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"The Artist and Take Shelter lead the list of nominations for the 27th Spirit Awards, celebrating independent and low-budget films released in 2011. Michel Hazanavicius&amp;#039;s black-and-white silent romance film and the Jeff Nichols drama both received five nominations. Both films are also nominated in the &amp;#039;Best Picture&amp;#039; category, where they will face Seth Rogen comedy-drama 50/50, Beginners and Drive, starring Ryan Gosling.  Gosling is nominated in the &amp;#039;Best Male Lead&amp;#039; category for his performance in the film, facing Demian Bichir (A Better Life), The Artist&amp;#039;s Jean Dujardin, Take Shelter&amp;#039;s Michael Shannon and Woody Harrelson for his performance in Rampart. Michelle Williams is also nominated as &amp;#039;Best Female Lead&amp;#039; for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, with Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene), Lauren Ambrose (Think of Me), Adepero Oduye (Pariah) and Rachael Harris (Natural Selection) completing the list. Drive and The Descendants secure four nominations, with three for 50/50.  Midnight in Paris has two nominations, but Woody Allen is overlooked in the &amp;#039;Best Director&amp;#039; category, which includes Hazanavicius for The Artist and Nichols for Take Shelter alongside Mike Mills (Beginners), Alexander Payne (The Descendants) and Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive). British movies Tyrannosaur and Shame join a field which includes Lars von Trier&amp;#039;s Melancholia in the &amp;#039;Best International Film&amp;#039; category. The 27th Spirit Awards winners will be announced on February 25, 2012. Last year&amp;#039;s winners included Black Swan, Winter&amp;#039;s Bone and The King&amp;#039;s Speech. &amp;gt; 27th Spirit Awards: Nominations in full Watch Michael Shannon discuss Take Shelter with Digital Spy below:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a353602/the-artist-take-shelter-drive-lead-spirit-awards-2012-nominees/>