Eight Feet Deep

It’s the day after the pri­mary elec­tions here in Texas. I hope everybody’s can­di­date won. Think about that for a minute.

These days I don’t make it to the movies much any­more. I don’t know why. But I have been fol­low­ing all the buzz about a nom­i­nee for Best Pic­ture at the Acad­emy Awards this week. Of course, there is always some buzz sur­round­ing the cov­eted of the cov­eted Oscars. It’s office pol­i­tics, which I don’t like at all. So I sure as hell don’t like the office pol­i­tics of the Oscars. This year in par­tic­u­lar it’s dis­gust­ing — sort of — and I’ll tell you why if you don’t go off in a huff and leave what you are read­ing. Don’t worry, I’ll get there soon. Soon enough.

Most of the hood­e­leyap (Hey, that’s a good word I just made up! It’s pro­nounced “WHO-del-e-yap,” only faster and means bodoug­ley­pot. “BO-doo-gul-e-pot”) con­cern­ing the Oscar for best direc­tor is over the 2/3rd’s computer-generated Avatar directed by James Cameron and Hurt Locker, which is directed by Cameron’s ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow.

Cer­tainly, the media has made much of pos­si­ble Oscars going to one of a divorced, but friendly, ex-couple who directed these films. Also, if Bigelow wins she will be the first woman to win the hideous-looking gold stat­uette for direct­ing. Other sideshows to this story have like­wise appeared to build up the hype for the Oscars and their poten­tial winners:

• While Hurt Locker — a story about an explo­sives demo­li­tion unit on a tour of duty in Iraq — has received crit­i­cal acclaim the film also has drawn the ire of some Iraq vet­er­ans and active duty sol­diers. They say the thriller doesn’t real­is­ti­cally por­tray sol­diers doing their job, that it makes troops seem reck­less and has other less-than-authentic aspects. This is even though Defense Sec­re­tary Robert Gates liked and rec­om­mended the movie while the mil­i­tary with­drew its assis­tance in the film in 2007 for unflat­ter­ing por­tray­als of sol­diers. Uh, you want real­ity? Go watch C-SPAN.
• Yes­ter­day Nico­las Chartier, one of the Hurt Locker’s pro­duc­ers, was barred from the Oscar pre­sen­ta­tions for e-mailing mes­sages to Acad­emy mem­bers that ask for their votes for the film. No tux and red car­pet for you, Mr. Chartier!
• Today an Army mas­ter sergeant and bomb expert filed a suit against the film’s screen­writer, who is also one of the pro­duc­ers, for exploit­ing the sergeant’s ser­vice. The sol­dier claims the film is based on his expe­ri­ences and that he coined the term “Hurt Locker.” Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he halfway did.

Well, like “they” say, no pub­lic­ity is bad pub­lic­ity. Or maybe it is. But it’s Oscar time! Break out the 40-year-old sin­gle malt and the good sil­ver­ware! That’s not in my case of course, and I most likely, more than most likely won’t be watch­ing the Oscars. But I have to admit, I would like to see the movie, the Hurt Locker.

It’s another one of those far-off Hol­ly­wood hap­pen­ings — the afore­men­tioned hood­e­leyap — that don’t really mean any­thing or mat­ter in the least to the aver­age beer-swilling and gun-toting Amer­i­can who washes up once a week and goes to the pic­ture show. But I sup­pose all the hype makes us want to watch the car wrecks on the big screen which will, in this case, be big impro­vised explo­sive devices that go “boom.”