Flight of the (500) Days of Precious Anvil & Order

Yesterday afternoon, Cate invited me to be her +1 at the Independent Spirit Awards. Hell, why not? This year, the location was moved from a tent on the beach in Santa Monica to a tent on the parking lot for L.A. Live. Not long after getting our wristbands, we started seeing some of the evening's "real" guests, including Lips from Anvil. If The Cove wasn't nominated and Food, Inc. didn't win Best Documentary, I'm glad Anvil did because the metal band from Canada is as much of an underdog as dolphins or cows. (They also provided two musical performances, which was cool.)


It turns out Cate knew (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb. Super nice guy. His movie won Best Screenplay and was nominated for Best Feature. It's lame that comedies, even smart ones, don't have a chance to win Oscars. Even a small, rad movie like Precious will get overshadowed on at the Academy Awards on Sunday, so it was cool that practically all of the Precious crew was there to collect the Best Feature, Best Director, Best Female Lead, and Best Supporting Female awards. Their excitement was genuine and well earned.


There was an ocean of tables inside, but somehow we tracked down another one of Cate's friends, Mother director Bong Soo-Han, who was nominated for Best Foreign Film. He didn't win, but, again, at least his movie was nominated. He said he appreciated the free drinks, too.


When we finally settled down, it turned out we were next to S. Epatha Merkerson of Law & Order and Pee-Wee's Playhouse fame. What was she doing way back there with us scrubs? Super nice. When Cate and I awkwardly approached and complemented her, she said, "I see you holding that camera" and made it really easy for us.


You can tell how far back we were from this shot of Dave Grohl introducing Anvil. (The real Dave--and not one onscreen--is onstage on the right in the fake bar area.) His short spiel was really nice, saying how he was in the right place, right time to make it in music and that he was in the right place, right time again to get to introduce the subjects of the excellent documentary. Jeff Bridges also played alongside T-Bone Burnett, and won an award, too! Kind of cool that those particular award winners also performed. No lame music allowed and plenty of gratuitous cussing (mostly by host Eddie Izzard and sometimes even funny), not to mention bona fide porn stars during Ben Stiller's intro to Best Feature (yes, they were "indie" porn stars).


After about 2 hours and 15 minutes of nonstop award action, everyone spilled out. We ran into yet another one of Cate's friends, director Mora Stephens, who had won the ISA's Cassavetes Award for Conventioneers in 2006, and Joshua Leonard, one of the principal actors in Humpday, which won the award last night.


On the way to the parking lot, we saw Jemaine Clement from Flight of The Conchords. He was probably the most easygoing guy there, but it was the most awkward approach for us because we were such big fans. Totally blew our confidence to ask for more pics when making smalltalk with Best Supporting Actor winner Woody Harrelson ("Wasn't this a cool night?") and walking right by Adam Yaugh on the way to back to my car.