The 82nd annual Academy Awards were announced yesterday and for the first time in the ceremony’s history, the standard small handful of nominees for Best Picture was abolished in favour of a whopping ten candidates. Never before has the playing field been so vast with so many options for the top spot.
But don’t kid yourself. There’s about as many options in this contest as there are in modern politics: just two. This little showdown comes down to James Cameron’s space-acid trip, Avatar, and Kathryn “You’ve never heard of me before” Bigelow’s, The Hurt Locker. Academy, I think the rest of the films are all great as well, but no one is stupid enough to bet on The Blind Side for that Oscar lottery at work.
Up was an amazing and beautiful movie, but can you really see an animated film take the award away from Bigelow’s war-epic or Cameron’s box office topping, masturbatory, pet project? What about Inglourious Basterds? Or District 9? Everyone loved District 9, but these are the same people who are creaming themselves over Avatar. My gut tells me a conflicted nerd will go with a hot, blue cat-girl over freaky prawns any day.
The bottom line is that it’s insulting to seemingly have this new, history-making tradition of ten nominees if it’s clear that the majority of movies are just there to fill extra slots. Go back to five or six nominees next year. You always hear that “it’s just an honour to be nominated”, but now that they’re giving those things out like swine flu vaccines, a bit of the prestige is lost. Fucking Blind Side? Jesus.
No Comments