Henrick Vartanian
The Film Independent Spirit Awards‘ mission is to recognize movies produced outside the Hollywood studio system with smaller budgets and less noisy marketing campaigns—no exploding robots (well, not typically) and saturation advertising on every network and cable channel. 
But included among the nominees announced this week by Joel McHale, Eva Mendes and Jeremy Renner are big-name stars whose A-List firepower is expected to jazz up the Oscar red carpet. The Best Female Lead category includes Annette Bening (“The Kids Are All Right”), Nicole Kidman (“Rabbit Hole”), Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) and Michelle Williams (“Blue Valentine”), all of whom are considered top contenders for the Oscar. They are joined by indie-film darlings Jennifer Lawrence (“Winter’s Bone”) and Greta Gerwig (“Greenberg”). Nominees for Best Male Lead include Aaron Eckhart (“Rabbit Hole”) and James Franco (“127 Hours”); both are seen as upper-rung contenders for the Oscar, and Franco is even co-hosting the ceremony with Anne Hathaway. Their fellow nominees are Ronald Bronstein (“Daddy Longlegs”), John C. Reilly (“Cyrus”) and Ben Stiller (“Greenberg”).
Visit the Film Independent website for the full list of nominees: http://www.spiritawards.com
– Benjamin Scuglia