The stunning PGA victory for “The Hurt Locker” last night not only injected some more excitement into what was a coagulating Oscar race, but it also injected some intrigue and drama as well.
Some might want to say it wasn’t such a surprise, and if you called it, great. But it was an against-all-odds victory no matter how you slice it. The film’s $12 million box office haul is the lowest for a PGA winner, by $50 million, since 1992’s “The Crying Game.”
The competition we’re now seemingly faced with in “The Hurt Locker” versus “Avatar” couldn’t have been scripted. And it’s a battle of philosophies more intriguing than the one put forth by Owen Gleiberman a few weeks back.
It’s low budget, efficient, muscular independent filmmaking versus blockbuster, groundbreaking, high octane studio entertainment. It’s level-headed political realism versus archetypal political grandstanding. It’s character versus idea. It’s measured theatrical meditation versus visceral theatrical experience.
In a nutshell, it’s everything the cinema is about, it’s a Civil War of the medium, and it just happens to be a battle whose warring factions are led by former spouses. Drama doesn’t begin to say it.
And that would be enough in a typical Oscar year, but this year is anything but. With 10 nominees in the mix and a preferential voting system being implemented on the winner ballot for the first time in over 60 years, the intrigue could fizzle out quickly.
Over the weekend, Steve Pond dug back into the balloting math once again to make his case for a potential “Avatar” loss at the Oscars, due to the Academy’s system. He failed to realize at the time that the PGA uses the same scheme and that he may have actually been forecasting a loss sooner than he expected, but it’s not just “The Hurt Locker” that could benefit, it’s films like “Up in the Air” or even “Inglourious Basterds,” the films that are agreeable to a majority. As Pond notes, it’s consensus that matters at this stage, not passion.
Suddenly it’s not about two films after all. It’s about the top tier nominated work, and those five films have been secure for a few weeks now. But what is interesting to note is that, once again, those films are a vibrant cross-section of what the medium has to offer, perhaps the most diverse slate of Best Picture contenders we’ve seen in a great many years, certainly since I started doing this a decade ago.
At the end of the day, that’s worth celebrating. People have their favorites. The disturbed will find awful things to say about the contenders they dislike, of course. That’s the caveat of artistic passion. But I think most can agree that the industry is properly and handsomely reflected by these films.
I can’t wait to see how it shakes out.
Short column today, and nothing earth-shattering in the way of prediction updates. Nevertheless, here are the Contenders and the sidebar has been tidied up ever so slightly. I’ll save anything major for my final predictions column next week. A week from tomorrow, we’ll have answered a lot of questions.
Comments
31 responses to “OFF THE CARPET: David and Goliath”
I can’t shake the notion that Avatar might still win Best Director, while best movie will go to something else – most likely “The Hurt Locker”.
It would be a game between Avatar, Hurt Locker, Up In The Air, and Basterds regardless of the new voting system. That SAG win for Basterds, no matter how predictable, is mighty powerful.
What if we think both Avatar and The Hurt Locker are undeserving?…
The Basterds ensemble win at SAG was surprising, well to me at least. If the ballots casted for Hurt Locker and Avatar go tit-for-tat maybe Basterds pulls this thing off.
Completely agreed on the diverse best picture winners which are especially worth celebrating after last year’s boring, predictable nominations and winners.
Yeah, last night was pretty epic, I wrote about it this morning after the shock wore off.
http://www.thecornercinema.com/?p=2150
I think it now comes down to DGA (which JC probably won’t win) and the overall number of nominations.
If THL ties or beats Avatar in overall noms, that’s all she wrote. There’s no way even the biggest film of all-time will pull out a win against a DGA/PGA winner that’s widely loved and admired AND has the nomination heat.
Even if Avatar leads all nominees and THL is one nom behind, the preferential ballot helps The Hurt Locker and hurts Avatar. I don’t think enough AMPAS voters are going to check off Avatar as their #2 and #3 even if Avatar earns 10 nominations.
Very well said Kris…nice piece. I’ve been saying Best Picture for The Hurt Locker for a few months now…and I obviously feel even stronger about that prediction now. However, it’s going to be bitter sweet for me, whoever wins. I’m one of those eclectic folks who liked both Avatar and The Hurt Locker (as well as Up in the Air). I also have this gut feeling about Jeremy Renner. I rewatched The Hurt Locker last night here at home, and think he could be a legit player in the Best Actor category if the Academy REALLY gets behind the film.
I also think Up in the Air could have been a stronger player in all this if it hadn’t been released in Avatar’s shadow.
I’m right there with you on enjoying the three, david. I don’t know where along the line it became this thing about liking either one or the other.
I’m willing to say this right now:
If Anthony Mackie sneaks in as a Supporting Actor nominee, The Hurt Locker will win Best Picture. Period.
Anthony Mackie is very deserving of a Supporting Actor role. He might just slip in. I think Molina is kind of on the bubble.
Obviously a lot can change between now and oscar night, but I somehow have the feeling that we may look at the PGA as the biggest moment of this year’s BP race in a month and a half. And I think this is the most surprising precursor so far, even if you were to tell me Hurt Locker takes the BP oscar I would figure Avatar would win the PGA.
it’s complicated! as nora ephron writes the script and nancy myers directs the movie about the once married to couples-Kat Biggie and Jimmy King of the World-competes for the Oscar’s best director and best film. Hope Myer’s doesn’t find a happy ending for both when the awards is split between the two. And definitely hoping not to have a War of the Roses ending.
(…movie is produced by Crate and Barrel and Williams Sonoma)
Mr. Smith, now wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing… THL may not have the sprawl of IB but, if there ever were an ensemble film, this is it. Renner’s deserving of all his accolades, but Geraghty and, especially, Mackie are just as integral to the film. THL is a masterful chamber piece. Renner may be playing lead violin but, without the second violin and cello, his performance loses all context.
Also as far the differences between the two films go, it has to be interesting that you have what would be the least attended BP winner in the academy’s history going up against the highest grossing movie of all time.
And I read that Hurt Locker has screenings on the same day of last year’s Toronto Film Festival as Slumdog Millionaire, weird that some people may have seen the next two BP winners on the very same day of a film festival.
If this was a normal five slot Best Picture race, it would’ve been my absolute favorite slate of nominees ever. It would’ve obviously been Avatar, Hurt Locker, Up In the Air, Inglourious Basterds, and almost definitely Precious. But nooooooo. We just had to have 10 nominees.
Kris I think your tech predictions are spot on, writing too. I just don’t see A Serious Man making it to Best Picture, I give that spot to Crazy Heart, especially if it manages nods for Maggie G and it’s screenplay. As far as acting goes though, I don’t see Mirren, Molina, Plummer, Gyllenhaal, or Moore making the cut. I replace each (in order) with Blunt, Damon, Mackie, Kruger, and Laurent.
RichardA@
Well, a director win for Kat, an editing win for Jimmy and a picture win for their young apprentice Jason! Now that would be a very happy ending I would treasure tremendously! :D
I wouldn’t say the race was “coagulating.” It’s been a three- (or four-) horse race for a couple of weeks at least (which is much more than you could say the last couple of years), and Hurt Locker took the BFCA prize just last weekend (which makes it kind of silly to say it’s “back in the race” because it doesn’t seem to me to ever have left).
I’m pleased to see the PGA go with a little film, but it’s not like the win came out of nowhere.
RichardA@…I would go and see that movie! Hope Nancy and Nora are reading.
The reasoning in this article (and from many other writers) for “The Hurt Locker” lesser chances seem to be mainly based upon the film’s box office performance. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see much proof, in Oscars history, to back up this argument.
This year’s race reminds me of a time period when I first started watching the Oscars:
1977 – Annie Hall def. Star Wars
1981 – Chariots of Fire def. Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 – Gandhi def. E.T.
Sci Fi, Action/Adventure, Big Box Office with little substance has sometimes snuck into the list of nominees, but they rarely win.
It would be the least-grossing Best Picture winner of all time, no? Isn’t that kind the beginning and end of the argument?
In any case, I think it’s on track to take the whole thing down, now.
I see no evidence of a correlation between box office and a best picture win. Top grossing films have won and films that have done very poorly at the box office have won. A film sometimes needs a decent box office to get the attention of the voters, but when critics awards and screeners are added into the equation I don’t think it matters.
The week before Avatar was released all the buzz was how much everyone (rightly imo) loved Up in the Air. I think once the nominees are announced and people go back and take another look Up in the Air may just pull it off in the end after all. Lest we forget that the PGA voted before Avatar became Avatanic. The one thing I think that will ultimately keep Hurt Locker from winning BP is not it’s BO but really a lack of an emotional payoff at the end. As we saw with Million Dollar Baby and Crash, the Academy votes with their hearts and not their heads.
I think when AMPAS votes, Hurt Locker will win.
Man the ebb and flow of this season has been nuts. I have never seen such an outpour of reaction from the PGA’s EVER. Pretty damn interesting. Although I didn’t think THL was nearly as good as many have said, I’m rooting for it. I personally couldn’t stand Avatar. Up In The Air was decent. Inglourious Basterds I really liked but I don’t think it has any real shot at winning the Best Pic Oscar.
3 things I ask for as the season gets near(er) to the end:
Bigelow for Director
Firth for Actor
Any film but Avatar for Picture
@Dan: I think this is a popular sentiment. Avatar is turnign out to be not nearly as popular in Hollywood as it is at the box office. It (and “the dude”?) might have crushed the buzz for “Up in the Air” however, which now has an ETA of “never.” Question is, where are those votes going to go? No one is going to waste them. They need to pick sides.
Blue people CGI or gritty, dynamite drama? The thing is when you have Sean Penn agreeing with the Wall Street Journal (how often does that happen?) you have a best picture winner through consensus. “The Hurt Locker” is a film that is political, thoughtful and meditative, but without being a sledge hammer. It has unlocked the secret keyhole to Iraq war films.
I really don’t think “The Hurt Locker” IS political.
And by that, I don’t mean “It’s not a political film,” I mean that it’s not political in any way, shape or form. I don’t think “political” is an adjective you can use to describe it, despite its setting of the Iraq War.
And I don’t necessarily mean that as praise. In fact, I might be one of the few people who WISHED that the film made some sort of statement in ANY way (not the same thing as a “message”). Lack of opinion on an issue within a piece of isn’t always a virtue.
But I digress. I quite like “The Hurt Locker,” I just think it’s massively overpraised, and take issue with tacking the word ‘political’ on it, when the film goes out of its way to NOT even slightly touch onto any sort of politics.
*within a piece of art
Boxoffice is clearly not that relevant in winning an oscar for the best movie. So it’s the year of The Hurt Locker! But watch out for the supporting acting categories, every year there is a surprise! Could Monique lose to Julianne Moore? Or will Waltz be defeated by Plummer?
No and no.
Last year alone should prove that there isn’t a surprise “every year” in the supporting categories.
@Chris: You’d say No Country for Old Men has a real emotional payoff? I love the film, and I definitely wouldn’t say that. Ditto for Chicago. And as for Crash v. Brokeback, it’s not like Brokeback leaves you cold–just with your heart completely broken. I think this hardly disqualifies The Hurt Locker. By that logic, Precious will win Best Picture (SPOILER ALERT: not gonna happen).
Great article Kris!
I really think the race is between “Avatar”, “The Hurt Locker” and “Inglourious Basterds” at this point. I’d be happy if either of them win. Yay.