Propaganda we pay for...in more ways than one

[RZM]

8. Different strokes I guess

I think one big difference between the movies was the way the message was presented. Avatar kind of beat you over the head with it. It was quite obvious who the villains were, who the heroes were, and what you were supposed to take away from it. The Hurt Locker was much more nuanced. There was a lot of moral ambiguity and such. Personally, I prefer the latter approach, because I like being challenged that way. I don't often like having the message handed to me on a platter. I suspect other academy members felt the same way.

I just looked over the nominees from that year and I saw about half of them. If I were to rank how much I enjoyed each, I would actually put both Avatar and the Hurt Locker at the bottom. I probably would have voted for Hurt Locker though, because when you add everything up (strength of story, acting, direction, script, etc.) it was probably the strongest all around film that year, if not the most entertaining. Up in the Air and Inglorious Basterds were more fun, but not really deserving of Best Picture.