There was grumbling and shoulder-shrugging at the Spirit Awards after-bash about Juno winning the best picture prize. Nobody dislikes it (myself included) but nobody I know thinks it aspires to greatness, much less achieves it. Over and over I heard “why?,” “I don’t get it,” “Whatever,” “I don’t know…obviously people like it,” “they were sucking up to Fox Searchlight,” etc.

Juno‘s Ellen Page

No problems in this corner with Juno star Ellen Page winning the best actress award, or with Diablo Cody winning the best first screenplay prize. They’re fine, but it just doesn’t seem right on some level to give Juno the absolute Big Kahuna top prize. Likeable, touching and well-made though it may be, it doesn’t drill into the groundwater. (A fear that Little Miss Sunshine definitely achieved.)
It’s supposed to mean something to win a Spirit Award, and right now, the Juno win has lowered the bar and made it all seem a tiny little less.

Once director-writer John Carney

I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett

Spirit Award-winner Diablo Cody

I have to be somewhere. I’ll get into it later. Above are four Spirit Awards snaps.