Most people I know have seen The Hurt Locker. YOU may not care about it but most people I know in real life who are movie fans sure do and I have yet to hear anyone say they were disappointed in the film when they walked away from it... unlike Avatar.

I completely agree that Avatar is one of the most important films in the past decade (though I may argue that The Two Towers and the technology behind Gollum was more important) but where we differ is that I don't think it deserves any awards past best visual effects for it.

Avatar will easily win

Just came back from work listening to the Avatar soundtrack. Man, I love this OST! Probably my second favorite (er... fourth) after Howard Shore's work in The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship OST is just plain wonderful). I really hope the guy wins best Original Soundtrack this year, not only does the score compliment the movie in a truly stunning way, it's also a joy to listen to no matter where you are.

And yes, The Hurt Locker was a great movie. I mean, almost everything about it was just perfect (my only quirk was when "Doc" dies... it was so incredibly obvious, but that's just nit picking) and it was just very well done. However, I really enjoyed Avatar. It's a movie that still affects me to this day. For that reason, I want Avatar to win Best Picture, but I totally understand if The Hurt Locker wins it as well. It's sort of why I want Locker to win best director (because it's the best movie as far as what a movie is... if that makes any sense) but I want Avatar to win mostly for personal reasons.

Fine, we can agree to disagree. We obviously have different visions about what makes a great movie. Still hope that hope that army recruiting movie doesn't win.

Yes, that's a fine example of a propoganda film.

I can see the posters now:

"Join the Army, visit Iraq, get scared shitless, possibly die!"

Brilliant.

Or... Join the army, visit Iraq, show your bravery, proove that you're a man, live an exciting life, "protect" your country, kill "terrorists", be a "hero", reinlist after you come back home cause civilian life is just way too boring, return to Iraq whith rock music in the background, be a badass.

Yes, because everyone wants to become disenchanted with their own family. That's really a great upside of war. There aren't thousands of stories of people coming back from a warzone and not being able to cope with civilian life.

Where you see a badass going back to war, I see a man who has lost the ability to operate in civilian life and chose the enemy he knew over the enemy he didn't understand. It's a tragedy what these young soldiers go through and how it effects them for the rest of their lives and the movie did a pretty damned good job of showing it.

Still think you're right? Here's a quote from Bigelow herself:

"I always want to make films. I think of it as a great opportunity to comment on the world in which we live. Perhaps just because I just came off The Hurt Locker (2008) and I'm thinking of the war and I think it's a deplorable situation. It's a great medium in which to speak about that. This is a war that cannot be won, why are we sending troops over there? Well, the only medium I have, the only opportunity I have, is to use film. There will always be issues I care about."

Still want to ramble on about how The Hurt Locker is a propaganda film? Shit, just the fact that the movie is directed by the same person that did Strange Days should have been enough of a clue that Bigelow would never create a pro-war movie.

On a funny side note, I just noticed that Bigelow is competing against her former spouse (Cameron) for Best Picture. Interesting.

None of what Bigelow said in that quote was reflected in the movie. Plus, she herself stated in many interviews that she wanted the movie to not take any political stance, but focus on what the soldier's job is all about. The movie in no way tried to say whether or not the efforts of those soldiers are in the end worth it, or if they're just risking their lives for nothing.
I also don't think that anyone who is a soldier should complain about how hard they have it. After all no one forced them to join the army (I believe that there is no mandatory military draft in the US) and a lot of them joined especially to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Cameron / Bigelow angle is interesting, and Cameron has said a couple of times he'd be happy to lose to her film so I wonder if he's being nice or actually giving a hint.  Also, if Bigelow wins she will be the first female director to do so.

Personally, I'd like her to win as I think from a pure direction point of view her efforts were clearly the best of the films nominated, but I guess that's nothing compared to the politics behind actually winning so we'll have to see.  Until Avatar went gangbusters The Hurt Locker was clearly the big favourite, gathering awards like a magnet, but Hollywood is desperate for 3D to succeed and I think there will be huge pressure to reward Cameron for his success with the format with Avatar.

The Hurt Locker is still the better film critically, though.

Or maybe you just missed the point of the movie. I only Googled and read that line from Bigelow two minutes before I posted it. I gathered that entire feeling from the movie and so did my movie buff friends who watched it. I never read a review of the movie or anything about it; I went in cold. I knew it was about the war and soldiers who disarm IEDs and that was it.

But you go ahead and keep on holding that line that the movie is pro-war. You're in the vast minority who feel that way about it, at least among the people I know who have seen it and according to Bigelow herself.

And you're the one who has an obvious bias if you feel the soldiers have no right to complain. I'm starting to believe that unless every soldier in that film died horrifically, you'd be hell-bent on believing that it advocates war. Many of the people over there have been stuck there far past their agreed upon service time and are not provided adequate materials, weaponry, and armor to properly succeed in their tasks. They may have joined up because they felt it was the right thing to do in service of their country and found something entirely different once they arrived in the actual warzone. Frankly, I find your attitude sickening and demeaning to people who feel it's their duty to serve their country, no matter how misguided their attempts to do so may be. At the very least, they deserve some respect and sympathy from those of us (you included, obviously) who are sitting in their cozy chair at home bitching and moaning about the job they're doing.