Could "The Hurt Locker" be in jeopardy of losing Oscar votes?

It's Oscar season, and the claws are out. There have long been rumblings of vote lobbying and slandering of rival movies around Oscar season, and this season, The Hurt Locker may be the movie suffering the most.

The drama started with a credits controversy. The Academy has a cap of three producers that are allowed to be credited under a film, but The Hurt Locker has four contributing producers: Director Kathryn Bigelow, screenplay writer Mark Boal, Greg Shapiro, and Nicholas Chartier of Voltage Pictures. The odd man out here is Voltage Picture's Nicholas Chartier. As reported by Nikki Finke, Chartier was a huge financial backer in this film, and he even leveraged his home to fund this film. A riff occurred when tensions erupted among the four, and Nicholas was banned from the set after trying to fire Mark Boal. This is all conjecture and hearsay, though. Who knows what really happened, but what I do know is that Nikki is rarely off the mark. However, Kathryn, Mark, and Greg eventually wrote letters to the Academy and petitioned for Nicholas to be added on as a credited producer.

Hot off the heels of the successful petition, Chartier, for some inexplicable reason, sent a mass email, many of which included Academy members and other influential people in the biz, lobbying for votes.

Chartier's original email: (courtesy LAtimes)

I hope all is well with you. I just wanted to write you and say I hope you liked Hurt Locker and if you did and want us to win, please tell (name deleted) and your friends who vote for the Oscars, tell actors, directors, crew members, art directors, special effects people, if everyone tells one or two of their friends, we will win and not a $500M film, we need independent movies to win like the movies you and I do, so if you believe The Hurt Locker is the best movie of 2010, help us!

I'm sure you know plenty of people you've worked with who are academy members whether a publicist, a writer, a sound engineer, please take 5 minutes and contact them. Please call one or two persons, everything will help!

best regards,

Nicolas Chartier Voltage Pictures

Chartier issued an apology email shortly thereafter, but the damage was already done. Clearly the "$500M film" in question is Avatar. This was an absolute violation of Academy rules, and now The Hurt Locker could be in serious jeopardy of losing votes. This breaks my heart because The Hurt Locker clearly deserves to win best picture at the Oscars. Let's hope voters still get that.

I still can't believe it wasn't already glaringly obvious that this was a stupid thing for Chartier to do. Maybe it was a temporary loss of judgment or bout of insanity, but I really don't get why you'd jeopardize your film's (extremely good) chances of winning. Chartier didn't need to lobby for votes, I'm sure many voters were already convinced themselves.

Cross your fingers.

ETA: Chartier has officially been uninvited from attending this Sunday's Oscars. Yikes.

New York Fashion Week: Favorite Fall 2010 Looks

I've been posting Oscar related stuff nonstop these days, so these fashion posts are like a breath of fresh air.

New York Fashion Week wrapped up last week, and this week is London Fashion Week--fashion is in the air everywhere. This girl is happy.

Last week was particularly special because it marked the end of an era. Starting next year, fashion week will no longer be held at the famed Bryant Park tents, but at the 42nd St. Plaza in Lincoln Center. I don't know how I feel about that. Byrant Park and New York Fashion Week are synonymous. It'll be interesting to see how different NYFW will be at Lincoln Plaza.

Great textures this season and black. Lots of black. Some of my favorites from this year's NYFW:

Burberry Prorsum


Doo.Ri



Fendi

Halston

Jen Kao

Proenza Schouler

rag&bone

Rodarte

Victoria Beckham

Takashi Murakami for Louis Vuitton: "Cosmic Blossom" Collection

I am a huge fan of Takashi Murakami--he's hugely talented and easily one of my favorite modern day artists. I saw his MOCA exhibition a few years ago here in L.A. and it was phenomenal. You may know him best for his collaboration with Louis Vuitton, as he is the man behind the multicolor LV.

With all that said, I've gotta say, I am underwhelmed with his collaboration with LV this time around. I've been waiting a long time to see him collaborate with Louis Vuitton again, but this is quite a disappointment. The colors are just too cloying and the pieces look like they came from a little girl's closet.

Maybe I just need to see them in person. The collection drops April 15. The pochette will be priced at $550, and the tote will come in two sizes: the PM ($1240) and the GM($1480). I wonder why they didn't choose to make the MM size. Hrm.

Photos courtesy Louis Vuitton. Check out more of the collection here.

Where Oscar meets Food: a mashup of this year's noms and delectable foods

Couldn't resist posting these. This kind of stuff never fails to amuse me. All credit goes to photographer David Gartner. Check out his photostream here where you can find the District 9 Layer Cake, Avatunatartare, and Precious: based on a novel by Bombay Sapphire.

Photo courtesy of Serious Eats.

Oscar Big 10 Challenge: "Up"

After reviewing a slew of serious, tense, and often dark films in an effort to cover all ten Oscar best picture nominees, I'm more than happy to take on Up today.

Up has the unique distinction of becoming one of the two animated movies ever to be nominated in the best picture category at the Academy Awards. The first animated movie to be nominated for a best picture Oscar? Disney's Beauty and the Beast in 1991. Up's nomination this year begs the question: would it have been nominated if the category hadn't been expanded from five to ten? Probably not, but then again, that's the whole reason why the category was expanded in the first place, so outliers like Disney/Pixar's Up, Neill Blomkamp's District 9, and the Sandra Bullock championed The Blind Side would have a presence at the Academy Awards. That way the AMPAS could rake in more ratings from a wide variety of viewers: from the kiddies, to the sci-fi fans, and the mini-van majority.

Up is a beautiful, light-hearted, and immensely visual tale of a grumpy man, Carl, who takes the trip of a lifetime after the passing of his wife. After he sets sail in a house of balloons, he finds that he had an unexpected visitor at the most inopportune time: the local boyscout who came a-knockin' to earn another merit badge. Carl begrudgingly takes the boy on his trip to South America where they stumble upon a world of strange creatures and talking dogs.

I knew going into this movie that it would be fantastic, thanks to the wonderful and amazing Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, the masterminds behind movies like Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, and Wall-E, but I was blown away. This movie is visually arresting. It really takes you into another world, where you aren't ashamed to be a little kid again and where you realize that the future of animation really is in Pixar's hands. A moment of truth for me: I totally cried during the opening montage of Carl's life with his wife. I just couldn't take it--I kept repeating the same mantra over and over in my head: 'don't cry.. don't cry.. kids will laugh at you.. kids. will. laugh. at. you.." and surely enough, this poor little boy seated right next to me shoots me the crazy eye. That is the magic of Up. It doesn't matter how old you are, you will become affected by this movie. If not for the beautiful sweetness and quirky humor, then the sheer flawlessness of the animation.

Up really stands out to me as one of the best animated movies I have ever seen. It is incredibly detailed and the character development doesn't fall short--it's just as detailed as the visuals. Carl is wonderfully grumpy and sweet, just like your persnickety, elderly neighbor or your very own grandpa. Russel, our adorable boyscout, is inquisitive, slightly dense, totally endearing, and altogether hilarious. The characters are just as you'd imagine them to be in an animated film--pure Americana, sweet and traditional as Apple Pie, but with a twist that only Pixar could inject into their films.

My final thoughts: Up's presence in the best picture category is purely for filler, but it also translates into a bankable win for the best animated picture category. One of my favorite, if not my favorite (other than Monsters Inc.) animated movie.

Six down, four to go. My previous best picture reviews:
Avatar
An Education
Precious
The Hurt Locker
Up in the Air

What's left:
A Serious Man
District 9
Inglorious Basterds
The Blind Side