The Culture Queer (dotcom)

Holy Southern Belle at a football game, Batman!  The Blind Side is nominated for Best Picture of the Year!

This year, the Academy nominated 10 films for Best Picture in the hopes of getting a better representation of the motion picture industry.  With 10 films being nominated, the Academy could consider often overlooked audiences-favorites like Pixar films–WALL-E & Ratatouille deserved some recognition–and critically-acclaimed summer blockbusters like The Dark Knight.  The Academy hopes people will care about the Oscars again and more importantly tune in to the telecast.

I feel the Academy did what it set out to do with this crop of nominated films:

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

These films represent a range of human emotions: from the tension of watching American soldiers in Iraq (The Hurt Locker) to the whimsy of watching an old man fulfill his dream of going on a balloon adventure (Up). Historical events can be treated as comical fantasy (WWII in Inglourious Basterds) or as allegorical science-fiction (Apartheid in District 9).  There are gritty realities like poor Precious and there are fabulous fantasies like Pandora of Avatar.  There’s definitely something for everyone in this crop of films, and I can’t wait to find out what audiences think.  Much discussion is certain to be had in the coming month before the grand finale at the Kodak Theater this March.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Oscar Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.