Latimes.com is reporting:

The first official 2009 Academy viewing screener was mailed Thursday to the nearly 6,000-person membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and should be in their hands this weekend. The film?

ANVIL! The Story Of Anvil.

That's right. The little, self-distributed underdog documentary, about a couple of underdog fiftysomething heavy-metal rockers forced to work at menial day jobs while never giving up on their longshot musical dreams, is now a (way) underdog contender for Oscars.

Being the first screener sent out is a nice distinction, and giving voters plenty of time to see it has resulted in good nomination luck for the likes of "Little Miss Sunshine," "Junebug" and last year's "Frozen River," among others.

But "Anvil"? When the film debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, they couldn't get arrested, so the filmmakers and the band initially released it themselves. Now look at them.

On Monday, Anvil was featured on ABC's Nightline. On Tuesday the official DVD of their movie was released and they made an appearance on The Tonight Show (below) where Conan O'Brien raved about the film. Wednesday they made their movie debut on the set of fan and director Michel Gondry's big-budget flick The Green Hornet, filming a cameo where they (literally) explode playing in a rock club. Thursday night they appear at a screening/Q&A; at the WGA Theatre in Beverly Hills moderated by Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian and 'hosted' by such academy members as Gondry, Tilda Swinton and Catherine Keener (who hosted a party for them as well earlier in the week). Now on Friday, their little-movie-that-could should be in most Academy voters' mailboxes.

Perhaps the drive to get the film out now to every Oscar voter is partially due to the film's overwhelming critical support. It currently stands at 98% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, easily of the highest ratings of the year.

VH1, which aired the film over the summer, paid for the manufacturing and shipping of the specially made screeners for the Academy and other key awards groups (the film was virtually self-distributed by the filmmakers themselves through their company Abramorama). The network could not send out the commercial DVD because Academy rules are very strict about packaging on screeners sent to their membership, and all contenders must produce special versions with no frills if they want to get them to the voters. The publicity firm 42West is working on the awards campaign, which is being shepherded in part by Cynthia Swartz, a veteran of the golden years at Oscar-savvy Miramax.

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