Judging from our last poll, most readers seem to think James Cameron’s “Avatar” will rack up the most Oscar nominations in just under a month’s time. But does it deserve to win the big prize, as a great many prognosticators are currently expecting? The debate is raging elsewhere, but let us know your cut-and-dry answer in the sidebar poll and feel free to explain your position in the comments section below.
Comments
133 responses to “POLL: Does ‘Avatar’ deserve to win Best Picture?”
All of the likely nominees deserve to win before Avatar, even Precious, which I found profoundly overrated. Even (seemingly) impossible nominees like Princess and the Frog, Moon, Watchmen, hell even Observe and Report should be there before Avatar.
I agree with most users here. It’s a technical achievement but the story is rubbish. Even Star Trek deserves it more: it balances a good script with good visual effects.
Anyway, I would give it to: A Serious Man, The Hurt Locker, 500 Days of Summer, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Damned United, In the Loop, Bright Star… So many deserving films out there. All more deserving than Avatar.
@ Conner
You don’t get 94% COTC by just being pretty. And you don’t get 1.5b or whatever the final gross is by being mentioned in the same breathe as Transformers and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Turns out all the stuff Cameron was saying at the beginning of the year about Avatar was 100% true. That stings, no one likes a show off, especially one that does it twice!
In the end, it truly comes down to personal taste. You can’t argue against numbers and critical support and precusors, those are facts. They don’t change no matter how hard you stare at them. You can say “I don’t think Avatar is worthy and here’s why…” and that’s totally cool. And it’s also 100% opinion.
Look, a reasonable observer can’t discredit Avatar’s achievements thus far. You don’t have to be happy about it but you can’t discredit it.
I think anyone who thought “The Dark Knight” should’ve won Best Picture is automatically disqualified from arguing that “Avatar” has too weak a story to win.
Irishman: I agree with you there, 100%.
I already explained my position thoroughly on another post by Kris. A good picture is a holistic experience, and Avatar was purely aesthetic, so NO.
I enjoyed the movie, but I can’t agree with Kris or anyone in his school of thought who believes this film changed something. All it did was reinforce the fact that the general public likes to spend its money on loud, stupid, glitzy films.
I’m going to join Tom O’Neils lonely but nonetheless militant camp and hang onto Basterds, my personal favorite of the year.
I want a Basterds win more than anything as well.
@ The Irishman
Totally agree with that one!
Basterds will win screenplay and nothing more, and even that is too much credit.
Anyhow, Avatar deserves it currently (and probably because I haven’t seen many of the serious contenders yet, except IB). The thing is, it’d be good for a change to let something win that people care for and know. Nobody would feel ashamed because the movie is a milestone and within 10 years time nobody’s gonna argue with it anymore. I can’t imagine that with any of the other contenders, especially the supposedly “zeitgeisty” Up In The Air.
Wrong, on so many levels.
“Basterds will win screenplay and nothing more, and even that is too much credit.”
Jon, So you don’t think Christoph Waltz will win (or deserves to win, because it would be too much credit) for Best Supporting? Now that I just don’t get.
And again, I don’t see how this film is a milestone. I just don’t. Aside from the solid CGI, sometime kindly explain to me how this film is any sort of breakthrough worthy of adulation.
If the Academy selects this film, it’s going to be one big, patronizing pat on the head to all of us, whether we liked the film or not. “Good for you–you all went to see another James Cameron blockbuster. That makes it the best of the year. Let’s celebrate!”
I’m getting a huge gooser on my head from hitting on my desk so many times.
”District 9″ is infinitely more deserving. It has a great screenplay. “Avatar” does not. Hope it doesn’t impact “District 9” getting in.
Why can’t box office champs be measured by number of tickets sold, not $$$ brought in. Wouldn’t that be the true measure of a film’s popularity?
Nice catch Megan, I didn’t even think about Waltz with what he was saying. I guess I’ve become used to thinking of that category as decided!
And seriously, if you think no one will care in ten years, you’re wrong: we all still talk about the bad choices the academy has made in the past. This would join them.
See, this is a case where I think a lot of the desire to see it fall short (or at least the belief that it’s undeserving of success) results less from the movie and more from the perception of James Cameron as a megalomaniacal dick. I saw a lot of the same thing happen when “Inglourious Basterds” was at Cannes, which seemingly evaporated once it went wide, for whatever reason. And if that IS your rationale, take comfort in the fact that you’ll probably get to see Jimmy Boy do his best Bill Murray as his ex-wife walks past him to accept Best Director.
@ The Irishman
Is that a joke? The Dark Knight has critical meditations on the differences between good and evil and it wraps that message in a comic book delivery. Nolan crafted original pop-art.
Avatar is a blue Pocahontas.
Anyhow, any movie that stars Sam “the next Gerard Butler” Worthington deserves ZERO awards attention.
“….critical meditations on the differences between good and evil”
Wow, you just defined a superhero comic. SPOILER ALERT! The difference was “The bad guy kills people whereas the good guy does a Marge Simpson impression and pulls him off a rooftop.”
You tell ’em, Kyle! I am far superior as a lead! I can purse my lips and mumble in at least three different ways!
Give it a special achievement Oscar, but not Best Picture!
The Dark Knight had one of the worst second acts I’ve ever seen in a highly acclaimed film.
i don’t see anything wrong with AVATAR winning BP, and what’s the point anyway!?
the best film of the year never gets the award anyway! i mean, Slumdog Millionaire was dogshit and won BP and 7 others awards, the same goes for Shakespeare in Love and Chicago
@Irishman
I won’t disagree with you that super-hero comics have trudged the same territory for years, but sadly the films they adapt never properly cover that same source material. Case in point, the Spider-Man films…they’re basically all rollicking cheese fests. To The Dark Knight’s credit it asks the tough kinds of questions that the work of Alan Moore and Frank Miller (and others) present…”Do the ends justify the means?” “At what point does idolatry end and tyranny begin?” “Are the lives of the accused equal to that of the common man?” Those are just the random ones off the top of my head.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s an original story to its medium, and perhaps you didn’t like it, but originality is not something that Avatar has in its corner.
rather I meant to say
“the films that adapt them”
4 words: Tom O’Neil Guy Lodge.
And while I certainly recognize that Christian Bale hasn’t performed up to snuff lately; until Sam Worthington hits a performance with as many high notes as Bale’s Patrick Bateman or his interpretation of Dieter Dengler there’s not much sense in comparing the two. Worthington still has yet to master his ability to sound like Russell Crowe.
YES! I don`t even know why this question is asked now. Why not when that dogshit Slumdog Millionaire was raking in awards left and right and BAFTA even embarrassed themselves by nominated that chick who made bad sandwitches in the movie and had only one facial expression for Best Fucking Actress or Supporting Actress,I don`t care. That shit won everything! Avatar is deserving and if there`s justice it`ll win.
Wow a lot of Avatar haters, must be disappointed Precious supporters. The best film I’ve seen from 2009, hope the Academy doesn’t pull a Crash and give it to a lesser film.
@Ninja: AMEN to what you said man!
Exactly Yogsam!
All the sudden these Oscar fans are worried about quality. OH DEAR LORD NO, NOT AVATAR, NOOOOOOO. ANYTHING BUT AVATAR. ARGHHHHHHHHH.
It’s as if these people have never seen an Oscar race before. I don’t know, maybe they haven’t?
@loyal
I’ve been watching the oscars since “English Patient” won BP (i’m 21 years old) and the disappointment you get from the awards seasons can be CRUSHING some times, specially wen “Saving Private ryan” didn’t get BP…TO F*CKING SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE!!!! T_T
Quality is not all it matters when it comes to the Oscars, there is a lot of other factors that make a film deserving of BP, and i think AVATAR has a bunch of them on its hand
Relax people! is not the end of the world! (and is not another CRASH winning BP, god damn!!)
It doesn’t deserve to win, but I wouldn’t be furious if it did.
when, not wen !
and by the way, if you like to go by the numbers, AVATAR is up there with the reviews of UP IN THE AIR,District 9 and Star Trek, and superior to PRECIOUS and I.Bastards (on MC and stuff)
…and i actually HATED Precious but looooved BASTARDS, specially Christoph Waltz!
I feel like 3 movies deserve best picture this year. Avatar being one of them. I cant decide.
Give it to Sugar!
Doesn’t Avatar look like Delgo?
http://img.denihilation.com/delgovatar.html
Slumdog Millionaire was a better film than Avatar…
If Avatar even gets a BP nom, it can thank the trail blazed by TDK to push the nominees to 10.
After last year, I enjoy the well-crafted films on their own merit and could care less about the awards shows. They’re meaningless to me now.
Mr. Tapley, I’m 57 and read IN CONTENTION daily. I’ve followed the Oscar races for 30 years (longer,of course, than some of your readers have been alive). The idea of a “deserving best picture” has been debated in every one of those years. It is probably not possible to get a consensus because the whole basis of the Academy Awards is the combination of art and commerce. In all our enthusiasm, we forget it is an industry award. The BP choice rarely satisfies both critics and audiences. The choice seems to have more to do with the academy’s mood in each particular year. Both AVATAR and UP IN THE AIR appear to say something about the state of our times. Each type [not genre] has won before: the small and character driven;the grand and visually stunning. Whichever film is chosen, the academy[much to the frustration of oscar buffs] will define “deserving.”
No, no. no.
@andrew: WOW!! it really looks like DELGO
@craig: I don’t think is better, at least for me, it was a complete mess of a film, i really hated it, and i love Danny Boyle’s previous works, but SM was a complete clusterf*ck (for me, is OK if you don’t think the same )
…and i hope you guys ask the same question about “PRECIOUS” “BASTARD” “HURT LOCKER” and the rest of the bunch of possible nominees
Well Precious doesn’t have a chance in hell, so they shouldn’t bother making that poll.
Avatar had amazement in it.
Did The Hurt Locker? No. No it didn’t. Standard filmmaking right there.
And the award for stupidest comment goes to…
@Craig: come on!!! i want to know the winner’s name! T_T
nothing would make me happier than Avatar winning
Slumdog Millionaire proves that a special sort of madness can easily take hold around Oscar time which anoints a “just OK” movie as the big winner. I’m putting Avatar in the Slumdog slot.
Avatar will dwarf Titanic.
“deserve”?
Movies don’t “deserve”
awards. They “win” them.
The fact that this question is being asked about only one film speaks volumns.
It will sweep the Academy Awards because nothing succeeds like success and everyone loves a winner.
Deserves it more than the overrated ‘Hurt Locker’, but not more than ‘Inglourious’ or ‘Up in the Air’.
Why Does Everyone Like That Godd*mn film???
Hurt Locker? Not me. Boring.
Hurt Locker? Not me. Nice direction/performances/craftsmanship. Boring.