Can You Feel The Electricity In The Air?

It's almost time to put on those stylish tuxedos and designer gowns kids...awards season is right around the corner! Are you as "excited" as I am?

The folks over at The independent Spirit Awards have announced their latest list of nominees

Dave McNary and the Variety Staff have the rundown:

Fox Searchlight's offbeat family comedy "Little Miss Sunshine" and ThinkFilm's drug-addiction drama "Half Nelson" picked up five nominations each to lead all contenders for the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards...

The two pics each received best feature noms, joining IFC's "American Gun," First Look's "The Dead Girl" and Picturehouse's "Pan's Labyrinth."

Don Cheadle and Felicity Huffman announced the nominations in 13 categories Tuesday morning at the Sofitel Hotel. Winners will be revealed Feb. 24, the day before the Academy Awards.

Film Independent, which administers the awards, decided last year to limit nominations to films with budgets under $20 million...

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In more film award news: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has made the decision to allow Mel Gibson's controversial new flick Apocalypto (opening December 8th) and Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima (opening in limited release on December 20th)--A companion film to his already released Flags of Our Fathers-- to compete in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2007 Golden Globes...

Justin Chang and Timothy M. Gray of Variety pick up the story from there:

...though neither is eligible for an Oscar in the foreign-language category.

In an already-confusing awards season, this development points up one constantly befuddling factor: the rules of the various voting orgs.

Unlike AMPAS, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has no limits on how many films can be considered from one country. So in the Globes shortlist of 56 pics, there are multiple titles from Italy, France, China, Germany, Spain and India under consideration.

The Hollywood Foreign Press considers any film submitted by its producers, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has a complicated system. Each country can submit only one film, to be determined by a voting body in that country -- and the Academy has to recognize that voting body.

However, the U.S. has no org to submit foreign-language films and would not recognize any ad-hoc group that formed to submit a film.

If a film is made in the States in a foreign language -- whether it's a Native American tongue or French or Urdu -- it will not be eligible for a foreign-language Oscar. (If a group of Native Americans formed to submit a film to the category, the Acad would not recognize it.)

That's what happened with Mel Gibson and "The Passion of the Christ" a few years ago. It was nominated for cinematography, score and makeup but was ineligible as a foreign-language film...

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The 64th annual Golden Globe Awards will take place on Monday January 15, 2007, in a live telecast on NBC-TV