Hurt Locker Producer Banned From Oscars

For the first time ever, an Oscar nominee has been banned from attending the Academy Awards. The Hurt Locker co-producer Nicolas Chartier earned the ire of the academy with an email campaign telling friends to push academy members to support his movie over "that $500M film" (best picture rival Avatar). Bad move—the academy prohibits nominees from smearing the competition, and Chartier's invitation to the Sunday ceremony has been revoked.

Should Hurt Locker win best picture, Chartier won't be joining the film's other producers on stage, but will have to "receive his Oscar statuette at some point subsequent to the March 7 ceremonies," the academy says. The academy has in the past withdrawn studios' allotted tickets to punish violators of its rules against Oscar campaigning, but Chartier is the first actual nominee to be denied entry to the awards.