LOS ANGELES - Hollywood is not exactly known for its grip on reality, but the experts have given an "A" for authenticity to the 10 contenders for the best picture Oscar on Sunday.
"AVATAR"
"It is extremely unlikely the life forms would be so close to those on Earth; on the other hand, I'm sure at some point in the future we will be able to use our brainwaves to drive avatars, at least in the virtual world. The next step -- to use (brainwaves) to drive actual representatives of ourselves in the real world instead -- is probably a very long way off, but you can't say it cannot be done. It's a new area of engineering and biological engineering that hasn't been explored yet."
-- Piet Hut, professor of astrophysics, Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University
"THE BLIND SIDE"
"If you look at success rates of staying in school, tendencies toward violence, drugs and alcohol (abuse), teen pregnancies and acting out in school, one-on-one mentoring will significantly reduce those risk behaviors. While the movie portrays a significant and deep mentoring relationship, it's a Hollywood idealized dream. The family in the movie is wealthy, but we all have to struggle every day. I also saw all the young boys who were left behind. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had more African-American male mentors?"
-- Karen Mathis, CEO, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
"DISTRICT 9"
"The way that the MNU people are portrayed and the kind of Afrikaans English they speak (are) reminiscent of the way in which the police (in the days of apartheid) treated black South Africans. The (aliens, known as Prawns) have a language with a click element in it, which is suggestive that they are representative of Xhosa or Zulu speakers. The Prawn metaphor is very effective in confronting (the issue of race) by making that difference more radical."
-- Vivian Bickford-Smith, professor of comparative metropolitan history, University of Cape Town
"AN EDUCATION"
"What we see in the film is very much the idealism of the time, when women believed they could reach their sexual liberation without giving up all the other things that make us fully human. They could be valued for being intelligent, articulate and going off to university, as well as finding their sexuality. I'm not going to minimize the battles that have been won, but we've veered too far (in) another direction now, where girls are valued so much for being sexual beings, they're not valued as much as they should be for everything else."
-- Natasha Walter, British feminist author ("Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism") and TV commentator
"THE HURT LOCKER"
"Mark Boal is being careful in that he didn't want to compromise unnecessarily any of the techniques the U.S. servicemen are using to defeat devices. So, using a little bit of artistic license, (the filmmakers) made a very accurate, gritty representation. I'm an experienced operator and I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat, sweating when I was watching the film in anticipation of what was going to happen next, reliving all my own memories."