So, this is a very strange break from the usual film of the day. Since it is awards season, the time where all of the best films of the previous year juggle awards around ending in the only award people care about. Yes, that is right the Academy Awards (Who would have guessed?) and their little golden man (you can take that any way you want.)
After finishing The Hurt Locker, the last of the serious candidates for the best picture, I thought I would give you a little run down of the best picture hopefuls and give you my two cents (based on absolutely no prior knowledge of the issue.)
So, lets run down the list of the big four:
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Up in the Air
These are the serious contenders, films like Precious and An Education are just a step below these four in the race. that and I have not seen them, so I cannot make a full judgement on them.
Now, each of these films has a list of pros and cons, some that most Academy followers could hone in at a second. But since I am not one of these types I am going to just aim in the dark, one at a time.
Avatar:
Oh man, Avatar. This movie is as terrible as it is spectacular. This movie is the Jurassic Park for a new generation. The paper thin story is stretched tight over a hundreds of millions of dollars budget and shiny new effects.
Avatar does so many things wrong, the Dances with Wolves ripoff the most apparent, but in the end Cameron made a fun thoughtless film.
Pros: Advances Tech another step, made HUGE amounts of money, and has a loyal fan base that are only seconded by the Twilight crazies.
Cons: The story sucked, the message is about as old as any other now a days in film, Cameron is an ass, and it really needed to only be two hours (Go go editors)
The Hurt Locker:
This film is a very relevant film for this time. Unlike the other Iraq films bubbling up from the conflict it nails the war perfectly. It humanizes both sides and offers no answers only questions. It is a daring work and should be respected.
Pros: Topical, above anything else yet released about Iraq, spectacular critical success
Cons: Bigelow is female, people do not like talking about the war, marginal box office success
Inglorious Basterds:
Quentin Tarantino has been honing his craft for the last fifteen years and Inglorious Basterds is possibly his best work. It takes the traditional war movie and laughs at it. It is fun stacked on daring with a dash of vision.
What I love about this film is that it does not try to make a standard war film, those are just too riddled with troublesome facts. Tarantino threw the history book out the window and finished WWII as it should have ended, with Hitler getting shot up by a Jewish American and then exploded.
Pros: Changes everything about WWII movies, brilliantly written and directed
Cons: It's Tarantino, revisionist history does not fly with everyone, it's Tarantino
Up in the Air:
This movie hits home in the same way The Hurt Locker does as its timing is spot on. It is a character study hidden inside a movie about the impacts of the economic downturn. Reitman does a good job juggling this along side Clooney's spectacular performance. Overall it is just a good movie about what it is to be human through the eyes of a man who tries his best to not.
Pros: Almost perfect movie, timely, carried by many spectacular performances
Cons: Not as flashy as the other 3, limited commercial success
So, now that I have ranted a bit about the movies in question you must be asking yourselves (assuming you are still awake) "Yes I already know this, what do you think is the best film of the year?"
Well that is a little trickier than the summary, because these movies are all very good. So, lets start with the one thing I am most sure about:
AVATAR should not win.
Now, put down your blue makeup and smurf-cat porn and stop writing your hate mail. Look at Avatar, for all of its good and its bad, does it deserve the award. No. Avatar is the king of all popcorn movies chocked full of overused cliches, carried fully on its technology. In ten years Avatar will not be a good movie. Avatar will only be remembered by studios trying to reproduce its box office success. The tech will get better. Better film makers will put it to better use. Avatar will no longer be important, while every other film on this list will endure as a spectacular work of art.
What Avatar is is a money grab, using the same storyline of a dozen previous works, the same message found in countless movies (about the environment, the industrial military complex and human's lust for resources) that have done it better that is needlessly long. It had all the potential in the world but instead it falls back on the same rehashed tricks.
Having just scared away all of the Avatar fan boys, that must mean that the rest of you are more level headed. Right? Good.
The other three movies are about equal in my heart at this time. They are each wildly different and each have their own reasons for being on the list.
For me I have to throw The Hurt Locker off of my list, because Up in the Air and Basterds are films that I just like more. They play with characters and people's expectations in film. Reitman does it in a very human and subtle way and Tarantino throws the rules out the window like it is job. I will get back to the Hurt Locker in a bit.
Narrowing down the list to these two, I have to choose Basterds. Up in the Air is possibly the better movie. It is nears perfection, which is respectable, but in doing so it loses everything that art is about. Art is messy, just as humanity is messy. Basterds is a messy, imperfect stab at something different. I cannot help but respect that. It is a daring, fun movie choking on its depth. I have to go with it.
My circuitous logic aside the best picture, in my mind, should be Inglorious Basterds.
But I am not done. The Academy Awards are just as much about politics as they are about good movies (maybe more so) and as much as I would want Inglorious Basterds to win if I was going to submit a ballet I would not choose Basterds. I would throw my vote away to The Hurt Locker in a second because it is just as worthy as Basterds or Up in the Air are for the award, and stand at the exact same level in my mind as a work of art. I just really do not want Avatar to win, and the best bet is The Hurt Locker for dethroning Cameron's big blue leviathan.
Yes, I am a backstabbing bastard (or basterd?) I am tired of this stupid smurf buzz ruining my time at the movies. That and I have faith in The Hurt Locker winning the big award in March.
So, just in case you did not want to read this little rant thing...
A SUMMARY:
My Personal Pick: Inglorious Basterds
Who Will Win? : The Hurt Locker
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