could use a leg up in getting the kind of hype that your Lincoln and Argo have already earned.
Two of last night's big winners got just that. Moonrise Kingdom, the fantastical childhood story from Wes Anderson, won the top prize of Best Feature, beating out the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master and Richard Linklater's Bernie, among others. It was a minor scandal when the nominations were announced that Sundance sensation Beasts of the Southern Wild wasn't nominated in the top category, but the film received more than enough attention, with director Benh Zeitlin winning Breakthrough Director and also the inaugural Bingham Ray Award, honoring the late indie filmmaking veteran who died in January, just as Beasts was taking Sundance by storm. Beasts's dynamic lead actress, Quvenzhane Wallis, was beaten out for Breakthrough Performer by Emayatzy Corinealdi, star of fellow Sundance award winner MIddle of Nowhere.
The wrenching documentary How To Survive A Plague, about New York activists who fought for treatment for AIDS patients at the height of the epidemic, was an unsurprising winner in the Best Documentary category, and Best Ensemble Performance went not to the high-profile Moonrise or or Silver Linings Playbook, but to Your Sister's Sister, Lynn Shelton's intimate and impeccably acted dramedy with Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass and Emily Blunt. See what I mean about the Gothams? Given the chance to just rubber-stamp the movies that everyone else is already talking about, they go out on a limb for a few-- while also giving a leg up to the likes of Moonrise and Beasts, which remain underdogs in the Oscar season anyway.
