Gotham Awards indie-r than thou

It's another good day for micro-mini-budgeted films about scrapping and clawing, grieving and navel gazing. That means "Frozen River," "Ballast" and "Synecdoche, New York" walked away with top trophies from the 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards.

"Frozen River's" star, Melissa Leo, was honored for her breakthrough performance, and the casts of Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" and Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" shared the award for best ensemble.

The awards were good to festival favorites -- the Hurricane Katrina documentary "Trouble the Water" -- and self-distributed flicks -- the deep South-set "Ballast." And Sony Pictures Classic cleaned up.

Career tributes went to Penelope Cruz, Gus Van Sant and Melvin Van Peebles, the blaxploitation king who said he's still scrounging for money for his indie flicks after all these years. And pay cable reality hero, HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins (pictured), gave a shout-out not to Mom and Dad but to the most important people -- the subjects of her channel's revealing projects.

Also notable from the New York ceremony last night: Appears that host and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" veteran Aasif Mandvi should keep his day job.

The Gotham Awards bookended a day that started with the Spirit Award nominations in Los Angeles that, coincidentally, picked a number of the same art house films as nominees.

The Spirits, though, a usually confounding collection of "Juno"-esque boxoffice winners and little seen "Paranoid Park"-style auteur projects, likely will have some crossover with the Oscars this season, namely Sean Penn, Anne Hathaway, Mickey Rourke, Penelope Cruz and Dustin Lance Black ("Milk" screenwriter).

The Gothams, not so much.