Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.

The Western: What happened?

By Brett

Clint Eastwood once said, "I feel very close to the western. There are not too many American art forms that are original. Most are derived from European art forms. Other than the western and jazz or blues, that's all that's really original." People these days don’t really care for westerns anymore, unless Hang ‘Em High is on AMC or something. No one has made a decent attempt at a true western in a number of years. Sure, perhaps we get a Kevin Costner film every few years that takes place in the old west, but it’s not a western. Those are just emotional dramas taking place in a dusty town with lawmen and outlaws. Now with two new westerns debuting in a few weeks of each other, is it the same old song and dance, or revival?

The western is the lost American art. The settings, plots, and characters are all unique to our culture. These days, so many films are oversaturated with CGI and film twists. Why can Hollywood not go back to an era where everything was so much simpler? Why must we be subject to complicated movies that lack the fun of a true western? Sure, we still make good films, but too much of American filmmaking relies on a psychological factor that the film has over the audience. This works most of the time, but with a western, it cannot be had.

As Mr. Eastwood said, westerns are an American original. They were so exclusive to the United States that other countries began their own takes on the genre. Arguably the best western ever, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, was written and directed by an Italian as homage to the American form. We Americans should be pleased that we have this one matchless art form in our hodge podge society. I don’t know who said it, but the greatest form of flattery is imitation. That is exactly the case with westerns.

But why did Hollywood have to stop producing westerns? The formula is simple enough. You have the good guys and the bad guys, and their struggle. A woman, gambling, whiskey, and murder. A ride out into the sunset. Simple. No twists or societal themes telling us we have to change our ways. No over elaborate explosions or stylized John Woo shootouts. Just a classic representation of what life seemed to be like out in the Old West.

My guess on what happened to the western? Hollywood just got too excited with itself. New technologies emerged and made special effects more prominent. Cinematography became something that heavily impacted whether or not someone would see a movie. Pretty boy actors took the place of rough and tough cowboys as the man every guy wanted to be. Films got to be more about the people who made them, and less about the people who watch them. Mass marketing and commercialization took over. Blockbusters became the new thing.

Now people won’t go to a western if they can help it. Not without a big name star or unbelievable (literally) action scenes. People today are impatient, and get bored too quickly unless something blows up or someone hot takes their shirt/bra off. Realism won’t make studios money, so why should they bother with it? Westerns have lost that human element that separated them from every other film. Today, the closest thing to a western has been Banditas, a movie that Aaron professes shouldn’t even have been made, and The Missing, which has more drama than high school cheerleader try outs. These movies are not westerns, they are movies trying hard to be westerns.

With 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford coming soon to a theater near you, I can’t help but ask: Is this the rebirth of the American western, or another overcomplicated attempt at one? One is a remake, the other wholly original. I’m not expecting an instant classic from either, but I am expected to be wildly entertained. I’m also expecting Mexican standoffs, men who are above the law, and heroes with fast guns. That, to me, is western. And while I feel that 3:10 to Yuma is going to err on the side of Hollywood psychology and film twists to make it good, I hope that Jesse James, at least, holds true to the genre, and becomes the next great western.