Oscar asshats ban Hurt Locker producer for polite email

Despite his film being a hot favourite at this weekend's Oscars, producer Nicolas Chartier won't be able to pick up any awards won by The Hurt Locker. He's been banned for breaking the rules - by sending an email.

Here's an interesting Oscar fact for you. If Avatar wins Best Picture at the weekend, it'll be the highest-grossing movie to have ever done so. Conversely, if The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture, it'll be the lowest-grossing movie to have ever won it. Make no mistake: this is very much a David and Goliath battle. Goliath is the blue monkey in this analogy. I think.

Anyway, it seems very odd that something of a smear campaign has been launched against the makers of The Hurt Locker. First, an email from producer Nicolas Chartier was discovered (and made very, very public) in which he urged fellow Academy members to vote for his movie. A bit of harmless blanket campaigning, you might think - certainly no more devious than the back-scratching the Weinsteins used to pull off during the day. (And judging by Life Is Beautiful's success a few years back, that's not all they pulled off).

Now, Chartier has been informed he's been banned from Sunday's ceremony as he was in breach of the Academy's rules regarding award campaigning. So basically, you aren't allowed to ask people to like your movie. Which is dumb. Because anyone rich and white enough to be on the Academy probably isn't going to have their opinion swayed by an email from nic_chartier_boomtime99@hotmail.com.

The Academy released the following statement:

What they didn't mention is that most of the Academy's big kahunas have at some point worked for Fox - the company pushing for an Avatar whitewash. Curiouser and corruptiouser.

Chartier's nomination still stands, so if The Hurt Locker beats out Avatar to Best Picture then he'll still get his little bald dude: he just won't get to collect it on the night. It'd be awesome and awful in equal measures - it's a little like being told you've won the Kelly Brook sex lottery, only you have to make love to her via a robot. That looks like James Cameron. Or something. I forget what we're talking about.