Oscar smear campaigns don't always work--they failed to stop "Good Will Hunting" from winning best screenplay. Sometimes they can even backfire. Case in point: Nicolas Chartier's email blitz for Hurt Locker, for which he was a producer. He's been banned from Sunday's Oscars for trying to push Academy members to vote or his movie, and discouraging them from voting for James Cameron's Avatar. According to the rules, nominees aren't allowed to conduct "direct promotional communications with members" or disparage competing films. But does the ban go too far? Tom Ganjamie at Best Week Ever has an alternative punishment:

The Academy shouldn't ban Chartier. In fact, they should sit him right next to James Cameron for the entire broadcast so we get to see him squirm in his chair and pull out his collar and say 'Uhhhhgggguuuhhhh.' If The Hurt Locker does win they should make Chartier deliver his speech while wearing that bomb defusing suit from the movie and jump on a trampoline for twelve minutes. Only then he can have his Oscar.

Was there a better way to reprimand Chartier than barring him from the Oscars?

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John Hudson