Honours season: And they're off

The Weinsteins' quiet pic 'The Artist' won best feature within the NY Film Experts Circle additionally to acquired five Spirit nods on Tuesday.Kaira Pitt needed home NYFCC's Best Actor award for his perfs in 'The Tree of Life' and 'Moneyball.'With 88 days to go to just before the 84th Academy awards, the kudos season's first responders unleashed a flurry of small experience Tuesday morning but no major surprises or clearness in the race with no apparent leader plus an enigmatic new Oscar voting system. Yes, a basic, black-and-white-colored film starring French stars is actually a contender this year. Absolutely, Kaira Pitt's portrayal of Concord A's gm Billy Beane in "Moneyball" needs to be taken heed of. And three photos -- "Take Shelter," "Beginners" and "Martha Marcy May Marlene" -- put themselves in the spotlight at the begining of goings.In La, Film Independent introduced its Spirit Award nominations, with "The Artist" and "Take Shelter" leading at five each. Back East, the NY Film Experts Circle was busy crowning "The Artist" best feature and picking Pitt and Meryl Streep ("The Iron Lady") for acting honors.The bicoastal barrage introduced a good start to Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" (Spirit noms for feature and supporting actress Shailene Woodley, though George Clooney was excluded) and Sean Durkin's "Martha Marcy May Marlene," which acquired first feature, director and lead actress Spirit noms, along with the NYFCC's first-feature recognition. Focus Features' "Beginners" also managed to move on getting a Spirit nom put in the Gotham Award it won late Monday.Fox Searchlight's "The Tree of Existence," Terrence Malick's divisive film that shared the Gotham Award with "Beginners," exceeded the Spirit Awards' $20 million being qualified limit but was honored with the Gotham experts for cinematography (and shared a little of acting citations for Pitt and Jessica Chastain).But nothing developed a more effective statement than "The Artist," the quiet film that's acquired $204,878 since its release in four theaters Friday. Its pack-leading five Spirit noms and greatest feature recognition within the NYFCC -- in addition to director honors in the two caser for Michel Hazanavicius plus an actor nomination for Jean Dujardin -Place the film squarely inside the search. Org's top pick went onto obtain a best picture Oscar nomination 13 occasions in the last 2 decades.InchThe Artist" was purchased at the start from the Cannes Film Festival with the Weinstein Co., that's mounting among its trademark campaigns. The other day within an Academy screening, Harvey Weinstein introduced along Charlie Chaplin's granddaughters inside an ode to Hollywood's quiet-film era. Oscar glory for "The Artist" is a crowning achievement for old Harvey themselves: The ultimate time a basic film was nominated for top picture was 1929 ("The Patriot") -- which is been nearly 2 decades since a black-and-white-colored film remains nommed ("Schindler's List"). Omissions among the day's honorees include Paramount's "Constantly,Inch a largely improvised film from Drake Doremus which were receiving specific buzz but emerged empty Oscilloscope's "We must Discuss Kevin," that's obtaining a significant honours push for Tilda Swinton and Woodsy Allen's "Evening amount of time in Paris," which acquired basically a Spirit nom for supporting actor Corey Stoll and zilch within the NYFCC.Our prime-profile films that went empty-handed on Tuesday incorporated "The Woman While Using Dragon Tattoo," even though The brand new the new sony had arranged a distinctive, first-look screening for your NYFCC. However, these honours overlap with early election primaries. You will discover still much more honours votes later on -- the country's Board of Review will weigh in Thursday -- which honours aren't exactly guaranteed bellwethers. A year ago, "Black Swan" won the Spirit and "The Social MediaInch needed the NY crix jerk, while "The King's Speech" showed up inside the Oscar winner's circle.(Stuart Oldham, Dork McNary and Gordon Cox brought with this story.) Contact Variety Staff at news@variety.com