The top nominations for this year’s Indie Spirit Awards are no surprise. Winter’s Bone continues its march through the woods to find its father and an Oscar with 7 nominations (which is almost all it was even eligible for). In a close second, The Kids Are All Right finds itself with 5 nominations. If you’re a fan of female directors, this year is celebrating a number of them in the top spots, but it’s also incredibly important to point out that Samuel L. Jackson and Bill Murray are finally up for the same award. The Indepdenent Spirit Awards make a good primer for the films that might make their way into the Academy Award nominee pool. In recent tradition, the winner of the Best Feature prize goes on to be an Oscar contender (and occasional winner). Examples of that include Precious, The Wrestler, Juno, and Brokeback Mountain. The full list of nominees continues below:

We don’t come to mourn Miramax, but to bury you in great films to add to your rental queue.

By now you’ve heard — perhaps via our indisputably successful live-blog of yesterday’s Independent Spirit Awards — that Mickey Rourke’s acceptance speech for his Best Male Lead award was mildly entertaining.

We have been lazy this week, leading to a lack of a Saturday ‘Shouting Match.’ And we need to cover these Independent Spirit Awards at some point. So screw it, we’ll do them together, live.

The brilliant British actor took some time out from his hosting prep to talk to us about the world of indie film, his role at the Independent Spirit Awards, and a few details about his recurring role as a 3-inch tall figurine.

This afternoon the nominations for the 2009 awards were announced, with films such as Courtney Hunt’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning Frozen River, Jonathan Demme’s critically acclaimed Rachel Getting Married and Darren Aronofsky’s Toronto gem The Wrestler leading the way.

Impersonations of Bob Dylan and Ellen Page. Dwight Shrute has gone insane.

In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Zach Braff and Lisa Kudrow helped deliver the nominees for the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards. Have a look at the nominees.