There's often little sense to make of the Spirit Awards beyond the volume of tables that the organizers at Film Independent can sell to its nominees, and this year, with Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married and Sundance award-winner Frozen River receiving six nods apiece, expect Sony Pictures Classics to bring the most guests. The microbudget fest-circuit favorite Ballast earned six nods as well; its producers are expected to valet through the host's opening monologue before settling into their own, smaller table in a beachside annex to watch the show on closed-circuit TV.

The diversity of the other major categories is a testament to the sloppy overlap between indie upstarts and the Oscar mainstream that continues to sustain them:

· The Wrestler and the Michelle Williams-and-her-dog drama Wendy and Lucy join Rachel, Ballast and Frozen River as this year's Best Feature nominees;

· Rachel helmer Jonathan Demme duels lauded indie filmmakers Courtney Hunt (Frozen River), Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop) and Lance Hammer (Ballast) for Best Director. Tom McCarthy is in there for The Visitor, too; Overture Films must have pledged two tables or something.

· Williams and likely Rachel Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway face off against Frozen River's Melissa Leo and even Towelhead star Summer Bishil for Best Female Lead;

· Jeremy Renner earned a Best Male Lead for The Hurt Locker, an acclaimed Iraq film that hasn't screened anywhere outside the Toronto Film Festival. His opponents: Sean Penn (Milk), Javier Bardem (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Wrestler star Mickey Rourke and Oscar underdog Richard Jenkins (The Visitor);

· In the screenwriting category, Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, New York) will do battle against Sundance '08 alums Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Sugar) and Howard Rodman (Savage Grace);

· Along with Penn, Bardem, Williams and Hathaway, round out the starfucking quotient with Best Supporting Actress nominee Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona). Ben Lyons may decide to show up with his camera after all!

Look for other Defamer Attractions underdog alums scattered around the room as well: Best First Feature candidates Chris Eigeman (Turn the River) and Chris Zalla (Sangre De Mi Sangre); John Cassavetes Award contender Alex Holdridge (In Search of a Midnight Kiss); and Best Documentary front-runner Man on Wire, directed by James Marsh. Congrats to all, and may none of you still be busing tables in the show's tent if/when your names are called Feb. 21.

• 'River,' 'Rachel,' 'Ballast' Lead Spirit Award Nods [IndieWire]

Boomp3.com

Oscar favorite Anne Hathaway took to the produce of her local Whole Foods to recreate one of her favorite scenes from the movies, the shower dance from Flash Dance. The Rachel Getting Married star was perfectly in sync with the produce sprinkler system as she twirled around the fresh vegetable department. Hathaway’s impromptu dance number ended with a thunderous round of applause and a flurry of five and ten dollar bills.

[Photo Credit: X17]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeff Wells titled his post about the matter "Not Supposed to Say," claiming that "movie critics haven't come within 20 feet of mentioning this [unremarked-on interracial marriage] in their reviews." We're not sure what critics Wells is reading, but a boatload of the ones we've looked at mention exactly that — and they do it in a way that seems to beg for someone to bestow an aura of au courant hipness on their courageously un-PC observations.

Both EW's Owen Gleiberman and New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane take great pains to mention the film's unmentioned racial diversity, though to hear Lane discuss it, it sounds like he'd rather be watching a blunt parable like Crash. "The wedding party is the ultimate guide to Demme’s benign vision: the groom is black, the bride is white, she and her bridesmaids are dressed in saris, [and] nobody so much as mentions race," says Lane. "I don’t know if there were any Republican voters involved in this movie, but, if so, it must have been a lonely time." Ok, yes, some Republicans are racist — but damn, Anthony! Are you really implying that conservatives can never be bred within a cultural melting pot?

Worse is Wells, who virtually calls Demme a fetishist of all things African, rattling off some of the black characters Demme has previously included in his oeuvre before concluding:

So it feels very Demme-ish that the union that's endlessly celebrated in Rachel Getting Married, his latest feature, is between a very alabaster lassie (Rosemarie DeWitt, playing Rachel) and a handsome Afrique-ebony guy (musician Tunde Adebimpe, playing Sidney the groom). It's also a very Demme thing that nobody so much as mentions this.

You can say "well, why would anybody mention it?" and I'd take your point, of course. We all like to see ourselves as color-blind. My point is that in real life someone in the wedding party would at one point or another throw some kind of slider ball — something anecdotal, flip, netural, whatever— into the proceedings. In the same way someone would say "oh, it's raining" if a cloudburst were to happen. My other point is that such a remark (which wouldn't necessarily be coarse or gauche ) is verboten in a Demme film because it doesn't reflect his values or sensibilities.

...If the blunt-spoken alcoholic played by Howard Duff in Robert Altman's A Wedding (1978) had been invited to Rachel and Sidney's wedding, he would have said something or other, trust me. Because he was the kind of wealthy middle- aged guy who didn't give a shit because he was always half in the bag.

Why, though, does it need to be said? One might think that by the time Rachel and Sidney had gotten married, their families would have gotten used to the idea that they were of separate races (in fact, Rachel's divorced father has since remarried a black woman, and screenwriter Jenny Lumet is the product of an interracial marriage herself). Are these critics really unable to set aside their apparent discomfort with the idea unless an on-screen surrogate points out the obvious? What if Rachel's family were Latin (imagine Penelope Cruz donning Anne Hathaway's smudged eyeliner instead) — would their non-white, mixed marriage suddenly become less of an issue for these older, Caucasian film critics?

Guys, there's plenty of actual criticisms to be made about Rachel Getting Married (won't someone address the interminable sequence that is the dish-washing competition?). Why don't you stick to film critique and leave the awkward investigation of racial dynamics where it belongs — at a Sarah Palin rally?

WHAT'S NEW: This is the week we've been waiting for since May, when Disney ignored our urgent plea to immediately release Beverly Hills Chihuahua from its high-camp captivity. And now that it's here, we're kind of over it; blame it on last month's chihuahua-only sneak preview. Not like the sadists at Disney need us: BHC is this week's only new family release and will do business accordingly, setting up for around $32.3 million over the three-day. The Michael Cera/Kat Dennings effort Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist will ride teens and the date crowd to about $17 million, which still won't be enough to overtake Eagle Eye for second place. Nothing else will break $10 million; Greg Kinnear's windshield-wiper biopic (!) Flash of Genius is on too few screens, Julianne Moore's dodgy drama Blindness will fall victim to the angry blind lobby, and Ed Harris's expanding Western Appaloosa couldn't find traction when it was on 1,000 screens, let alone 2,000.

Most of the remaining release slate looks like a gang of orphans hassling tourists for change: Jia Zhangke's acclaimed Still Life; the timely, revealing political doc Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, Rutger Hauer's psychological love-triangle drama Mentor; Obscene, the story of Grove Press publisher Barney Rosset; the Muslim stand-up concert film Allah Made Me Funny, and the Iraq-vet basket case drama The Violent Kind.

THE BIG LOSER: MGM's hard-luck streak looks likely to continue with How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the adaptation of Toby Young's thinly-veiled bestseller about his misadventures in the Conde Nast empire. It won't fail for lack of trying — at least not with a cast including Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Megan Fox and Jeff Bridges rocking his best Graydon Carter impression — and a month ago, in less-congested times, this may have even had some multiplex leverage. But in this glut, with the reviews it's receiving and audience awareness less than half of what it needs to be, expect a $3 million opening and quick dispatch to DVD. Where, in fairness, the Fox connection will more than make up for it stillbirth at the box office.

THE UNDERDOG: Religulous is already exhibiting legs in New York, where it opened Wednesday to $13,000 on two screens. It'll bulk up it Oscar doc creds this weekend alongside Rachel Getting Married, a genuinely brilliant piece of ensemble filmmaking by Jonathan Demme and an awards-season lock for Anne Hathaway. But like last week's evangelically supported Fireproof, which "shocked" everyone but us with a $6.5 million opening, watch the conservative satire An American Carol explode in the red states. Vivendi pushed it aggressively before and after last night's debate, it's critic-proof (not that it was available for review) and will fare far better on 1,600 screens — like "$6.3 million" better — than anyone will give it credit for.

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD releases include Iron Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Julian Schnabel's rock doc Lou Reed's Berlin, the steroid expose Bigger, Faster, Stronger* and, because you (or somebody) asked for it, Can't Hardly Wait: The 10th Anniversary Edition.

So how do you plan to sort out the mess at the multiplex? Are there chihuahuas in your future? Can Kinnear's windshield wipers overcome? Can American Carol be the pandering sensation it aspires to? Call your shots, and aim carefully; there are too many innocent bystanders in the mix this week.

Our first instinct was to disbelieve the story; after all, virtually every profile we've ever read of Hathaway mentions how carefully and professionally she answers questions, concerned that her quotes will be taken out of context. Had Hathaway been emboldened after her split with boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, or was someone putting naughty words in her mouth?

Turns out, it's the latter. We contacted Esquire for comment, and spokesperson Rhett Usry was shocked by the rumor. "Absolutely not true," he told us. "There is no interview with Anne Hathaway at all in the upcoming issue of Esquire."

So where did the story originate? All signs point to this September 12 posting on Celeb.Dump, a photo-laden blog promising "Sexy Celebrity Pictures With Little To No Bullshit" (and headlines like "Stacy Keibler is so very hot" and "Jessica Simpson touching herself"). "Thanks to Miss M. from Esquire for letting me know" about the rumor, said the poster (who declined our repeated requests to comment on his tip).

As for how this obscure bit of gossip hit the big time, we're betting it's due to a potent mix of wishful thinking, Hathaway's Rachel Getting Married press tour, and lingering conflation of the actress with Brokeback Mountain. Either that, or Follieri's got an axe to grind. Memo to Celeb.Dump: if your "source" claims to be Esquire's liaison to the Vatican, it may be time to place some calls.

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Anne Hathaway Loves Anal Sex [Celeb.Dump]

"Right now I don’t have the wherewithal to be anything except professional. As soon as I found out about the arrest, I had to get on a plane to Mexico to do a press tour for Get Smart. And then I spent a week in shock at a friend’s house. And then I had to go back and do more press, and I haven’t stopped since. [...] Right now I have the distinct feeling that I’m two ages again, and the older part of me that I relied on many times in the past in difficult moments, that’s the part that got me here today. That’s the part that says, ‘You do your job, you keep your head up.’” ...

“One day on Rachel Getting Married, Jonathan [Demme, the director] altered something in the script, and I said, ‘Jonathan! Why did you change this?! It was better the other way and here’s A, B, C, D, E, F, G why!’ And he smiled at me and said, ‘Hey, Annie? Maybe instead of telling me why I’m wrong, you could ask me why I made the choice I made.’ I instantly felt so ashamed. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful to people, but that’s exactly what I had done for years.”

Awww! We feel so... proud, sort of. Next up: the book tour, if and/or when the FBI ever returns her notes.

• Queen Anne [W Magazine]

From the looks of the trailer, Demme and screenwriter Jenny Lumet have been watching and studying the oeuvre of Noah Baumbach a little too closely. From the intricately tangled relationship between sisters (see: Margot At The Wedding) to the interracial couple that serves as a foil for the film's screwed-up protagonist (see: Mr. Jealousy), this film's plot points feel like something we've all seen before. Then when Anne Hathaway — trying her first "dark" role on for size since her breakout role in The Devil Wears Prada — starts falling apart at the seams, her performance seems like nothing more than a rehashed version of what Sandra Bullock did in 28 Days. And what's even worse is the gall of all parties involved when they try to invoke the spirit of Tom Wilkinson's triumphant performance in Michael Clayton by having Hathaway introduce herself to the rest of the members of the wedding party as "Shiva, The Destroyer." Really? With the way Jonathan Demme's career has regressed over the last 15 odd years, we're pretty happy to see him headed back to the concert doc circuit for his next project.

• Rachel Getting Married [Sony Pictures Classics]