versus
BAFTA nominations are out. (Full list.) An Education, the little British film that could, takes on Avatar, the big bad American studio blockbuster. Also on the list is the Iraq War drama, The Hurt Locker, otherwise known as this year's critical hit that no one has seen. Honestly, what's the release date on this puppy? I bitch because I'm in Hong Kong. Precious, however, is slated for a February release here. Excited about seeing Mo'Nique's performance because she's raking in the awards (Golden Globes last Sunday, BAFTA nomination today) as well as Paula Patton's because, well, she's gorgeous. The gem of the day though is In The Loop's nomination for Outstanding British Film. Will it lose to An Education? Probable, likely. But will a dreamy dip into the pastel-kissed world of a 1961 ingenue exercise your cursing skills or abdominal muscles the way this neurotic political satire will? For someone of the Stewart-Colbert generation - no.
Some belated thoughts on Avatar.......I actually enjoyed it upon initial viewing, despite sitting two rows from the front. Maybe that was the problem. I was so close, I became cocooned in the movie's pronounced, and 3-D, liberal sensibilities. But as it goes, I soured with each award, and the nagging racial subtext that persists in Hollywood continues to bother me. Avatar is a billboard for progressive, anti-Bush politics, yet it clings to dated stereotypes that should have disappeared long before W.'s tenure. I don't take issue with the idea of an 'Other' transforming our (white) all-American ex-Marine hero into some tree-hugging peacenik. But must that Other take the form of a colored, literally, native people draped in dangly beads and strategically placed patches of animal skin? Must they engage in unintelligible chanting and swaying in order to emphasize their mystical union with nature? And must they all be voiced by actors of color? Typecasting doesn't disappear simply because the characters are blue and computer generated. The untamed liberal in me loves seeing the military industrial complex shat on by $237 million of Hollywood might, but golf claps until the industry stumbles into the 21st century and discovers that 'native' isn't a stand-in for all the peoples and cultures colonized by Euro-America. And can we please get a new model for casting our super summer blockbuster heroes? Why do they all look like this (and why are half of them Australian)?
