The Setting & Ambiance
The Oscars: An enormous auditorium at the Hollywood & Highland Center (previously called the Kodak Theatre and now called... uh, TBD) with a grand staircase, plush seats and an enormous stage that can accommodate awards speeches and performances by avant-garde Canadian acrobats. It's a new-fashioned setting for old-fashioned Hollywood spectacle.
The Indie Spirits: A big tent that's been put up in a parking lot next to the Santa Monica beach. Finally, someone has figured out to combine the class of a movie awards ceremony with the down-home feel of a tailgate party and/or wedding reception!

The Host
The Oscars: The over-the-hill Billy Crystal, who returned for his ninth stint as host and seemed out of his element the whole night. His jokes were stale, his comic bits fell flat and he came across as alternately desperate and petulant throughout. When your biggest laugh-line involves the Oscar buffet, you know you've botched your emcee gig.
The Indie Spirits: The overexposed Seth Rogen, hosting his very first awards show ever. He got off to a far more confrontational start than Crystal, telling the crowd "I have no fucking clue why we're in a tent right now" before going on to add, "You know you're at a really wonderful awards show when you have to use a Port a Potty." (Wow, so much for indie spirit, huh?) Unlike Crystal though, Rogen recovered and won the crowd over to his side without totally abandoning his caustic tone. An extended riff about Brett Ratner's bigoted comments seemed to go over particularly well.
The Same or Different? Different, for sure. The Oscars don't like it when the hosts try to puncture the night's supposed grandeur -- look at what happened to Chris Rock the sole time he hosted. Rogen, on the other hand, was following in the tradition of past Indie Spirits emcees like Rainn Wilson and Sarah Silverman, who also endlessly mocked the ceremony they were hosting. While Rogen's self-aware monologue at times made him seem like he was working overtime to be too-cool-for-school, it was nice to see someone take the air out of the awards balloon instead of inflating it.

The Acceptance Speeches
The Oscars: Oscar speeches generally fall into three categories: 1) Breathless and emotional; 2) Over-rehearsed and boring; 3) Sweet, simple and direct. We were pleased to see that most of this year's speeches fell into the third category, perhaps because the producers were being extra harsh about enforcing the time limit (Best Supporting Actress victor Octavia Spencer was played off, while the winners of the Best Documentary category actually had their mics cut onstage), which forced the winners to get to the point faster. Christopher Plummer, Jean Dujardin and Meryl Streep probably delivered the night's most memorable addresses, but the speeches were strong across the board.
The Indie Spirits: With no time limits, Indie Spirit winners are allowed to ramble for as long as they want. None of the winners really took advantage of that, though, keeping their speeches on point, on message and generally within the 2-3 minute range (at least in the taped, edited version that aired on IFC).
The Same or Different? Let's face it: there are only so many ways to accept an award. So even though some of the Oscar speeches were a bit more memorable than the ones at the Indie Spirits, they vast majority wind up sounding more or less the same.

The Winners
The Oscars: The Artist and Hugo were the night's biggest winners, with 5 statues apiece. Otherwise, it was a grab-bag of movies, with The Iron Lady, Beginners, The Help, The Descendants and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo all picking up one award.
The Indie Spirits: The Artist led with four victories while The Descendants and Margin Call got the second-most wins with 2 apiece. Otherwise it was one-off victories for films like 50/50, Beginners, Pariah and My Week With Marilyn.
The Same or Different? Pretty much the same, at least in terms of the night's dominant movie. The single-winner titles changed a bit, but in both ceremonies, The Artist reigned supreme.

The Prestige
The Oscars: While those little golden men have been tarnished a bit by lackluster telecasts and controversial winners/nominees, the Oscar remains the statue that everyone in Hollywood covets... unless your name happens to be Terrence Malick or Woody Allen.
The Indie Spirits: As Rogen himself said (we think) jokingly, "[The Indie Spirit Awards] have the distinction of being the only awards show that is completely inconsequential. Nothing will come from this if you win. Literally. Absolutely nothing." And while that's slightly inaccurate (it has led to more work for struggling indie filmmakers) and kinda mean, it's not altogether wrong.
The Same or Different? Sorry Indie Spirits, but taking home one of your statues is definitely not the same as taking home an Oscar.

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