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Oy, now there’s even more about Oscar badmouthing, and this is even more unimportant. I’ve learned that Hurt Locker financier and producer Nicolas Chartier today admitted to Summit Entertainment he sent more emails about Avatar. But these weren’t mass mailings to Oscar voters; rather, they were simply individual messages sent to personal acquaintances, including one that specifically said Avatar should be placed No. 10 on the Best Pictures list. Sources tell me that Chartier copped to it when Summit’s Rob Friedman today picked up the phone to question the producer about a new allegation from a Los Angeles Times blog that there were more Chartier emails. That prompted Summit to send out the following statement just now: “Summit and our consultants were completely unaware of any emails that were sent until we were alerted by the Academy earlier this week. Thus we also had no additional knowledge of different text that may have been sent by this producer.”
Summit through its flacks have asked LA Times blogger Pete Hammond to forward even one of the emails mentioned today, but the blogger has refused. His reason? It would “violate the confidentiality” of the recipient who is the producer’s personal acquaintance “so Chartier would know who it is” if made public. I have not seen these personal emails myself. I do think, however, that the Los Angeles Times should have explained in its posting that there was no other mass mailing to Oscar voters by Chartier. It makes a difference. Because can you imagine if Hollywood’s private correspondence about the Oscar pics were monitored by the Academy Awards rules police?
By the way, Summit expects that, if Chartier is to be disciplined by the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for that February 19th mass mailing email, it won’t happen until after the voting period ends. (See my previous, Academy May Discipline ‘The Hurt Locker’)
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This is so stupid. You know how many people in Hollywood need to be disciplined over the years. You would have to open up Alcatraz just to put them all in it. Come on. STUPID.
Pardon the ignorant question here, but what would happen if someone in Chartier’s position had sent the message he emailed via social media (i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or even the now unpopular for everything but music MySpace) asking for votes. Is this against AMPAS policy too (or is there even a policy on using social media during Oscar campaign at all?)?
What I don’t understand is how everybody thinks its fair game for the companies to promote these films like crazy to the public using every low/no cost avenue they can think of to get them to part with their money to see these films (including email lists and social media) but God forbid they do the same for an Oscar campaign. Is this really about not taking pricey business away from companies that practice old pricey ways of trying to secure an Oscar?
It all seems so hypocritcal out here in the cheap seats so maybe someone more insider-y can explain it to me.
Ugh! I agree with you that this is just lame. Badmouthing is part of The Race to the Oscars!
I don’t understand how his PERSONAL emails are even an issue here. The mass email was a faux pas, he copped to it and will take it on the chin for it. Fine. But how are personal emails relevant? I am an Academy member and think AVATAR’s effects were amazing but the story and writing basically sucked. I’m sure I communicated as much via email with some of my Academy friends, so does that mean AMPAS will subpoena my email records?
Then let me ask you, what is so special, from story point of view, in Up in the air, Hurt Locker, Blind side, etc?
I would say close to nothing.
Maybe Precious, Inglorious Bastards…or Up may have a story that have some originality.
PS, Avatar’s story line, as simple and maybe not so original as may look, It is very well translated into a movie. The movie keeps you connected for its entire run of 2:46 minutes, something that very few movies were actually able to do. For sure The Hurt Locker was not one of them.
Personally i consider only Avatar, Inglorious Bastards and Precious movies (nominated) that are able to do it.
I would love if the Academy would not let the marketing, and other underground channels, blinding their judgement. Simply watching the movie should sufice.
Avatar was not a well-thought out narrative. It’ll win all effects stuff, but anyone can send any amount of emails and it wouldn’t change the fact that it’s not a great film. People are just pissed because Avatar made so much cash, and the voters don’t like it.
It’s such a shame Academy voters such as yourself are blind to good storytelling. You mistake simple storytelling for lame storytelling. You’ll watch it again years from now and wish you’d paid closer attention, because that is by far the best picture of this year.
Actually, my eyes were riveted to the screen all through Hurt Locker, and I don’t even like war movies. With Avatar on the other hand I kept looking at my watch.
I walked into Avatar after watching Up in The Air, which I thought was a great movie- well written at least. Then to my shock, I was blown away by Avatar. I know it’s a better movie! It was clear to me. It was also more emotionally stirring, which it shares with other great movies such as Slumdog last year. I think the only two movies of the past year that I can say made me shed a tear. I watched Precious and Hurt Locker from Netflix because they won some awards, both weren’t that great. I liked the intensity of Hurt Locker, but not a great flick. It was like something I could film a bunch of army guys going from one bomb to another. Come on, That is what people are voting as the best Movie of the Year to be remembered??? A movie no one wanted to watch? If it wins I will lose all desire to watch any more of these award shows. I will refuse, justice. If that producer wants to fix it, or a new voting system fix it, but the Oscars will lose the public. As it is now, the Iconic stars are becoming more ordinary and boring. The show isn’t that interesting.. Tks..to everyone. I want to see a deserving film win. AVATAR
Does this even matter…next thing we know, the LA Times will be reporting that someone heard Nicolas saying something negative to somebody at a lunch meeting…leave the Frenchie ALONE!!!!
seriously — AVATAR is not gonna win best picture. Stop hurting your chances HURT LOCKER but doing this shit.
I think people will forgive The Hurt Locker in the end. It’s a little like David vs Goliath. If the producers of Avatar had sent out a mass email against THL then people would of been up in arms. Ya I know this is a double standard.
Is this style of campaigning new to everyone? What’s amazing is that the person who created the modern version of awards campaign smear tactics is sitting quietly on the sidelines of this while his movie quietly gets voted Best Picture. Go Inglourious Basterds.
yeah, let’s give the “best picture” oscar (at a time when oscars have been shunned by people who actually pay to go see movies) to a movie that made 13 million dollars and is nothing more than a good cable movie. can you say: “morons”?!
mj
I agree. I actually find it offensive that The Hurt Locker is even considered competition for Avatar. The only thing about THL that kept me awake in the final act was the burning irritation of how profoundly stupid the story had become. No wonder the word was so bad on it that no one went to see it.
The only award Avatar should be up for is best animated picture. And even then it would lose to Up.
I’m not even going to watch the Oscars this year. Now that there are ten best picture nominees, a nomination has lost its meaning and integrity. It’s just a shameless effort by Big Media to sell more tickets, yet another example of the corporatization of this country, and the world. Now that corporations have more rights than individuals, it really isn’t inconceivable that someone’s private correspondence is no longer private and can be used against them by a corporation whose interests have been tarnished.
I don’t get this–specifically the ten slots argument, since it was announced. Wouldn’t this be good for indies?
Ah the hypocrisy of the art house elite. Hurling lightning bolts at Avatar for its story. Wanna talk stupid plots? Try YOUR choice for best picture a year ago, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: The Movie.” Hypocrite assholes.
Avatar’s well-crafted, will stand the test of time, and it immerses the viewer in another world. VERY few movies are capable of this. And it’s an accomplishment when a director pulls this off.
2009 was one of the most revolutionary years in science fiction. The genre deserves this win. Period. End of fucking story. The fact that District 9 hasn’t come up as a true alternate choice, shows the art house elite is flipping the bird at sci-fi in general. You narrow minded asswipes don’t have the balls to admit it.
Cameron has reminded us movies are meant to be seen in theaters.
The award is for “Best Picture” not best “DVD screener.” Any SAG members out there who choose to forget that, if there’s any justice in this world, you’ll wind up like Sharon Stone, doing guest spots on Law and Order. Or maybe you can guest star as Charlie Sheen’s latest choke victim on Two and a Half Men.
Summit’s made no fucking attempt to market this movie outside of critic’s groups. $16 million worldwide. Wow. What a clusterfuck.
Let’s keep in mind the Academy is on thin ice as far as the general public’s concerned. Last year’s snubbing of the Dark Knight is one of their more fantastic fuck-ups. The Academy seems hell bent on proving they have as much relevance to the movie industry as the MTV awards. Ay, maybe you can have Borat drop from the rafters and cram his asscrack into Sean Pean’s face! If Hurt Locker wins, you’ll need half assed stunts like THAT to get people to watch.
Avatar’s a movie that inspires. This weekend some parent will take their 8 year old kid or disillisioned teenager to the movies. And when they walk from the theater, wide-eyed with wonder, their lives will have been altered. They’ll become a scientist, an astronomer, an engineer, or an environmentalist. They’ll have been influenced not by a teacher, a preacher, a politician, or a parent… but by a movie. A fucking movie. Remarkable. If that doesn’t snag Avatar the top prize, I don’t know what does.
Now I’m not one of those poorly named Avatards. (only seen the movie once. On a Liemax screen no less!) Let’s get that out of the way right now.
I’ll now cease my drunken rant so the art house hypocrite fuckmunch elite and the Tarentino apologists can rant and rave like the assholes they truly are.
Before you type though, please remember to remove your tongue from each other’s shitchutes.
Ta Ta.
Agreed.
And to the person that commented on Avatar’s sucky story and writing; if the argument was best screenplay, okay, but for best picture? It’s an overall experience, sometimes images tell a better story, and frankly I was moved. A LOT of people were moved. The tremendous production, development process and success is the definition of a best picture. The talent and innovation of that crew should be recognized.
Someone has to win obvi…why knock one picture down over another?
You know, just because Avatar has made $2.5 billion DOES NOT MEAN EVERYONE WHO SAW IT LIKED IT OR WAS INSPIRED BY IT. In fact, including myself, I know a lot of people who thought the movie flat out sucked. Sure, the special FX were great, but other than that what are you left with but a Smurf love story? For me this movie was just like Cameron’s overbloated Titanic. After the first 45 minutes of Titanic I said, “When the fuck is this boat going to sink and kill all these annoying ass poseurs?” I haven’t really been able to watch Leo or Kate in a movie since then without wanting to slap the snot out of them. With Avatar I was wondering if I could get a refund and barring that, what would they do to me if I kept the 3D glasses?
The fact is – Avatar, like Titanic and The Dark Knight, has made a ton of money on the strength of a core group of fans who saw the movie repeatedly – and often. Ditto those horrific Twilight movies. But, the mainstream movie-goer doesn’t go see a movie 10 times. They see it once and if they want to see it again they wait for DVD sales or rentals. Higher ticket prices has inflated the amount of money Avatar has made. I live in a fairly small town and ticket prices here were a ridiculous $12.50 – a normal evening show is $7.50. Was Avatar worth the extra $5? Fuck no and I was pissed when the movie ended and yes, I kept the damned 3D glasses! If it turns out that Avatar sold as many or more tickets than Titanic I’ll eat my shoe.
Bottom line – Avatar wasn’t all that and a bag of chips and making it Best Picture just because it made the most money is stupid. The writing was cheesy. The acting wasn’t all that great and someone really needs to stop putting Sam Worthington in roles that require him to attempt masking his native Australian accent. He sucks at an American accent. When a Best Picture nominee has zero acting nods I find it to be a suspect choice. Unfortunately with the Academy increasing the Best Picture nominees to 10 this year – there are a LOT of suspect choices. Avatar bored me to tears and like the time I wasted on Titanic – I’ll never get those 2 hours and 45 minutes back. The Best Picture should have it all – great acting, great directing, a great story, maintain your interest throughout and on rare occasions transcend film and change your life. Avatar falls short in almost every category. Avatar losing Best Picture will be a worthy loss and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it does lose. After all, does the world really need an egomaniac like James Cameron with TWO Best Picture wins? I think not.
Mr.Korr, tell us how you really feel! LOL, you are spot on.
I took my 11 yr old daughter and her friends (who are multilingual and come from Latin America, Caribbean and Europe),to see Avatar, every single one of them left out of Avatar inspired and profoundly moved by the message of the movie, they even cried when the military attacked the tree. Afterward, these young ladies had a deep discussion regarding humanitarianism and the similarities of the Navi’s situation to the Native Americans and Africans.
All in all, it made these “Twilight tweens” think and have an intellectual conversation, as a parent, that’s the kind of reaction I appreciate and would like to see more of from movies.
The audience’s reaction to Avatar, IMHO is very comparable to the reaction audiences had at “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” totally engaged, silent and in awe.
That has to be one of the best responses to a post I have ever read! Rock on Mr. Korr
L O L, I don’t think I’ve read a better sentence on this issue!
“Oy, now there’s even more about Oscar badmouthing, and this is even more unimportant.”
Mr. Korr is totally right.
Hurt Locker is this year’s “Shakespeare in Love” to Avatar’s “Saving Private Ryan” – NO ONE except the pseudo-elite.. trying to sound like they are more in the know than say…. 6 billion people that will remember Avatar as a movie the reminds them why they love movies in the first place versus a one dimensional stupid war movie about a war that everyone thinks is a stupid war in the first place.
Hey look at me, I’m Katherine Bigalow and I made a movie for the boys… so I can have a drink if I want.. hey look at me… I’m an artist.
The movie business is about people buying tickets and sitting their butts in theatres and ENTERTAINING them… no one cared to see Hurt Locker, and frankly it’s very one note… uh.. how is this a Best Picture?
Voting for Hurt Locker, just because Avatar made so much money is really disingenuous and pretentious – people should vote for the movie that is truly the Best Picture of the Year.. and Avatar may very well be remembered as one of the best of ALL TIME people.
Go Avatar.. a movie that will be remembered 100 years from now.. and Hurt Locker that will be lost in the vaults of oblivion… and voters who forget that movies like Avatar are why they still have a job… please remove head from ass, take pen and vote for a movie that really deserves best picture.
You lost me with the Bigelow bashing.
I so agree that was un-necessary ……this whole campaign against Avatar by those so called art house movie lovers, just because Avatar is a 500 mill $$ movie with thin (but so close to today’s reality, and very well narrated) with amazing special effects doent makes it any less of a brilliant cinema.
I remember James Cameron taking same kind of heat in 1997 during Titanic from LA Confidential’s Fans and Critics.
If we look at recent e.g. who remembers No Country for Old Men, Shakespeare in Love….same will be for The Hurt Locker (nothing personal at all, the move is good)….
Bottom line: Avatar is great cinema and with all the commercial success in today’s bad economic times, bringing back crowd to cinema hall to watch it….BRAVO!
Wow Mr. Korr, seems there may be one or two swear words you forgot to use. But for the record, I totally agree with what you said about Avatar inspiring its audiences. Meanwhile, this story is more about AMPAS jurisdiction, namely does AMPAS indeed have the right to examine someone’s personal emails (is Chartier even a voting member of the academy?) and use them against a particular nominated film? Frankly that concerns me more than what people think of their favorite movies and which ones are the best of the year; after all, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.
A couple days ago when JC said Katherine deserves the best director and he really wanted the best movie award, people said here that he was such a selfish, arrogant and hypocritic moron.
Now when this guy told members not to vote for Avatar because the movie is bad, the same people here say that is what he should do, the behaviour is nothing to blame.
What is wrong with the world now?
I bet if JC did the same thing as this stupid guy did — told anybody not to vote for hurtlocker, which would be huge and those same people (yes, still them) will say JC was a stupid crazy SOB.
I believe JC and Avatar will definitely win this time, because they shot a movie for all audience, not for a tiny group of “professionals”. It is a real movie, that what a movie mean to be.
Agree with those about the overrated Hurt Locker. Fed up reading the views of its fervent supporters as if it was the best war movie ever made when it is in fact just a well made television movie with no real plot. Five years from now people will be embarassed that it won Best Picture and will consider Avatar of having being robbed. Avatar has captured the imagination of the whole world. The Hurt Locker was barely seen by anybody so the Academy are shooting themselves in the foot if it regrettably sweeps the awards.
there was never a mass email. only a few emails to friends/business connections of his. well, apparently one guy is not his friend. big deal. it all got blown up out of proportions when the academy employee forwarded the email to the PR people and bloggers etc… Meanwhile there’s an earthquake in Chili, 39 people died in afghanistan yesterday and Haiti is being rebuilt… slow news day.
Instead of nominating 10 films for best pic, the Academy should have thought about ending the David vs. Goliath craziness and created 2 distinct categories in which David has to face off vs. other Davids.
It’s not just the huge budget and the talents money can buy. As one poster pointed out, it’s also the abuse of social media that big money can afford. Whereas “small” pictures rely on their fans and their genuine blog posts and tweets, expensive pics need not to worry. They hire a company and off their army goes. In addition we get sweepstakes that require marketing the movie in order to qualify for a prize AND …
- bought blog posts
- paid tweets
- “fantasy scores” on IMDB
Nuff said.
As to the Foreign Language Film category…
No nomination for Let the Right One In? Wasn’t it supposed to be eligible this year? Do we have to wait for the remake to perhaps get nominated for best pic? *sucksbigtime!
Completely agree. They were personal emails, period. Not to mention the whole film shouldn’t be penalized by personal comments in personal emails. I highly doubt his comments would sway a voters decision anyways.
Avatar was a pretty, bad movie. (read it with or without the comma; both are true)
There’s absolutely no way I’d ever watch this clichefest again, but having seen it in 2-D I might pay a couple bucks for a 30-min Imax tech demo.
Bad, bad film. “Best Picture”? In Hell, perhaps.
In Europe hardly anyone saw Hurt Locker.. A strong opposite to Avatar –
Why? Lack of P&A? Or maybe Hurt Locker is simply not that great of a movie.
Compelling story, yes, but pretty much a downer if you ask me.
Avatar made people go to the movies, who haven’t gone in a long time.
It is fun, exciting, blows your mind, and yes, Mr. Chartier, it will make more money than you can write e-mails in your life time.
And what a disgrace your mail has been to the other eight best picture nominees…
I disagree, Nikki. Cameron’s been consistently generous with his praise for “Hurt Locker” and Bigelow, so it’s dickish for the HL team to respond by insulting his film. And in any event, you want people to vote for your film, not against another one.
So I’m glad I didn’t vote for “Hurt Locker” for Best Picture.
(…Still rooting for Bigelow, though.)
Freedom of speech and you know what? THE HURT LOCKER is the best movie of 2009. Who gives a rat’s arse if they were personal emails? Remember we live in America? Good Gawd. Avatar sucked and I would send that note in an email to balloon headed director Cameron NOW. When I see a flick, if I can’t recall the storyline a day later, then that’s my barometer as to whether it’s a winner or a loser and ……what was Avatar about???????
All I can speak of is my initial reaction to the film’s nominated when I saw them in Theaters. I enjoyed Inglorious Basterds, Avatar, Up In The Air, Up, District 9 and The Hurt Locker. Personally, I think “The Hangover” and “(500) Days of Summer” should have made the list of 10 nominees. I thought Precious was a bit too depressing for me to enjoy myself (the acting was great though), The Blind Side was average at best (Rudy was better than The Blind Side), An Education was good (not great) with solid acting and direction, and A Serious Man was also average but with great acting and writing.
In regards to Avatar & The Hurt Locker, if I had to choose between the two, I’d choose Avatar. Not because I think it is profoundly better, because I enjoyed both films. I simply think when talking about a Best Picture, one should consider the quality of the Production and the effect the film had on its audience.
The Hurt Locker was a great film, worthy of recognition, unfortunately the story obviously didn’t interest anyone. People responded to Avatar, The reviews for the film were very good. Yes the acting was sub-par, and the dialogue may not have been great, but the story was obviously captivating (look at its worldwide gross, people went multiple times to see the film). Most people didn’t care to even see The Hurt Locker once.
Personally, I thought the best story in a motion picture this year was Inglorious Basterds, but every one and their mother is considering the Best Picture race a two horse event.
who are these bozos on this thread? do you even know what a good movie is? if you thought Avatar was a good movie with a “great storyline” then you are either a studio head or you should work for the Academy. idiot children, please let the adults have one night at the awards with Hurt Locker.