While most of the film blogosphere is wondering why Sony hasn’t yet greenlit a District 9 sequel, our old friends at the Oscar blogs are addressing a potential awards campaign for the sci-fi hit. According to Peter Bart at Variety, an Academy screening of the film over the weekend was very well received (best applause in years? come on), and the news has sparked buzz of a possible Best Picture nod. After all, there are ten available slots this year.
Honestly, I enjoyed the movie very much, but if it’s being considered Oscar-worthy, I’ll be the first to begin the backlash (against the awards push; Armond White already took care of the general backlash). District 9 shouldn’t be nominated for Best Picture any more than Star Trek should. It shouldn’t even be nominated any more than Transformers 2 should. Regardless of how much better it may be.
And I don’t necessarily have anything against a sci-fi movie being up for the award. If Cameron’s Avatar is groundbreaking and brilliant, give it a nomination. I just want to make it clear that District 9 is very good, but it is not that good. And just saying that it deserves an Oscar campaign adds to the continued depreciation of the Academy Awards.
Read what other film bloggers are saying about the District 9 Oscar buzz after the jump:
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Don’t you just hate when the movies make you care about a bigot? Sure, racists are technically humans, but that doesn’t mean we need to sympathize with them, right? No matter how great the film, it should be very difficult to accept the softening of intolerant people.
Yet the lovable racist is not uncommon in cinema. In fact, out in theaters right now are two films dealing with this type of character. The Reader presents a cold Concentration Camp guard (Kate Winslet) for whom we’re meant to shed a tear, and Gran Torino focuses on a War Veteran stereotype (Clint Eastwood) who may evoke from the audience as much amusement as disgust.
Maybe it’s like picking a scab, watching these kinds of movies. Some great films, such as Downfall, may only welcome an understanding of someone so heinous as Adolph Hitler, but other films have allowed us to totally enjoy racist protagonists of lesser offense. Check out the following examples to see some of the many intolerant heroes we’ve easily tolerated.
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Prior to seeing Then She Found Me, I heedlessly referred to it as “that Helen Hunt movie” and cynically prejudged it as yet another celebrity pet project that was sure to be a misguided and perhaps freewheeling bore. Well, I stand corrected: I absolutely love the film, which was written and directed by the Oscar-winning actress (yeah, I forgot she won one, too), adapted quite loosely from Elinor Lipman’s novel of the same name.
And hopefully you won’t hold it against me, especially if you haven’t seen it. The strange thing about seeing a film like Then She Found Me at SXSW is that it doesn’t seem hip enough for the festival, despite the ironic fact that many movies screening this year were about nerds, geeks and other sorts of outcast. Nobody wants to hear you say, “hey, that Helen Hunt movie is actually really good.” Between that and telling people that I love Bette Midler again (not randomly; she’s in the film), I felt like a stranger in a strange world the rest of my time in Austin.
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