I have been fortunate to have the time to catch up with the both of the hot favourites for the Oscar Best Picture award, Avatar and Hurt Locker.

As we know Hurt Locker took home the prize this year but in my view the wrong film won.

I think both were very good films, not great but certainly up there. Both had some continuity problems and neither successfully avoided including some quite clichéd characters.

Visually there was much to commend them both, but for me the stand-out was Avatar which soared with some glorious moments and some very original cinematic art.

Acknowledging the subjective nature of my appraisal I did wonder why a film, which in my opinion was noticeably more deserving of the gong, missed out.

I thought about the controversy Avatar generated. To many right wing commentators in America and here in Australia it was anti-US and anti-human. China also stripped it from many cinemas because of its message of struggle against progress and government.

The Hurt Locker on the other hand had a very different message. It did not touch on anything controversial but instead showed the American soldiers engaged in heroic struggle against an almost universally suspect population and a viscous, cold-blooded enemy.

To run the line that the least uncomfortable film for the Academy voters won instead of the more deserving I would have to show that a non-American audience, might have voted differently.

In other words does one's political persuasion or one's nationalism dictate how one might view the quality or lack thereof of a particular film and did it have an impact this time?

So I was wondering if anyone who has seen both movies might like to offer up their preference and, if so inclined, their political leaning.

Happy to go first: Avatar, slightly left.

Even if a vote is not in the offing then any discussion of the merits of either would be of interest.

While I haven't seen Hurt Locker yet I found Avatar to be a hell of a visual ride, but not much more.

I thought the plot "message" was pretty obvious but not likely to change anybody's opinion either way. It's no more critical than many other contemporary films - this one just had lots more publicity.

While the cinematography had some breathtaking moments I felt like I was inside some sort of computer game. Not much in the way of acting performances or even character development.

To be fair, maybe Gone with the Wind was probably much the same.

I also found the 3D a bit distracting, particularly for objects out of focus in the foreground.

Still it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Ditto on wobbles.

Haven't seen Hurt Locker yet coz it's only showing in select theatres which all are miles from me.

I really think people saw WAY too much into Avatar. It was entertaining. About sums it up for me. Really tho, the locals shoulda killed every human and buried them in a large hole with all their gear. They'll be back, and carpet bombing from space.

Thanks for the responses.

I may have to bow to my fondness for science fiction when I say I found Avatar a superior film. It certainly didn't have the weight of a Blade Runner nor the grit of District 8 but for me the immersion factor was a big plus. I was completely captured and when a film does that to me at my age then I have to give it credit.

I can see what you mean by feeling you were in a game wobbles however it is widely acknowledged that Blade Runner had a huge influence on computer games and the genres are closely linked.

What I tend to find irritating are those 'game moments' that appear in films, those where the director has a very obvious eye on the how Play Station might extend the profits of the film. A prime example would be the rocket 'pod' race in the Phantom Menace along with the unfortunate inclusion of Jar Jar Binks, roundly condemned for its obvious clutch for the merchandising market
Although there were glimpses of this in Avatar they didn't stand out.

So how to judge the strength of a movie? Ultimately some weight has to be given to box office takings because even with the best marketing in the world a dud is still a dud. To gain the kind of numbers Avatar has managed must mean a lot of people have had their buttons pushed and are recommending the film to others as a must see. Bums on seats have produced box office takings of over $2 billion compared to $20 million.

Ultimately these awards are American and I suppose they should be allowed to vote however they please especially when they have citizens dying in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Added to that Hurt Locker also won at the BAFTAs.

I have found this little teaser from Peter Martin;

Did Australia's voting system cost Avatar the gong for Best Picture?

Probably.

Oscar voting used to be first-past-the-post.

This year for the first time since 1943 they decided to use Australia's preferential voting system.

“Voters will rank order the ten nominated films. If any film has a majority of voters picking it as top choice, it's elected. If not, the film with the fewest first place votes is eliminated and that film's supporters are counted as voting for their second choice. Repeat until some film has majority support.”

It made the US-based Australian economist Justin Wolfers proud.

And it would have cost Avatar the Oscar if, as is likely, it

(a) received more first-preference votes than any other film; but

(b) when it came down to the wire most voters didn't want a high-tech sci-fi film to win.

Do you think?
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2010/03/did-australias-voting-system-cost.html

WTF?

Avatar is a bad-cowboys-v-good-indians movie set to a 1970s YES album cover backdrop

Dear WTF?,

You are right about the Yes art. I had a couple of Roger Dean's posters on my walls as a teenager often wishing I could escape into them. Probably another reason Avatar put me in a headlock.

Imagine a substance trip with Avatar instead of swirling fluro paisley patterns.

Have you caught Hurt Locker yet?

My score card looked like this:

Hurt locker: No much of a plot, more a "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" style thing. But the plot was just a framework for exploring the characters and situation, so perhaps fair enough. The situation being explored was war. There have been a number of memorable war movies exploring different aspects - documovies like Black Hawk Down, Behind Enemy Lines, Saving Private Ryan. Hurt Locker wasn't a scratch on any of them. Then there war movies exploring morality and ethics, like The Thin Red Line and Apocalypse Now. If Hurt Locker was an attempt at exploring ethics, it was pathetic. The cinematography serviceable. No stand out scenes like say the shopping bag scene in American Beauty, but it did the job. So now we move onto the heart of Hurt Locker. It was a character study, and yes it was very good. But not outstanding, I've seen better, Schindler's List being one example.

For the most part the same comments apply to Avatar. The plot was just a framework some something else. At least it was honest about it - a movie about obtaining unobtainium is not making a statement with its plot. Avatar wasn't intent on exploring ethics or morals, as the situation was painted in a fairly tale like manner, with everything in black and white. Unlike Hurt Locker there were no interesting character studies, no one struggling with a unique outlook on life, no one called upon to take some momentous personal decision. But then that wasn't the point of Avatar either. Cinematography is what Avatar was about. All the other things were just support for what was in essence a 3 hour visual feast. So was it a visual feast, of the likes no one on the planet had seen before? I thought so.

So neither movie had major Oscar killing flaws. But only Avatar did something extraordinaryly well. And that is why it should have won.

@wobbles: I also found the 3D a bit distracting, particularly for objects out of focus in the foreground.

Interestingly wobbles, for most of the movie that wasn't a problem. The beauty of CGI is everything is in focus, all the time. So while it is true the conventional scenes were out of focus and I like you found it distracting, that was only for what, 1/2 an hour of a 3 hour film.

As for why it didn't win, I suspect it was more of a case of the dinosaurs voting against the tide. For the same reason, I suspect the first talkies would have had a hard time taking home an Oscar, as would the first movies shot in colour. Avatar is a bigger change than those two. Many of the usual artists found in movie making are no longer needed - lighting, sets, makeup, costumes. All replaced by computers, programmers and "photoshop experts". How could a dinasour bring itself to vote for _that_. I bet they found it hard to even call it a movie.

rstuart,
To be specific, the distracting parts where when there was something close to the camera in the foreground that was out of focus - not a problem in 2D but in 3D these became indistinct weird flat solid objects.

It wasn't a criticism of the film, just the technology - which is admittedly still in its infancy.

Dear wobbles,

Give me Avatar's 3D any day over Hurt Locker's 'Unsteady Cam'. There was no way my wife would have made it past the first 30 minutes.

Dear rstuart,

Pretty damn spot on critiques I would say and I think your score card pretty well matches mine.

I would probably rate Hurt Locker's cinematography a little high than you did though. The blast scenes were among the best I have seen plus that very memorable moment where Renner's character Sergeant First Class William James pulls up the wires leading to unexploded bombs all pointing at him. The overhead shot was to me very effective. Talk about a fly caught in a web. Top shot in my opinion.

Regarding war movies, for me Apocalypse Now was the ultimate especially the director's cut. I was a youngster living in Mindanao when the film was shot. The helicopters were Philippine military operated and kept being called away from the set for use in combating Muslim rebels operating not far from us. Now that was a film.

I have just finished reading 'Novel without a name' by Duong Thu Huong. First published in 1995 it is the story about Quan, a North Vietnamese soldier who spent ten years at war. What is so striking about the book is the total lack of emphasis on battles which are only mentioned as an aside. Quan ends up being one of only 19 survivors on the 100 plus in his company. The focus instead is on the characters away from the fighting.

Realising the author was female I had assumed the reason for this was that she didn't have the experiences to draw on to accurately depict these scenes. Researching her I found this was not the case.

From Wikipedia

Duong Thu Huong volunteered to serve in a women’s youth brigade on the front lines of “The War Against the Americans". Duong spent the next seven years of the war in the jungles and tunnels of Binh Tri Thien, the most heavily bombarded region of the war.”

“She was one of three survivors out of the forty volunteers in that group. She was also at the front during China’s attacks on Vietnam in 1979 during the short-lived Sino-Vietnamese War.”

The lady also spent 7 months in prison for writing the book.

I would put the proposition that we Westerners are far more likely to focus on the battle minutia while this very Eastern sensibility saw character depiction as far more important and the actual fighting as somehow almost irrelevant. Or perhaps it is just a woman's perspective.

Dear csteele,

I loved Avatar - purely for the visuals.
The 3-D effect wasn't perfect - a bit
blurry at times - however - the colour
was fantastic. The story line had quite
a few inconsistencies - but as I said -
it was the visuals that made up for it.
I found it thoroughly entertaining.

I haven't seen Hurt Locker yet so I can't
judge. However, my vote would still go to
Avatar - purely for the innovation.

One question with the Oscars - perhaps
a film that strikes a cord with the voters,
and has the capacity to move them - will gather
more votes than a film that has brilliant
innovative techniques - but is a bit thin on
the story line. Look at "Precious," and
"Crazy Heart," and "The Blind Side," all highly
emotive films - and I imagine "Hurt Locker" is
along the same lines although as I said I haven't
seen it yet... but I do think that the topic
would definitely strike a cord with many voters
as it deals with - soldiers, Iraq, and the addictive
nature of war.

Dear Foxy,

I'm sure you are right and I think it is going to be fascinating to see how the Iraqi conflict is dealt with by future film makers. Will America be able to examine how this war has defined it in ways that on reflection they could well be quite uncomfortable with?

The message given in Avatar about the wielding of destruction in pursuit of scarce resources surely could not have been missed by the bulk of those who saw it, but they were still more than happy recommend it to their friends.

Apocalypse Now spoke to the insanity of the Vietnam war (I read that James Cameron drew on its helicopter scene for Avatar) and we saw glimpses of it in Hurt Locker. However the conversation on Iraq by those that matter i.e. the veterans, is yet to really happen. I wonder who will be the 'Y' generation's version of a wheel chair bound Tom Cruise? And will its version of Fourth of July miss out on a Academy Award to a feel good movie like Driving Miss Daisy?

It is not hard for me to view America as a teenager, even compared to Australia. It is like the hormones are still buzzing in full flight and some of its actions can leave the rest of us reeling, but boring it ain't!