Hurt Locker!
Wait, what?
In all, nobody saw this as that big of a surprise. But then again, they did. It is obvious that more people saw Avatar than any other movie nominated, I mean duh. I haven't seen Hurt Locker, so I can't exactly judge it completely, but I still know a lot about the film. I know that it was made with a very low budget but had a very strong story, excellent acting, an outstanding directors, and everything was just excellent. But, it was shot in under a year and was conceived sometime in 2006. The film is based on incidents in the Iraq War that took place in 2004. Avatar, on the other hand, was in development ten years before in 1994. The movie was being produced before the Iraq War even started. It took fifteen years for the film to finally be shown in all its majestic beauty and glorious technological achievements. Yet, it lacked an original storyline (Pocahontas meets Pandora) and the acting was marginal. But the actors were put through similar comfort levels as those of Hurt Locker. In Hurt Locker, the actors spent hours in giant suits in the deserts of Jordan, while actors in Avatar were put in the jungle and Hollywood studios wearing extremely expensive and high-tech suits that captured every movement as small as a twitch of the lip while trying to imagine moving through the lush planet of Pandora. It seems as though these two films are equals. One may have had an unoriginal story but one took a fraction of the time to make as the other. It is astonishing that Avatar didn't take all the tech awards. I know a lot more about Sound Mixing and Sound Editing thanks to Morgan Freeman, and after seeing that, Avatar seemed the clear winner. Hurt Locker had explosions, but so did Avatar. And I'm assuming it had a helluva lot more. And not only that, Avatar also had all the sounds from the exotic creatures to the large technological weapon arsenal used by the humans. But somehow, Hurt Locker won it. Then there is Best Film Editing, again Hurt Locker beat Avatar. How? I have no freaking idea. Until I see Hurt Locker, I am in complete shock. Avatar was perfectly editing to making such a distant planet that was made from scratch seem so real and flawless. It took years for them to perfect such a feat. Avatar was perhaps the biggest technological achievement in the film industry since Titanic. It deserved every tech award. It took so much hard work and so much time, it really deserves every tech award out there. It didn't deserve original score, that's for sure. James Horner reused every single musical device he used in his other films. Hell, you could practically sing "My Heart Will Go On" and tap out "Hard to Starboard" and "Take Her to Sea, Mr. Murdoch" is so many of Avatar's songs. I don't really know that much about how Hurt Locker's director, Kathryn Bigelow, did in the movie. I know that James Cameron directed his film extremely well, especially with so much green screen. I also am shocked at how well someone can direct a movie in front of a green screen. Of course, he had the help of his nifty little camera that showed him what the green screen would look like right in front of him, which should have helped him in his push to win Best Director. Then there's the big one, Best Picture. Again, haven't seen Hurt Locker, so I really don't know yet if it deserved it. But I do know that Avatar had a lot going for it, and a lot going against it. Having 10 nominees probably took a lot of votes away from it. Having James Cameron direct it probably took some votes away since he won it all for Titanic over a decade ago. And then there's the story, which is just Pocahontas. And then there's the actors. For the Academy Awards, the actors are the largest body of voting. They like themselves. They like their faces, their bodies. Most don't care much about their voices. People identify them for their looks, not their voice (exceptions to this rule include James Earl Jones and Morgan Freemon). They are terrified of Avatar. They are terrified that CGI may rule the world, and that they can be turned into blue creatures so easily now. They don't want to award a film that, if it won, would tell Hollywood they want CGI. Because in truth, that is the biggest feat Avatar had for this award. It's technology was astounding. It's directing was astounding, mainly because of the help of technology. As I said, the story and the acting wasn't amazing. This made the film lose votes with many Oscar vets, but the actors really really took it down. I admit that I didn't want to see Avatar win, but at the same time I really wanted it to win. That's was sucks. It's such a great movie that deserves it all, but at the same time it doesn't. They worked so hard, but they didn't work hard enough. Titanic took a long time to create and everything was perfect, but Avatar didn't have everything. That's another reason why Hurt Locker won. Honestly if I was able to vote, I'd vote for Up. Now THAT movie, that movie had everything. Yes it's animated, but it was just so...perfect. Anyways, on to everything else!
Original Score- Thank goodness Up won. Michael Giacchino is a musical genius. He created the music for Up, LOST, The Incredibles, the Mission Impossible series, Star Trek, Ratatouille, Cloverfield Speed Racer, Alias and so many other beautiful scores. And the best part is, you could never tell that he did all those scores. Unlike other top movie music producers of today such as Hans Zimmer and James Horner, all of his scores sound completely different- unique to each movie.
Animated film- Well no duh Up won, I mean it was nominated for Best Picture when no other nominee for Best Animated Film was!
Actor, Supporting Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress- Honestly, I didn't see any move that had an Actor/Actress category in it, so I really didn't pay much attention to these parts. But their acceptance speeches were good! (Especially Sanda Bullock...love her!)
Cinematography- Well, I don't know much about this category, but Avatar won. According to Twitter, it shouldn't have because it was all CGI. So...bad Avatar? I think they should trade this award for Best Film Editing..
Visual Effects- Duh. But any other year, Star Trek would have won.
Makeup and Costume Design- These seemed pretty fair. Star Trek had a lot of good makeup, and Young Victoria seems very good on their costume design. Although, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus also had some very good costumes..
Tribute to those who passed- Was it just me, or did they forget about Farrah Fawcett? Sure, she wasn't as big on the the big screen compared to the silver screen, but I mean she still made movies. They showed Michael Jackson, but not her? She definitely should have been in that montage!
The hosts- At first I seemed skeptic about Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin hosting since they seem to me to be "elite" comedians, meaning their jokes are either hard to understand because you have to be extremely knowledgeable or just old. But they did it very well! And I really enjoyed the opening with Neil Patrick Harris
The Oscars keep getting better every year, and this will certainly be one that I will never forget!
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