With the Oscars almost upon us and the chances of G.I. Joe sneaking in as an 11th hour 11th Best Picture nominee looking bleak, it seems that only The Hurt Locker has a shot at taking down Avatar. Well, it did… until one of the producers may have had a little too much boxed wine one night and started emailing Oscar voters and lobbying them to vote for his film. For some reason, the Academy frowns upon this type of thing:
A producer of the war story “The Hurt Locker” will not be allowed to attend Sunday’s Academy Awards because of e-mails he sent urging academy members to vote for his movie, Oscar overseers said Tuesday.
But Nicolas Chartier will receive an Oscar at a later date if “The Hurt Locker” wins best picture.
The executive committee of the producers branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences imposed the penalty on Chartier, who violated Oscar rules that prohibit mailings promoting a film and disparaging another.
Chartier sent an e-mail Feb. 19 to some academy members asking for their support for “The Hurt Locker,” “not a “$500 million film” — an obvious reference to blockbuster best-picture contender “Avatar.”
Whoops. I’m sure Chartier meant well, but things got out of hand when he started sending Evites to a “Dress as your least favorite character from Avatar (hint: all of them)” jungle mixer party and suggesting his friends join his new Facebook group “I lost my cell phone, so please send me your number and also vote for the Hurt Locker and not Avatar.”
The Academy shouldn’t ban Chartier. In fact, they should sit him right next to James Cameron for the entire broadcast so we get to see him squirm in his chair and pull out his collar and say “Uhhhhgggguuuhhhh.” If The Hurt Locker does win they should make Chartier deliver his speech while wearing that bomb defusing suit from the movie and jump on a trampoline for twelve minutes. Only then can he have his Oscar.
