Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of Best Picture is….**drum roll**…Ava….ummmm, I mean The Hurt Locker!
What in the blue blazes happened here boys and girls, Avatar was pipped to the post my a movie that is pretty much unknown except in the States? Now this is a rather bizarre Oscar story I must say.
I missed out on watching the Oscars this year, much to my displeasure, only finding out the shocking truth this morning. The question we have to be asking ourselves is: did The Hurt Locker deserve to win over Avatar?
The Hurt Locker vs Avatar. Ok, so there isn’t exactly a simple answer to this question….you have to then start comparing apples. One apple is blue and about the size of a sky scraper, the other small, small, slightly brown and tastes of sand…if you don’t know which apple is which, well perhaps you shouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place.
In the end our latter apple was the one lucky enough to walk away with Best Picture, amongst much scorn and flapping from the general public and blogging community.
So why are so many Avatar fans upset? Well basically the fans are asking the question, how can a small movie that made $12M beat out a visual masterpiece like Avatar that has already made $700M?
This is where the problem comes in though, while Avatar was a visual masterpiece, many have argued that is where its power stops. Fans of The Hurt Locker have said that Avatar has no real depth of story or real message and that the real world dramatic image that THL puts across is worth more! Of course that is another problem, what can we define as worth? Is something worthy purely because it is dramatic and speaks of real-world issues….or should a movie that has already been validated by society as a whole, on foot traffic alone, worth more?? It is already apparent that there is a problem when considering The Hurt Locker vs Avatar.
I knew there was going to be a problem at Oscar time as soon as I watched Avatar. It has so much going for it but it will fall into the “it’s only an animated fantasy movie” trap. There seems to be one heckova lot of politics involved in this decision. While yes Hurt Locker has an original story, while Avatar lends from other movies and books from the past, there is no denying the power of Avatar and how much it moved the audience. Even though Avatar is compared to a sci-fi Pocahontas, The Hurt Locker has had much less attention and acceptance through viewership to ever be able to topple Avatar.
Also the fact that they say Avatar has no message is preposterous. Avatar addresses not only social concepts like forced land removals and the ideas of the strong oppressing the weak, but it also speaks on a very ecologically aware level…sending out a message which I feel is extremely pertinent in our day and age. No message? Wake the hell up you twit bags! The answer of The Hurt Locker vs Avatar should be a pretty easy one to comprehend if you consider it carefully!
It’s a rather sticky question as I mentioned. Personally I feel as if Avatar was robbed….I haven’t seen The Hurt Locker and I don’t need to have seen it to know it was robbed. I feel sorry for all of the Avatar team and Cameron who really put all their effort into this production to make it work. Fantasy/sci-fi all most made it to the big time. When will people start to view fantasy as equal to all other genres? I’m beginning to think it won’t happen…especially after a defeat like this. I’m pretty sad about this one!
Will The Hurt Locker even make it to South African movie screens, has it come and gone without even making a ripple??
I am dying to have some opinions on this matter, do you think the choice of Best Picture is justified, or do you think that politics got involved and robbed the Avatar crew?
Oh, I thought I’d just a quick mention about Christoph Waltz, who won the Oscar for Best Actor in a supporting role, for his role in Inglourious Basterds. He is absolutely deserving of his role as a German SS officer…absolutely ruthless and a powerful performance. Congratulations Christoph!!!!
Duncs.
A high budget film with excellent graphics and a heavy handed, as well as one sided, message does not make a great film. However, it does make a great propaganda film. Also, you shouldn’t discount a movie you haven’t seen. It’s liking speaking on something as though you have first hand experience when all you know of it is what you read in a blog or see on the news.
Most certainly Mike, when I eventually do get a chance to watch THL I will give it a fair review and of course revise my opinion on this subject. However the more I dig on this subject the more I hear strange one sided votes coming from the actors, who I beleive have a huge role in the actual votes for the Oscars. Because of the whole “I dont wanna be replaced by a CG actor” scenario, the votes from the guild went for THL…I hope that this turns out to be false info.
Tell me why you consider the Avatar message “heavy handed”. There is much to be said about its intrinsic propagandist material. Avatar hits very close to home, espcially for countries like china…where in fact they only released the movie in 3D, making the accessibility limited for the general public…reason being because they (government)feared reprisals from their citizens over the forced land removal scene with the Navi. While Avatar isnt the best written movie, it has a very definte message.