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rapher Sean Bobbitt. In a more laid-back, beachside ceremony in Santa Monica, just west of Los Angeles, "12 Years a Slave" was applauded as the clear favorite of the indie circuit.
• The Spirit Awards could end up being -- more than ever before -- a dress rehearsal to Sunday's Academy Awards. "12 Years a Slave" is considered, albeit extremely narrowly, the favorite for best picture over the space spectacle "Gravity" and the 1970s con-artist "American Hustle." (Neither film was eligible at the Spirits, which honor films made for $20 million or less.)
• The acting winners, too, may line up. All of the Oscar favorites won Saturday at the Spirits, including best actor for Matthew McConaughey in "Dallas Buyers Club" and Cate Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine." McConaughey's co-star, Jared Leto, won best male supporting performance.
• Leto gave what might be the acceptance speech to end all acceptance speeches, rattling off an absurd list of thank yous to not just those with "Dallas Buyers Club," but Hermann Hesse, Wayne Gretzky, home-made burritos, "the seven billion people on the planet" and many more. The actor-rocker added, with emphasis, "all the women I've been with and all the women who think they've been with me."
• ___
Iditarod mushers prepare for start of nearly 1,000-mile sled dog race across Alaska
• WILLOW, Alaska (AP) -- A New Zealand man will be the first musher en route to the town of Nome when the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race begins Sunday.
• Curt Perano and 68 other mushers will begin the world's most famous sled dog race by crossing frozen Willow Lake about 50 miles north of Anchorage.
• It's a staggered start, meaning one musher leaves every two minutes. The order was drawn at a musher's banquet Thursday night in Anchorage, and Perano got the leading spot.
• The finish line is on Front Street in Nome, which runs parallel to the Bering Sea coast. Standing between the mushers and the finish line are about 1,000 miles of unforgiving Alaska terrain, including two mountain ranges, untamed wilderness, the mighty Yukon River and the wind-whipped Bering Sea coast.
• Among those in the field are Mitch Seavey, last year's champion, and his son, Dallas Seavey, the 2012 winner.
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