A little late to the party is better than not arriving at all. With only days left before the culmination of the awards season, you better believe I was going to find a way to watch The Hurt Locker before they opened that Ernst & Young envelope and announced Best Picture of 2009. For those of you who are as sad as I am about the Olympics ending, and as bitter at Canada's hockey sweep, here's your one last respite in seeing another nail-biting race.
Going into the final stretch of the 2010 awards season, the buzz around this film is at such a fever pitch that poor Mary Hart and Billy Bush's heads are about to explode. I admit I'm actually happy to see a movie finally being talked about before an awards show, rather then the annoyingly repetitive "who will you be wearing?" As an aside, I would really like to see somebody show up to one of these things actually wearing the designer - you know, like Julia Roberts shows up with Karl Lagerfeld draped all over her. That said, all this Hurt Locker hype ended up setting the bar pretty high for me going into it. And to sum this review up, it totally blew my expectations away.
Typically this isn't my kind of movie genre and I definitely overlooked it when it came out in theaters, before the hype began. I'm not really big into war movies unless they have a significant historical value or are considered groundbreaking. This from someone who as a kid routinely passed out during blood tests. What can I say, I prefer to keep blood inside the body, not out. Still, it's hard not to appreciate The Hurt Locker for its quality and triumphs. In my opinion, I think it is pretty groundbreaking in not only capturing the raw and gritty realities of war, but also conveying the feelings and emotions of them to the audience.
I heard from some interview with Kathryn Bigelow that the movie was designed to make you feel like the fourth soldier in the team. Well she sure achieved her goal. You are right there in the moment with the soldiers, trying to catch your own breath as if experiencing their anxiety first-hand. It's one harrowing scene after another that progressively get more chilling as the movie goes on. You constantly hope for a break in the angst, but quickly realize that's what it might feel like out there where you can't trust anyone or anything around you.
It's important to note, the movie is not senseless or gratuitous. It's incredibly well done so it doesn't come off as sensationalized, but rather mirroring the reality of the wars being fought in the Middle East. And what's truly interesting is seeing how each character handles and channels it - through violence, emotional breakdowns, disconnection.
Since my Ebert can't watch these types of movies without getting unbearably uncomfortable, I made my friend Mary Ann watch it with me. The one thing we resoundingly agreed on - we found ourselves grimacing at the screen throughout the entire movie. Not because of the violence, but because of the harsh realities. To have that kind of an effect on an audience is a true testament to the quality of a movie.
Bigelow also uses the movie's monotony as a fantastic technique to make the audience feel even more inside the action. The movie does not have a strong plot that guides it throughout. Instead, it seems like scene after scene of the same thing. And it dawned on me that I'd probably feel the same way in war - the same thing day in and day out. One struggle for survival after another. I found myself counting down the minutes to the end of the movie, just as the soldiers were counting down the days to the end of the rotation. I thought that was genius of the director.
Just to mention other A+ factors - some amazing cinematography and writing going on here, with real fleshed out characters. As for the acting, I can't decide that one. The main character was great, they all were in fact, but I have to admit the acting almost takes a back seat to the story, the writing, the directing, etc., that I'm not sure if these actors were really great or if anyone could've pulled it off.
The Hurt Locker will win Best Picture (at least I hope it will) because unlike Avatar, it made me think and feel and didn't do the thinking and feeling for me because it was blockbustered up on steroids. It's a soon to be classic in its genre. If I was your drill sergeant, you can be damn sure I'd make you do fifty push-ups and then watch The Hurt Locker. Hoo-rah and PAY FULL PRICE!
Going into the final stretch of the 2010 awards season, the buzz around this film is at such a fever pitch that poor Mary Hart and Billy Bush's heads are about to explode. I admit I'm actually happy to see a movie finally being talked about before an awards show, rather then the annoyingly repetitive "who will you be wearing?" As an aside, I would really like to see somebody show up to one of these things actually wearing the designer - you know, like Julia Roberts shows up with Karl Lagerfeld draped all over her. That said, all this Hurt Locker hype ended up setting the bar pretty high for me going into it. And to sum this review up, it totally blew my expectations away.
Typically this isn't my kind of movie genre and I definitely overlooked it when it came out in theaters, before the hype began. I'm not really big into war movies unless they have a significant historical value or are considered groundbreaking. This from someone who as a kid routinely passed out during blood tests. What can I say, I prefer to keep blood inside the body, not out. Still, it's hard not to appreciate The Hurt Locker for its quality and triumphs. In my opinion, I think it is pretty groundbreaking in not only capturing the raw and gritty realities of war, but also conveying the feelings and emotions of them to the audience.
I heard from some interview with Kathryn Bigelow that the movie was designed to make you feel like the fourth soldier in the team. Well she sure achieved her goal. You are right there in the moment with the soldiers, trying to catch your own breath as if experiencing their anxiety first-hand. It's one harrowing scene after another that progressively get more chilling as the movie goes on. You constantly hope for a break in the angst, but quickly realize that's what it might feel like out there where you can't trust anyone or anything around you.
It's important to note, the movie is not senseless or gratuitous. It's incredibly well done so it doesn't come off as sensationalized, but rather mirroring the reality of the wars being fought in the Middle East. And what's truly interesting is seeing how each character handles and channels it - through violence, emotional breakdowns, disconnection.
Since my Ebert can't watch these types of movies without getting unbearably uncomfortable, I made my friend Mary Ann watch it with me. The one thing we resoundingly agreed on - we found ourselves grimacing at the screen throughout the entire movie. Not because of the violence, but because of the harsh realities. To have that kind of an effect on an audience is a true testament to the quality of a movie.
Bigelow also uses the movie's monotony as a fantastic technique to make the audience feel even more inside the action. The movie does not have a strong plot that guides it throughout. Instead, it seems like scene after scene of the same thing. And it dawned on me that I'd probably feel the same way in war - the same thing day in and day out. One struggle for survival after another. I found myself counting down the minutes to the end of the movie, just as the soldiers were counting down the days to the end of the rotation. I thought that was genius of the director.
Just to mention other A+ factors - some amazing cinematography and writing going on here, with real fleshed out characters. As for the acting, I can't decide that one. The main character was great, they all were in fact, but I have to admit the acting almost takes a back seat to the story, the writing, the directing, etc., that I'm not sure if these actors were really great or if anyone could've pulled it off.
The Hurt Locker will win Best Picture (at least I hope it will) because unlike Avatar, it made me think and feel and didn't do the thinking and feeling for me because it was blockbustered up on steroids. It's a soon to be classic in its genre. If I was your drill sergeant, you can be damn sure I'd make you do fifty push-ups and then watch The Hurt Locker. Hoo-rah and PAY FULL PRICE!
1 comment:
After watching Hurt Locker I was sad.....and wanted to go march in front of the White House holding a sign saying "Mr. Obama can you please end the war it upsets me and the our boys are dying over there...get us OUT!"
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