The 24th Annual Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced and include the usual Hollywood indie suspects, Variety reports.

Jonathan Demme's stellar indie film "Rachel Getting Married," Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and Gus Van Sant's "Milk" and most of their stars dominated the noms.

Spirit Awards are set for Feb. 21, 2009, the day before the Oscars are handed out.

What has the world come to when the only awards news around in Hollywood is the Screen Actors Guild announcing its date for nominations, of all things, for its annual awards?

The date for these SAG Awards nominations,last checked, should still be Dec. 18 at the Pacific Design Center.

Angela Bassett and Eric McCormack will make the announcements.

The awards will be given out to all the hungry actors at the Shrine Auditorium on Jan. 25, 2009.

Oscar buzz is ripe with seven top Oscar seers presenting updated Oscars predix:

Pete Hammond (Notes on a Season, The Envelope), Peter Howell (Toronto Star), Dave Karger (Entertainment Weekly), Lou Lumenick (New York Post), Tom O'Neil (Gold Derby, TheEnvelope.com), Sasha Stone (AwardsDaily.com), Jeff Wells (Hollywood-Elsewhere.com).

Four pundits put "Benjamin Button" out front for best picture (Hammond, Howell, Karger, Stone), two say "Slumdog" (O'Neil, Wells), one bets on "Milk" (Lumenick).

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Maybe it's the Jack Black influence.

DreamWorks "Kung Fu Panda" dominated the nominations for the 36th Annual Annie Awards with 17 nods for best animated feature, character animation, character design, directing, music, production design, storyboarding, voice work and writing, Variety reported.

Pixar's "Wall.E," Disney's "Bolt," Sony Pictures Classic/Bridgit Folman's "Waltz With Bashir" and Sherman Pictures/Lama Films' "$9.99" round out the field for best feature.

Other nominations are below:

The Annies will be given out Jan. 20 at UCLA's Royce Hall.

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The Artios Awards are given out each year by the Casting Society of America to what else, casting directors in America. The erudite casting directors chose the name because, according to CSA President Pam Dixon, it comes from Ancient Greek word meaning "perfectly fitted," the CSA program revealed.

A small smattering of celebs showed up at the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel (where Barack was coronated in abstentia a week earlier), including Jimmy Smits, Sean Hayes, Curtis Hanson and producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, as well as host Neil Patick Harris (remember "Doogie Howser"?).

That said, the awards went to the regular nominees. What better for an award than choosing the films that have already won the big awards, whether Oscars or Golden Globes or whatever,Hollywood Reporter reported.

"No Country for Old Men" and "Juno," two of the most honored films of 2007, made one more appearance on the awards circuit Monday night as they took home top Artios prizes.

Ellen Chenoweth and Jo Edna Boldin were honored for "No Country" (location casting). In the studio feature-comedy category, the winners were Mindy Marin, Coreen Mayres (location) and Heike Brandstatter (location) for "Juno."

The winning TV drama series was FX's "Damages," with the prize going to Julie Tucker. ABC's "Pushing Daisies" earned the honors in the TV comedy series category for Meg Liberman, Cami Patton and Jennifer Lare.

Other winners:

TV pilot, drama: Beth Bowling, Kim Miscia, "Mad Men"; TV pilot, comedy, Liberman, Patton, "Pushing Daisies"; TV movie: David Rubin, Richard Hicks and Lori S. Wyman (location), Kathleen Chopin (location), "Recount"; and miniseries, Chopin, "John Adams."

Children's series: Carol Goldwasser, Howard Meltzer, "Hannah Montana"; TV animation: Gillian O'Neill, "Rick & Steve, The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World"; and daytime: Judy Blye Wilson, "All My Children."

The CSA gave a few awards to Broadway and Off-Broadway casting, but since we're in L.A. the Hollywood-centric audience didn't really care.

But we'll put them in anyway.

Broadway drama: Bernard Telsey, Will Cantler, "The Homecoming"; Broadway comedy: Jim Carnahan, "Boeing-Boeing"; Broadway musical: Telsey, Bethany Knox, "In the Heights"; off-Broadway: James Calleri, "The Seagull"; L.A. theater: Erika Sellin, "The History Boys"; and regional theater: Cantler, Telsey, "33 Variations."

It's already that time of year, time to cover your ears and head for the hills -- awards time is starting.

Already, respectable outlets like MSNBC are publishing stories about how "Iron Man," "The Dark Knight" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" will battle it out for favorite movie at the 35th Annual People's Choice Awards.

A passel of other actors, films, TV shows and directors are in line to be voted on by viewers. Who knows how may lives will be risked? Who knows how many careers will be ruined? Oh, the humanity.

Queen Latifah is set to host the show, which will air on Jan. 7, 2009.

Entertainment Weekly, that paragon of journalistic integrity that was originally conceived as the fast food of showbiz journalism, has taken it upon itself to rethink past Oscarswith a bootleg survey of Oscar voters and their particular likes.

The magazine is actually asking Oscar voters to re-vote and -- sometimes several decades later -- see if they still give Oscars to such films as "Shakespeare in Love," "Terms of Endearment" or "Life is Beautiful."

It will focus on five different years: 2003, 1998, 1993, 1988 and 1983. Results are expected to be published in January, 2009.

Not sure if this is a good idea or could prove catostrophic. It's tough enough to get an Oscar in the first place -- even if you don't deserve it. But either way, it certainly shouldn't be taken away by a dippy magazine poll.

We'll see what happens.

As if awards season were ever over, the 12th Annual Hollywood Film Festival announced a new flock of winners with Ben Stiller for its Best Comedy of the Year award, Oscar-winning actress Marisa Tomei for the Best Supporting Actress of the Year award, Robert Pattison for its New Hollywood Award and the cast of "The Secret Life of Bees" for its Best Ensemble of the Year Award.

All three (and then some) winners should be showing up at the gala ceremony on Oct. 27 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

The Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards are co-chaired by Paul Haggis, who with his Oscar in tow, is no stranger to awards in Hollywood.

The announcement was made today by Carlos de Abreu, Founder and Executive Director of the Hollywood Film Festival.

Said De Abreu: "It is an honor to recognize the great work and talent of Ben Stiller, Marisa Tomei, the principal cast of 'The Secret Life of Bees' and Robert Pattinson at this year's festival."

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