Unobtainium

I'm Oscar!

I recently got invited to a Facebook group called "Avatar - The People's Choice for Best Picture" and this annoyed me.

Recently The Hurt Locker won an Academy Award for Best Picture over the expected win Avatar.

The reasoning behind this group's existance was that they felt that Avatar was "one of the best films ever made" and that the winning picture The Hurt Locker was chosen not by merit but by political leanings and underhanded friend boosting. (Based on the fact that The Hurt Locker is based in Iraq during the conflict and that its director Kathryn Bigelow is in face Avatar director James Cameron's ex wife... jeez.)

Obviously this person barely knows me. Hey look, I liked Avatar. Really, I enjoyed it despite its flaws. To be perfectly honest, I've never been a huge fan of James Cameron. His films never really hit the right note for me. I've always felt Aliens was the dumbing down of one of my favourite horror films and one of my favourite science fiction (separately!). Although in fairness I'm lately starting to see the merit of Terminator 2. But despite all that, I did like Avatar. And no, I haven't seen The Hurt Locker yet and I realise that this bit may not be fair considering I haven't seen the protagonist of the story. (See what I did there, I used film terms to make an analogy that doesn't make sense.)

I'm Hurt...

But let's take a look at this situation. The group's reasoning was that the Best Picture Oscar should be chosen based on the entertainment value of the feature and they felt that Avatar was clearly the better film in this regard.

Well firstly, bullshit. Best Picture has never been purely about entertainment and you know it. Best Picture holds a mixture of meanings including but not limited to, originality, skill, resonance and representation of the time it was released. Not only that but the Oscars have never ever been a sound science and I doubt one member of the Academy would disagree with me there. Not only that but I'm sure many of them would agree that they've made some flagrant mistakes in the past. So why get knotted up over Avatar of all things? I won't go on a rant pointing out various examples of this because there's a thousand internet lists about that and I'm not in that business baby. All I will say is Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture the same year Do the Right Thing wasn't nominated.

Your film was worse!

Now let's take a look at the other nominees:
The Blind Side
District 9 *
An Education
Inglourious Basterds *
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
A Serious Man *
Up *
Up in the Air

Full disclosure: I've only seen the films marked with a *. If you click said * it will take you to my review of the film. Ooh! That's clever eh?

Now, as you can see I've only seen half of the films that were nominated for Best Picture. In fairness, they doubled the nominations this year, so I'm on the level ok!

So, The Hurt Locker aside, Avatar would at least have to be better than these 8 other films yes? Ok, let's start from the top:

The Blind Side: Did not see it, as I said, but Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for it and her acceptance speech for her Worst Actress Razzie the night before makes her ok in my book. But that's not really a reason this should win Best Picture. So boo.

District 9: I loved this. Most criticism I've heard is focused on the lack of strength in the political aspect of the story. I never felt the film was about that. The apartheid backdrop was merely that, a backdrop. The film resonated for me due to the strong character emotions and the tension from scene to scene.

An Education: Didn't see it but Carey Mulligan was in it. So, if I was on the Oscar jury I'd give it all my votes in hopes that she looks at me. Nuff said.

Marry me!

Inglourious Basterds: Yeah, I mean. I really liked it but I can see where people's reservations come from. If arguments are made for people being 'due' Oscars it's hard to get past Tarantino's miss for Pulp Fiction but that's hardly a real reason. I still think it's amazing that a film with such a silly trash/cult based ending can make it to the nominations. But then we're getting worryingly close to my college thesis, so, moving on...

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire: Awkward title aside, from what I can tell this is serious business. Heavy dramas = Oscars yes.

A Serious Man: Like, a lot of people hated this. But a lot of people also watch X-Factor. So really that's nothing to go by. It was really good. Just... yeah. I loved it.

Up: Pixar know how to make films. This is what it comes down to. They are fucking good at this. It's not my favourite of theirs but it's rock solid and it makes sense that it won Best Animated Feature.

Up in the Air: Haven't seen it but George Clooney is a king and while I haven't been overjoyed by Jason Reitman's previous efforts I still feel he's got some good stuff in him.

Don't mention my dad

What it comes down to is this. Avatar was fine. It's visual effects were absolutely something else, mind blowing on a technical level. But it won Best Visual Effects, deservedly. Other than that though it had almost nothing going for it. The design wasn't particularly interesting. The story was fiercely unoriginal, the dialogue so hackneyed and cliché it was almost taking the piss. I would pick any one of the four other nominees I saw as a better film. You could argue that James Cameron needs another Oscar...

But that's dead in the water. More likely is that the Academy don't like giving him these things because of how he behaves when they do.

Dammit James!

Yeah, it does come down to opinion and everyone is entitled to their blah blah blah. But look, starting groups and bloating on about how your favourite should clearly have won over the real winner is the real opinion pushing. I'm just trying to set the record straight. You lost, move on.

Appendage:
I've since seen An Education and it was definitely better than Avatar too. The list grows!