The 2010 Academy Awards (Oscars) ceremony just finished. I knew it is political, but not as much. I understood why the movies about the WWII are making it to the Oscars, but this time it wasn’t about WWII, but about looking at us in the mirror. We sure don’t like what we see in the mirror, don’t we?
My opinion is that The Hurt Locker got the Oscar statuette for the best picture because of the message it sends across: ‘our war needs you, you are not as useful to your family as you can be to your country… take the blue pill‘… a twenty million dollars message from what the box office says.
On the other hand, Avatar has a totally different message, a powerful message of what should be our connectedness with the nature, the nature we are no longer part of, but its parasites, it shows how poisonous the blue pill is… a three billion dollars message, as the same box office says.
For each person that watched The Hurt Locker, 150 people watched Avatar. And you know what? They paid more for a ticket, as Avatar is 3D.
Last month I went to see a different movie with the same sick message, Dear John. For some reason going to fight a war should be more important for you than you achieving happiness… just like in the “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country” message.
I surely can see a value in the way a movie has been made, but I too find the messages the movies send along as very important for the mood I have after watching them.
I remember now about those moralistic movies like “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008) or “Law Abiding Citizen” (2009). Good movies, but they left me a bad taste because after setting some high expectations… they left them unfinished. Just like talking a girl into how a ‘big horse pleasure guarantee‘ you are, and when the moment of proof arrives, you fall asleep… and imagine the girl paid you money for your promised potential.
On the other hand I know I shouldn’t care about it, as this same scenario, with unforgettable Sci-Fi movies not getting the award, happened in the past, when “Star Wars” ‘lost’ the best picture award to “Annie Hall” in ‘77, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” to “Gandhi” in ‘82 and “The Matrix” to “American Beauty” in ‘99. I can’t easily imagine to have blockbusters in 10-20 years from now that will not intercross with the Sci-Fi world. How are the people from the Academy (most of them actors) going to look then if they don’t adapt? Will they award prizes to movies that make losses?
Steve Martin ended the Oscars ceremony by making a joke out of place. He said that because the show lasted for so long, “Avatar is now in the past“. Of course, because of their horse blinders some can’t see the present and analyze the causes from the past, but they can only look to the future and… hope. Unfortunately for them, the future will be delivered by the past and present, this is why movies like Avatar are never going to be in the past, not now, not ever. And you know why? Because they speak the truth.