It's a heavyweight clash! In this corner, we have Avatar with 9 nominations. James Cameron's box office behemoth, rumored to have been the most expensive film ever made, and when not adjusting for inflation, is also the highest grossing. Then in the other corner, there is The Hurt Locker, weighing in at a scant $12 million in total gross, but has the precursor awards and 9 Academy nominations to prove its mettle. Not to mention a Kathryn Bigelow directing Oscar that is nearly in the bag. There it is, David vs. Goliath, the Battle of the Exes, if you wanna be cliche' and put all the same labels on it as pretty much every other Oscar pundit.
In last week's edition of Oscar Watch, I talked about the potential for surprise come Oscar night, but today I'm gonna talk about two sure things when it comes to time for the Academy to announce the winners, the overall haul between Avatar and The Hurt Locker. Seriously, whether or not you believe that there are some potential upsets coming March 7th, at the end of the day both of these films will bring home a lot of gold, and I think it's safe to say that they will both most likely rack up the most amount of trophies of any other film nominated. So what this post is about today is whether or not The Hurt Locker has enough support to vault over Avatar and be the big winner, or whether Avatar can muster up the steam and keep Kathryn Bigelow's war drama at bay.
If you had told me, even just a few months ago, that the race toward the Oscars would essentially be Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker, I would have laughed in your face and said that it was wishful thinking. Back then, Precious was the frontrunner to bring home the gold and Up in the Air was its heavyweight competitor, and oh how much can change in just a matter of 7-8 weeks. To be honest, Avatar has really only received all of the accolades it has because it has made so much money and is groundbreaking in the art of motion capture technology. Where as The Hurt Lokcer is comparable to last year's Slumdog Millionaire. It's a film that was made for about $10 million, with established actors that no one really knows who they are, and its ascent to the top of the award's circuit was really just the perfect storm of virtuoso storytelling, critic approval, and industry adoration.
While many want to look at this race as the Battle of the Exes, between formerly married couple, directors James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow, at the end of the day, Bigelow will win the clash for Best Director, so that news story has little clout. Now when it comes to the Tech Categories, while The Hurt Locker could pull off the upsets over Avatar in Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing, Avatar will still most likely bring home Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction, and The Hurt Locker is a potential threat in Best Original Score and Best Original Screenplay, where as Avatar is not in neither so no point in talking about those. Two of the real battles between these heavyweights will be for the awards of Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing.
So I despise the fact that Avatar is considered the frontrunner for Best Cinematography. It was all done in a computer for the most part, none of it was really done on location. They had controlled lighting and could pretty much create an image anyway they saw fit, where as with something like The Hurt Locker, it was gritty, down to Earth, oozing with documentary-styled realism, the kind of realism that is tough to capture on film and I could see more cinematographers in the Academy honoring over Avatar. Of course, Film Editing is a little more tight, but at the end of the day, if The Hurt Locker is really as well loved by the industry as I believe it is, I think it will steal Avatar's thunder here as well. Of course, what about Best Picture, where these two films will really get to duke it out?
What it's all going to boil down to is if this new preferential voting system will swing the vote in favor of the more mainstream, or if The Hurt Locker has been seen by enough in the Academy to generate enough love for it to get enough number's 1, 2, and 3 votes to claim the top prize. I really do not believe that The Hurt Locker has been seen by all in the Academy. With a gross of only $12 million, only a select few have actually seen the film, and seeing as how the Academy is so large, it's entirely possible that the small handful who have seen The Hurt Locker wont be enough to give it the win. This is where Avatar could steal The Hurt Lokcer's ultimate glory.
Being as big as it is, just about everyone in Hollywood has seen Avatar, and so now it is all just a matter as to whether they want to stroke James Cameron's ego and give him some good number 2 and 3 votes, or out of pure frustration with the guy will they go lower on the scale to like 9 or 1o votes and give the mainstream vote to something like Up or Up in the Air.
I personally believe that The Hurt Locker will not win come Oscar night, but neither do I think that there is enough industry approval for Avatar to win the top prize either, but for full details check out last week's edition of Oscar Watch titled "Potential for Surprise".
At the current moment the only way I see The Hurt Locker winning March 7th, is if a bunch of folks in the Academy just vote on auto-pilot. These guys haven't really seen any of the films nominated, so they just mimic what they think others expect them to vote for, thus The Hurt Locker could have a shot. I will say The Hurt Locker winning is more likely, because honestly, I cannot imagine hearing Avatar's name being called out on Oscar night.
That does it for this edition of Oscar Watch! Come back next week as we take a more in-depth look at this craziest of Oscar races as we are now entering the home stretch.
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