IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Leonard Cohen’s posthumous album centers on poetry
Leonard Cohen’s last album, released just weeks before he passed in 2016, was “You Want It Darker,” which had a sense of finality that made it a fine conclusion to his brilliant musical career.
“Thanks for the Dance,” on the other hand, seems to bring down the curtain on Cohen’s parallel universe, the poetry he started to publish long before he began making records.
Illustrating the point, the new ninetrack set is more like a Cohen spokenword performance with very good and empathetic musical backing, most of it composed by his son, Adam.
’Uncut Gems,’ ‘The Lighthouse’ top Spirit Awards nominations
Josh and Benny Safdie’s Diamond District crime film “Uncut Gems” and Robert Eggers’ feverdream period tale “The Lighthouse” led the 35th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards with five nods each, in nominations announced Thursday in Los Angeles.
The Spirit Awards, which honor films with budgets below $22.5 million, are the premier ceremony for indie film, held annually in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., on the day before the Oscars.
With some of this year’s top Academy Awards nominees expected to include bigger budgeted films like “The Irishman” and “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” that left room for movies like Lulu Wang’s family drama “The Farewell,” Joe Talbot’s anguished gentrification tale “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” and the Shia LaBeouf memory piece “Honey Boy” to rack up multiple nominations.
The nominees for best feature are: Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama “Marriage Story,” Terrence Malick’s World War II epic “A Hidden Life,” Chinonye Chukwu’s prison drama “Clemency,” “The Farewell” and “Uncut Gems.”
“Marriage Story” will be given the Spirits’ ensemble award, dubbed the Robert Altman Award. The honor means its actors, including stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, weren’t eligible for individual nominations.
Baumbach’s screenplay was also nominated.
Independent distributor A24 dominated with 18 nominations, including those for “Uncut Gems,” “The Lighthouse,” “The Farewell” and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” Those included acting nominations for “Uncut Gems” lead Adam Sandler, Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as early 19th century Maine lighthouse keepers in “The Lighthouse” and Zhao Shuzhen as the grandmother of “The Farewell.”
Renee Zellweger, among this year’s Oscar favorites for her Judy Garland in “Judy,” was nominated for best female lead alongside Karen Allen (“Colewell”), Hong Chau (“Driveways”), Elisabeth Moss (“Her Smell”), Mary Kay Place (“Diane”) and Alfre Woodward (“Clemency”).
The Spirit Awards will be held Feb. 8 and broadcast on IFC.