Surprised by the Oscars? Academy Awards highs and lows
Was it just me, or was anyone else that was surprised at the lack of statues taken away by Team Avatar. Avatar won only three Oscars: for visual effects (was there any doubt), and cinematography, as well as art direction. But somehow I expected more, and apparently, by all the buzz, so did a lot of other people.
Some speculated that the Academy wanted to “show” Cameron that his highest-grossing movie of all times can be taken down by the least-expensive movie to ever be nominated – wrong.
Some speculated that the Academy wanted to finally give the “Best Directing” award to a woman – please – do we have to play the gender card?
In my opinion, there are two strong reasons why Avatar didn’t win more awards: Animated characters and Sci-fi.
Avatar won Best Picture and Best Director from the Golden Globes, which is more of a popular vote than the Academy Awards. But the Academy does not vote on popularity.
The Academy Awards is mostly judged by actors, and perhaps they feel a bit nervous at animated figures taking their face time, after all, animation is big now, and many actors are acting in front of a green screen. But, how many of us have had to entertain while surrounded by nothing to react to except sick lime green? Acting is an art, and acting without a partner or visual aids is difficult. I saw some BTS (behind the scenes) footage of Zoe Sladana, playing Neytiri and she acted her butt off getting all the right action and reactions while strapped to a dozen cameras that recorded her every facial muscle. That’s a tough task to pull off.
The movie Up was also “up” for several awards and won for best original score, which was lovely and moving and memorable, but the rest of the movie, as charming as it was, was still a “cartoon” to many people. hum. So it sure wasn’t going to win, even though it had many nominations.
As for the movie genre: Sci-fi and Horror are the most popular genres that get the least respect next to “serious” movies. Heck, even comedies fail to win awards as often as dramas. Anyone know when the last time a Sci-fi or Horror film won Best Picture? Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King won in 2003 and although some might not call it Sci-fi, rather closer to Fantasy, there’s not been much closer since then. The Exorcist, (1973) was also nominated for a lot of awards and won for sound (duh!) and Best Writing Based on Another Medium, (what we call Best Adaptation now.)
The Oscars from the Academy Awards aren’t given out to movies that are popular, rather to movies that “move” the judges. The Hurt Locker was an incredibly moving movie, I’m told – it didn’t play in our small berg, The Hurt Locker was too small to come to our 1-theater town, (yes, you read that correct: 1 theater, 10 screens.) So, I have to rent it now, to assuage my curiosity.
I’ve been lucky to attend the Academy Awards 4 times in different capacities, and the one true constant is you can’t depend on anything. Two moments stuck out in my mind at this year’s show, and neither had anything to do with Big Names. Did anyone catch the moment when Roger Ross Williams, all excited and graciously accepting his award for Music by Prudence, the Documentary short, had the mic literally stolen from him by a woman in a purple dress? (Elinor Burkett?) Wow! What tension! I was embarrassed for both of them – this is live TV, folks!
The other moment I enjoyed was during Argentine director Juan José Campanella’s acceptance speech for Best Foreign Language Film for The Secret in Their Eyes. He joked that he wanted to thank the Academy for not considering Na’vi as a foreign language. No one laughed.. maybe they didn’t catch it, but this was the only laugh-out-loud moment in the show for me. But I was alone.
I can’t wait until next year…
March 17th, 2010 at 6:01 am
Ditto on having to rent “The Hurt Locker” to satisfy curiosity. To be honest, I’d heard little to nothing about it until the Oscars. But the clips they showed looked good. As a documentary filmmaker, I definitely want to check out this upstart.
March 17th, 2010 at 10:03 am
I was not surprised by Avatar’s lack of awards. Cameron is a true talent, but his main talent lies in the initial concept, enthusiam thoughout the project and stunning visual effects of the movie. As in the Abyss and even Titanic his storytelling starts off strong and then wains as the movie becomes more about the effects than the story and characters. Avatar’s story of reaping the indiginous tribes for corporate and personal greed (although a noble tale) has been done to excess in recent years. The screenplay was pretty weak. There was little character development. There was about 30 minutes of wonderful eye candy but I was shifting around in my seat waiting for the inevitable ending. No surprises. Here is a tale about people living harmoniously with nature culminating in a grand war. I liked the idea of all things being connected but was put off by the fact that instead of just having a mental connection of “oneness” the Navi had to plug into the neural network with their tails. I enjoyed the movie but I think if you are spending $300 million to make a movie you should hire the best screenwritters available and I don’t think Cameron is one of them. He is a great director and visual effects genius but his writting doesn’t grab me. That said I have enjoyed all of his movies and will look forward to the next but I understand why the artistic views of the academy may have been more influenced by a well written story with true character development.