National Scene Magazine April 2010 Entertainment Article

National Scene Magazine April 2010 Entertainment Article

http://www.nationalscenemagazine.com/html/entertainment.html


Was ‘The Hurt Locker’ Really the Best Movie of the Year?

Critics Argue Whether the War Movie Was Really Better than the Sci-Fi ‘Avatar’

Written by: Karen Benardello



By the time Tom Hanks walked out onto the Oscar stage on March 7 to announce the night’s biggest winner, Best Picture, the Iraq War-themed drama, ‘The Hurt Locker,’ seemed like a sure bet. After all, Kathryn Bigelow just bet out her ex-husband, James Cameron, who helmed the highest-grossing movie of all time, ‘Avatar,’ to become the first woman to ever win the Best Director Academy Award. Her movie also received top honors from such groups as the Producers Guild, BAFTA, Broadcast Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics, so it came as no surprise that it also won the Best Picture Oscar.

But some critics and fans are questioning whether ‘The Hurt Locker’ was really better than ‘Avatar.’ The war-themed movie is the lowest-grossing movie ever to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, raking in a mere $21.3 million against an $11 million budget. It also saw a limited theatrical release, never appearing on more than 535 screens nationwide, while ‘Avatar’ was released in December, and is still being shown on thousands of theaters. The sci-fi movie was number one at the box office for seven weeks, and was the first film to gross over $2 dollars.

‘The Hurt Locker,’ like many movies based on the Iraq War, had trouble finding an audience, as many people like going to the movies to be entertained, instead of dwelling on real life. The movie was also hit with attacks from the military, who questioned how real the bomb-removal unit was. Others thought it used propaganda to persuade people to join the army.

Bigelow’s movie was also distributed by Summit Entertainment, a relatively new and small company that never won an Oscar before. Before ‘The Hurt Locker,’ its biggest hits were the teen favorites ‘Twilight’ and ‘New Moon,’ which only won awards selected by fans, including MTV Movie Awards. Summit also picked up ‘The Hurt Locker’ in September 2008, but didn’t release it theatrically until a year later because its schedule was too crowded.

There was also debate over Summit’s public relations choice for the movie. The distributor picked PR firm 42 West, with veteran campaigner Cynthia Swartz in the lead. She stirred up criticism for waiting to send DVD copies of the movie to Academy voters until early December, whereas many directors like to have their movies sent out earlier to have the biggest impact. But Swartz seemed to impress the voters by also sending them bound scripts of the movie. She also focused the PR campaign on Bigelow and writer/producer Mark Boal, who wrote the screenplay after working as an embedded journalist with a bomb disposal unit in Iraq.

While Cameron was recognized by the Academy for his visual achievements in ‘Avatar’ by winning Best Visual Effects and Art Direction, voters seemed to favor the underdog overall, and wanted to award a movie set in reality, instead of outer-space.