With wins at the Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild, and British Academy Awards, The Hurt Locker has clearly been racking up the major pre-Oscar prizes in the last month. In fact, with the exception of a couple big-ticket losses at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards, Kathryn Bigelow’s film has nearly accomplished the same sweep that Slumdog Millionaire pulled off last year. By that yardstick, the film seems like a sure thing to win the Best Picture Oscar on March 7, particularly because those two high-profile losses came at the hands of two different films (Avatar at the Globes, Inglourious Basterds at SAG) rather than one.
But then I started looking at Brokeback Mountain‘s pre-Oscar record from four years ago and I found some striking similarities. Brokeback managed the rare feat of winning Best Picture and Best Director at both the New York and Los Angeles film critics awards; so did Hurt Locker. Brokeback also picked up those two big prizes at the Broadcast Film Critics Awards; so did Hurt Locker. Brokeback won the trifecta of PGA, DGA, and WGA trophies; so did Hurt Locker. Brokeback won 4 BAFTAs, including Best Film, Director, and Screenplay; Hurt Locker picked up 6 awards, including Best Film, Director, and Screenplay. And of course, Brokeback lost the SAG cast award, and so did Hurt Locker. (The main difference between the two films’ tallies is that Brokeback did win four Globes, including Best Drama and Best Director, while Hurt Locker went 0 for 3.)
All of this is on my mind right now because we’re about to put our Oscar Odds issue to bed (it’ll be on stands this Friday), and it’s really making me think twice about my prediction that The Hurt Locker will emerge victorious on March 7. There’s still a distinct possibility that Hurt Locker will mirror Brokeback yet again and win three Oscars (let’s say Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing) but lose the big one to a more easily-digestible rival, in this case Avatar. But I’m swayed by the argument (best articulated by Steve Pond over at The Wrap) that even if Avatar scores the most No. 1 votes, The Hurt Locker is likely to perform better in subsequent rounds of voting, since Bigelow’s film may have more No. 2 and No. 3 rankings than Avatar will. So, fully knowing that I may end up being wrong, I’m sticking with The Hurt Locker. I leave it to you all to tell me if I’m right or wrong. Oh, and to follow me on Twitter (@davekarger) as the Oscar season finally comes to an end.
Brokeback Mountain was severely overrated. The Hurt Locker has been seriously underrated. Slumdog was rated just about right.
The Hurt Locker is hands down the best film of the year. Treat it as such.
I agree – THE HURT LOCKER was definitely the best film of the year.
Hell yeah!!!
The Hurt Locker is seriously overrated, and if the producer is begging for votes toward voters, then their is problem (including veteran who claim the film and it’s false depiction). The award will go (and should go) to Avatar.
Wow are you wrong. Slumdog is plain awful – it is dreck that should have been left to a direct to dvd destiny. Its artifical hype and praise was the work of teh academy to penetrate into the Indian market by generating goodwill. Seriously, do you honestly think 20 yrs from now people will remember this movie at all? I doubt it.
AGREED!!! Slumdog was so overrated. Annoying, contrived, poorly acted…I watched the Oscars in disbelief.
The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, deserves best picture!
OMG, “Slumdog” was a piece of over-rated drivel; could barely sit through it. “Hurt Locker” is the same ol’ same ol’–not getting the love for it. “Brokeback”, however, was ROBBED of Best Picture due to the love for the over-rated “Crash”.
Yes, they will. And long alternate reality theory short, if Danny Boyle had directed The Lovely Bones instead of Peter Jackson, it would have been a FAR successful movie.
Slumdog Millionaire is 10x better than The Hurt Locker. At least Slumdog had a story. I felt I was watching a documentary after I saw Locker. Locker is the overrated one.
NO. Avatar is.
THE HURT LOCKER overrated? Ian, what’s your eduational level? Does everything need to have a “story?” THE HURT LOCKER had a narrative, albeit untraditional, and maybe that was the filmakers’ point. No happy endings.
I saw both films, and tried to judge fairly, but WOW…I didn’t think The Hurt Locker was that great. The award should go to either Avatar or Inglorious Basterds…with the award going to Avatar, because it has changed films forever. An achievement that should be recognized.
I Think all three of them were gauged about right. Of couse, in 2005 A History of Violence deserved the Oscar, but that’s neither here nor there, because Crash beat Brokeback, which is wrong. A mean MAYBE Brokeback was LITTLE overrated because everyone though Gay cowboys were so edgy, but it was nonetheless a sublime work of art.
Slumdog was at best ok. I found it to be quite boring honestly. Certainly NOT best picture, that was absurd!! The Hurt Locker was the best picture of 2009, hands down. Avatar is not even close. Without the special effects that movie is nothing. There is a catagory for Avavtar: special effects, thats it.
The Hurt Locker is just as overrated. The story is incredibly simplistic, the main character has no arc and the message is derivative. Inglorious Basterds was the complete package in 2009.
Completely agree — IB was the best film of the year. Not to diminish her as a director, but had Bigelow been a man the movie would be looked on as just standard fare. Women don’t traditionally direct movies like this, and she did a very good job, but that’s the REAL reason the movie is getting the praise. On their own, side by side, IB is more ambitious, more sweeping, and more creative than HL. Avatar is technically great, but the story is very boilerplate. I’m kind of upset Up in the Air isn’t being mentioned as a contender. I thought it was brilliant, and IB’s only real competition (since Up’s animation nomination all but eliminates it as a serious contender for best movie).
I agree. Its just a series of missions, one after the other, no real narrative and no reason to really care about the characters. It was good, just not best picture quality.
Main character has no arc? Are you kidding? The theme of this AMAZING film, “War is a drug”, is a HUGE arc that he follows throughout the entire film. His addiction to war gradually increases until he finds himself running through the streets in civilian clothes in order to further satisfy his addiction. Jeremy Renner gives a powerhouse of a performance in this film – and is rightly nominated.
Agreed…”Inglorious Basterds” was, hands down, the most original film of 2009. But “District 9″ comes in a close second. One of those two should win the Oscar.
In my mind, they haven’t given the actual best movie the “Best” award in years. It usually goes to some dull so-called ‘serious’ movie that you can barely sit through or would want to watch again. They try to hard to tell us what is ‘good’. Remember the days when the best movies actually won the award? Like “The Sound of Music” and “The Godfather”?
I can remember another little movie that had a story line that was incredibly simplistic…
It was called PLATOON (1986)
The Hurt Locker mirror’s an image, just like Platoon did…
The Hurt Locker, just as Platoon
will win the big one.
Why?
They share the same mantra,
that we all share today…..
“Just another day, stayin alive”
These kind of movies deserve to win the gold… A story that is incredibly simplistic, but also holds major ramifications in todays world….
@Joe – I have a major problem with the “War is a drug” theme. First, it is clear that Mackie and Geraghty’s characters can’t wait to get out of Iraq. They aren’t addicted to it. Second, Sergeant James doesn’t get more crazy and addled by war as time progresses, he is nuts to begin with.
Frank, that’s the point. You kind of have to be nuts to begin with to be a bomb diffuser. War gives James a purpose. It’s the film simple but powerful message.
Agree Jason. Loved Inglorious Basterds and love Up in the Air. Hurt Locker was good, just not as good as the other movies. I don’t know why anyone thinks Avatar is a contender. It didn’t even get nominated for Original Screenplay.
@springs: True, AVATAR did not get nominated for Original Screenplay. But neither did TITANIC, another special effects-laden, grand-scale blockbuster directed by James Cameron that some people are afraid to admit they liked… and THAT FILM took home the Best Picture Oscar!
Four years later, it still saddens me to read about the Brokeback backlash that cost it the Best Pic Oscar. It won everything that year and was hands-down the best movie of that year. Political nonsense and ignorance factored into the voting.
Dude, no I’m sorry Brokeback Mountain is painfully boring. Yes the cinematography is incredible and it is a beautiful movie, but it is essentially a screen-saver. My wife and I fast forwarded through at least 30 minutes and it still felt like it lasted forever.
Brokeback Mountain was a great movie, it definately deserved to win best picture. But, pretty much all the movies that year deserved to win before Crash did. It had a pretty good performance from Matt Dillon, but otherwise, it was pretty tv movieish. Not a bad movie, just not an especially good one.
I Agree!!!
Brokeback holds up more over time than Crash does for me.
Brokeback was Robbed!
Like I did when seeing AVATAR, I fell asleep during the first hour of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Apples and oranges, though. Upon a second viewing of BROKEBACK (when I could fast-forward through the first hour of livestock herding), I really enjoyed the film.
Agree with the Brokeback comment and the Hurt Locker comment
Brokeback was a WAY better movie than Crash. I was incredibly disappointed when Crash won Best Picture.
I hate Crash. It is easily the worst film to win BP at the Academy Awards. It is so bent on trying to make points that it never tried to give its characters legitimate motivation for doing what they did. In other words, in the real world, teh Ryan Phillippe would have never shot the Larenz Tate character. Paul Haggis, your movie is so full of itself, it sucks!!!
Crash was pretty good I thought, but Brokeback was better
Paul Haggis does this. He’s so convicted about the points he wants to make that his characters are just sock puppets. He even ruined “Flags of Our Fathers” with that kind of “let’s make a point!” crap. Brokeback started slow but the climax — at the whitewashed house, not the trailer with the shirts — was gutpunching.
I am actually rooting for Basterds now. Hurt Locker is somewhat overrated. It’s not particularly realistic in its storyline; I can’t believe a man like that, in today’s army, would have been reprimanded and desked or more before he got to that point. It’s a wonderfully suspenseful picture with great performances, but the basic conceit of the plot just doesn’t hold with me.
Actually I found both Hurt Locker and Brokeback highly overrated. Avatar all the way.
I agree with TorontoTom. I think the backlash did hurt Brokeback’s chances at the Oscars. In general, people only saw it for the hype (“ohh, Heath and Jake are doing it!”) and it quickly was labelled the gay cowboy movie. As we all know, most of our society see gay as freaky and abnormal, so that’s all people could focus on.
In addition, in the gay community, the over-hyped sex scene didn’t seem realistic. Thus, they said this isn’t accurate and began to dismiss the story altogether.
In my opinion, no matter how the gay sex scene was portrayed, in general, most gay and straight people would have been dissatisfied with it. Most couldn’t get past it.
Ang Lee was smart to tackle this scene early, and get it out of the way, so that the viewer could focus on the real story … a story about love that would not be allowed because of society views, and the hurt these judgements caused to a lot of people (not just the gay men, but the families. the wives. the daughter wanting to be close to her dad was especially sad to me).
Unfortunately, many people couldn’t stop focussing on the “sex” scene, and missed the point. For those that could, it will remain a movie classic.
LOL, no Brokeback was not ‘overrated.’ History will show that it was by far the more relevant picture, and Crash, while good, had been done before. How many movies have we seen about racial tention? Bla bla bla. Brokeback should have won.
Brokeback Mountain is NOT overrated…you have to see it more than once…Slumdog was TOTALLY overrated…
Brokeback and The Hurt Locker were BOTH overrated.
Relevancy does not equal brilliance.
If so, where are the Oscars for My Own Private Idaho and United 93 (itself nominated and snubbed because it was “Scorsese’s time.”)?
The Departed was BEAST!
Brokeback was just good.
Agree with the above. Didn’t see BB…I saw Slumdog and HL. Both excellent movies.
Bigelowe will def get the director’s win….it’s past time for a woman to win.
I think there are quite a few differences between the great “Brokeback Mountain” and the wonderful “The Hurt Locker” in terms of Oscar race. First the movie that stole best picture from “BM” was “Crash”, an inferior movie but with a huge support from the actors (it was a much more of an “actors’ movie” than “BM” and the actors’ branch of the academy has a lot of weight in the voting) and from LA residents (a bulk of Academy voters). Second “BM” subject was homosexuality…(sorry guys but I still think that even if we are talking about the 21st century, US and California we are still not there yet…). Those, besides the fact that “BM” viscerality surpasses in terms of discomfort on the audience any discomfort that “Crash” managed to deliver, were the reasons why I think “BM” lost.
Let´s look at this year race. It is true that while still being a good movie, “Avatar” is more of an easy-listening movie than”THL”. Having said that I think everyone as by now surpassed the wonderful technical achievements of “Avatar” and started to think globally about the picture. “The Hurt Locker” is simply a better film. Although “THL” subject matter is not a walk in the park, it is not prone to provoke the same type of discomfort that BM might provoked. “Avatar” is a much less “actors’ movie” than “Crash” was and that “THL” is. “Avatar” has to do with a science fiction world and “THL” has to do with the USA and the Middle East war. For all these reasons I think we will not see a second “BM” in the making, certainly I would not want to see it again and I hope it doesn´t happen. Looking at the best picture nominees from the last couple of years it seems obvious to me that the academy is trying to get away from its own clichés and actually, and this is the most important, reward better films, independent of their origin. If “THL” wins this is the living proof that this is happening and things are changing, and loving the Oscars anyway I enjoy the diversity and the chance that every movie has, having had box-office success or not, to be up their racing for the best picture price…as long as it is a GOOD movie…
Of course if we were making the mistake of thinking that “Avatar” is the direct contender of “THL” and actually it was “Inglourious Basterds”, this post might be a little different. If this last scenario was to be true as far as my opinion goes “THL” and “Inglourious Basterds” are so glorious that the price would be on good hands anyway…even doe “THL” is so simple and achieves so much that I would still prefer it to win…sorry Quentin I love you as a filmmaker man, but these year “THL” blow me away…loved to see you pick up the best adapted screenplay Oscar doe, because I honest believe that it is better one than “THL” …Good luck to “THL”…and to “Inglourious Basterds”.
Sorry everyone, when I wrote Best Adapted Screenplay I meant Best Original Screenplay. Mistake correct.
I agree. Brokeback Mountain was extremely overrated. Same with Slumdog. In fact I find Slumdog to be a non Oscar conmtender let alone a winner. At least this years awards will be interesting, hopefully. To hell with Avatar. Without the special effects that movie is nothing. No film should be nominated just for special effects. Ridiculous.
you’re an idiot. brokeback was the best film of the decade. saying it was overrated makes anything else you say pointless.
this has to be one of the most MOST overrated films ever
Don’t underestimate Inglourious Basterds!
Or The Blind Side!
TOTALLY kidding. Seriously, if anyone places that movie higher than last place, they deserve to get their voting priviliges revoked.
I had a nightmare last night. Avatar won Best Picture.
That would be a nightmare, Jonathan F. I really hope “The Hurt Locker” wins BP (or atleast anything OTHER THAN “Avatar”).
I had a nightmare that The Blind Side won Best Picture, woke up, and promptly splashed cold water on my face and attempted to pull myself together.
JC I think that Slumdog was overrated and the Benjamin Button should have one. But this year I really dont know. Both Avatar and Hurt Locker were great films. This is one we will just have to wait and see.
Since you didn’t know that it’s “Won” not “one”, I’m not shocked that you liked “Benjamin Button” more than an amazing film like “Slumdog.”
Zing!
Benjamin Button LOL. I’d almost forgotten about that piece of crap.
benjamin Button sucked the big one
‘Slumdog.’ ‘Brokeback’ lost for a number of political reasons, and was up against another politically-themed movie that was much more easy for voters to digest. There simply isn’t an alternative choice to ‘Hurt Locker’ — unless you count ‘Avatar,’ but, be honest, does Hollywood REALLY want to give James Cameron another Oscar? I say no.
Yes, there is an alternative PC film to The Hurt Locker and it is called Precious. I think it is the Crash of 2009.
Precious won’t win because, unlike Crash and Slumdog Millionaire that could make bleeding hearts feel uplifted and hopeful at the end of the mediocre films, Precious is just too depressing. Brokeback should have won, Slumdog shouldn’t have, Hurt Locker SHOULD but if Up In The Air wins, I won’t complain. Avatar is too long and too obvious and while good, definitely not great.
Actually I don’t think Brokeback should have won, well made and acted but it just wasn’t an interesting movie. Good Night and Good Luck or Munich I found to be much better movies
I’m still pulling for The Hurt Locker to win. It’s got the momentum right now and is a better picture than Slumdog Millionaire overall.
Homophobia won’t be a factor this time.
Exactly, I think that was what sunk BB that year.
Didn’t some insider say that “John Wayne would roll over in his grave”?
If so, huuuge WTF.
Didn’t seem to be with Sean Penn’s win last year
Best Picture and Best Actor are two different stories. There have been a few winning ‘gay’ performances (Hanks, Hurt, Theron…). Actually, ‘Milk’ was the front-runner for awhile, until ‘Slumdog’ picked up steam.
There was a few years in between Brokeback and Milk. BB was the 1st real blockbuster that dealt with homosexual issues head on. Things have evolved, even in the short time between those 2 movies.
Unless Colin Firth is snubbed for that reason.
Hopefully it’s a “Slumdog” sign. Go “Hurt Locker!”
The Hurt Locker will still win. It will have a TON of #1 votes (so many that it could possibly win just based on those #1 votes) and anyone who doesn’t rank it #1 will probably have it at #2 or #3.
Exactly. I can see Avatar getting slammed in the #2 and 3 votes. People fall into 2 camps on Avatar: Best picture of the year, or technical achievement with good effects but not quite best picture material. It MIGHT beat hurt locker in number 1′s, but it’s gonna get slammed elsewhere.
I don’t think Avatar is runner up to Hurt Locker, personally. I think Basterds is the second most likely.
In a surprise upset, “The Hurt Locker” and “Avatar” will both lose(!) to “Inglourious Basterds.”
What a nightmare that would be.
Amen to that!!!
That’s a Bingo!
It would be decent to see UP win, too.
I would be fine with that. Hurt locker is a good movie and deserves a nomination but I think it is a bit overrated. I wouldn’t be upset if it won but I think Inglourious Basterds is just as worthy.
This isn’t an impossible scenario. With the new voting system, I think those Basterds could take advantage of a split vote and head off with the Oscar. At least that’s what I’m hoping for – go IB!
I would LOVE if Inglorious Basterds won. It is in a 3 way tie between The Hurt Locker and Up for my favorite film of the year (I literally can’t decide). But I feel like The Hurt Locker will win, and it won’t go down the Brokeback Mountain path simply because The Hurt Locker is not about gay cowboys. I love Brokeback Mountain, it should have won; however, the academy was not ready to award such a powerful gay film. So they gave it to Crash, a very good but much more polarizing movie. So since The Hurt Locker is not about that, the academy will have no problem awarding it BP.
I’m wondering if with this new, weird voting system that maybe UP could squeak thru & surprise everyone as maybe the best-reviewed film of the year with a really passionate fan base
Thank you. The only way they can compare “Hurt Locker” to “Brokeback Mountain” is if the Academy members have the same aversion for depictions of the Iraq War that they had for depictions of homosexual romance.
Hurt Locker is a good film but overrated..so is Avatar..the vast majority of viewers Oscar night are gonna be scratching their heads(and saying the Academy doesn’t get it)if Avatar doesn’t win.Personally I liked District 9 and Basterds better.
Totally agree. Hurt Locker is overrated. It’s not the type of movie that I would want to see more than once.
Okay Karger, you have officially proven you shouldn’t be allowed to do this column because you deliberately avoided the major reason Crash won: the homosexual content of Brokeback Mountain made the older, more conservative members of the Academy feel uncomfortable. We all know that’s why it didn’t win (and this is coming from someone who didn’t even like the movie and thinks Crash is garbage) and the fact you decided against even mentioning it dispells the rumor you’re some kind of journalist.
Amen.
Was just about to post my response when I saw Mark’s, which says everything I wanted to say (except that I loved Brokeback, and still do). How could you ignore the part that homophobia played in Crash’s victory at the Oscars?
No sorry guys Brokeback Mountain was so mind numbingly boring. The controversial nature of that movie is the only reason it WAS nominated. It is a great love story that just happens to be about 45 minutes too long. So very boring.
THANK YOU!!. Though it was really well made so I think that is also kind of why it got nominate, but either way Crash is maybe the worst best picture ever (not worst upset just worst movie)
Brokeback Mountain Forever!
The insipid Crash win over Brokeback is one of the biggest jokes in recent Oscar history, right up there with Shakespeare in love beating Saving Private Ryan. There are a lot of parallels here, but this race is missing the homophobia factor of the Crash win and the Miramax-machine influence of the ’98 race. Even though I think Inglorious Basterds is far superior to both films, I’d still call Hurt Locker the favorite. Still, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see Avatar win.
I don’t get why people thought Saving Private Ryan was a better film than Shakespeare in Love. With the exception of the first 20 minutes of visual effects, Ryan was a pretty ordinary story. And none of the actors–including Tom Hanks–turned in a performance to write home about. Overall, Shakespeare had a much better story, was much better written, and had much butter performances. It deserved the Oscar for Best Picture. Get over it.
Agreed.
Harvery Weinstein is that you?
mmmm… much butter
John turn in your man card. Shakespeare in Love had a better story??? That movie had the most cliched over done story. It was a story that has been done over and over and over again. Just because that film did it better than the previous attempts doesn’t mean it was an outstanding film.
I agree with this. “Saving Private Ryan” is brilliant for its first 30 minutes and totally average afterward. “Shakespeare in Love” is clever on a lot of different levels, and the more you know about Shakespeare, the smarter and funnier you realize it is.
The scene where the Nazi slowly stabs the Jewish solider is just average (just to pick one scene)? Our tastes on movies differ wildly
There is nothing clever about the tired story of a woman wanting to act in a Shakespeare play so she dresses up as a man and they fall in love. Also the whole thing where Shakespeare got his play ideas from another playwrite? That was my term paper thesis in TENTH GRADE.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???????????????????????????????? THAT IS AN INSULT TO AN AMAZING MOVIE!!! SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE IS PURE GARBAGE!!!! JUST LIKE SLUMDOG MILLIONARE AND THE READER!!!! SAVING PRIVATE RYAN IS ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE WAR MOVIES EVER AND ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MOVIES OF ALL TIME!!! IT DESERVED TO WIN BEST PICTURE!!!
Saving Private Ryan is not as good as its snub at the Oscars has made it seem; its fable, Seven-Samurai plot was essentially implausible. (Now, the actual story of the Niland brothers, which inspired the premise of finding Ryan, THAT would have been something.) But Shakespeare In Love is a very inconsequential movie. Entertaining? Clever? Full of lit-major intellectual titillation? Yes. But not as worthy as Ryan, flawed as it is. That was pure Harvey machine. Ironically now I hope Harvey’s machine works for Basterds.