Awards Watch: The Satelllites

The International Press Academy announced today their nominees for their 12th annual Satellite Awards ... and don't worry if you've never heard of them. This offshoot group of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is even wackier in their choices then the HFPA is with their more well-known Golden Globes. Kristopher Tapley at Variety's Red Carpet District blog sums them up appropriately by calling them the "let's nominate everyone" awards (literally; in addition to movies and TV like the Globes, they also hand out trophies to DVDs and video games).

Such mostly forgotten films as The Lookout, Stephanie Daley and Goya's Ghosts are included, while biggies like Into the Wild, Charlie Wilson's War and Sweeney Todd are nowhere to be found (the latter two may not have been screened in time, which just makes these even more irrelevant). Granted, some movies we don't want to be forgotten, like Zodiac and 3:10 to Yuma, were remembered, but then again, it doesn't really matter much in the big race anyway, as this untelevised event makes as much impact as a "fart in a windstorm", as Big Edie used to say.

Again, like the Globes, the oddest thing about the Satellites is the category placement, i.e.: what they deem a drama or comedy/musical (I'll be chiming in on the Globes recent decisions on that matter in a future Awards Watch). For example, there's always the question of where to put the music biopics; are they a drama (yes) or musical (no, but they are often called that anyway by these two groups). Apparently, there is no hard and fast rules for this, as this year we have Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose competing for drama, while Cate Blanchett's turn as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There is in the comedy/musical race (to make it even more confounding, their categories are reversed for the Globes). In the meantime, such Movie Dearest favorites as Hairspray and Enchanted are snubbed in one way or another (although they did get four and two nominations, respectively).

The awards (pictured above ... hey, does that thing get Direct TV?) will be presented December 16. See the comments section below for a quick look at the full list of movie nominations.

Links via PressAcademy.com and Variety.com.