Posted on 03/07/2010 10:25:47 PM PST by Schnucki
I’m glad The Hurt Locker triumphed over Avatar at tonight’s Oscars. Not only is Hurt Locker a far superior film – with standout performances, an intelligent and brilliantly executed script, as well as three dimensional lead characters – it is also a tremendously patriotic film which pays tribute to the courage of American troops serving in Iraq. For all these reasons I named it as one of the top 10 conservative movies of the last decade. The film won six awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow), and Best Original Screenplay.
I acknowledge that Hurt Locker has attracted a good deal of controversy and has divided opinion in the States over aspects of historical accuracy, and the debate will continue to rage. But I believe it thoroughly deserved its Oscar wins, and that the powerful message it projects about the US mission in Iraq and those who serve in the American armed forces, is an overwhelmingly positive one.
Avatar is technically brilliant with the most sophisticated special effects ever committed to celluloid. Its director James Cameron has made some of the greatest sci-fi films in history and has been a visionary and ground-breaking figure in Hollywood for over 25 years. The film deservedly picked up awards for Visual Effects and Cinematography , but was not deserving of a Best Picture win.
The acting in Avatar was mediocre, the storyline simplistic, and frankly large stretches of the movie, while visually impressive, were rather dull. In terms of sheer cinematic excitement, Avatar is not in the same league as Cameron’s earlier classics, Terminator and Aliens, and less engaging than Titanic.
But what I found most jarring about Avatar was its overtly anti-American and anti-military bias. As I wrote at the time of the film’s release in December:
Avatar “is an
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
The fact that soldiers almost unanimously hated The Hurt Locker, and the fact that the Hollywood left awarded it Best Picture, pretty much seals the deal that I have no desire to see it.
I think the point they were trying to get over was that being on that kind of duty MAKES you a looney! Certainly, in the movie the main character is depicted as someone who gets such a high on the adrenalin rush of the job that he is unable to properly adjust to “normality”. In other words, the implication is that war (specifically the war in Iraq now) is distorting and corrupting people. Marvellously supporting message eh?
Now of course, bomb disposal IS highly stressful, and under stress people do very odd things, BUT, the military is very well aware of the pressures and I’m sure keeps a very close eye on those doing it. I would imagine that soldiers who begin to act like the protagonist in “The Hurt Locker” are going to hoiked out pretty quickly.
The Razzie guys announced she was the winner, then she decided to join the small group of “winners” to actually show up and accept the awards (she actually got two for the same movie). She also brought a bunch of DVDs of the movie to give to the Razzie people.
Hasn’t seen it so I can’t judge.
But is the “Hurt Locker” any more unrealistic than “Top Gun”?
But, of course! How else to encourage all those Earth worshippers to buy it?
I truly wish someone would make a movie based on Michael Crichton's "State of Fear". Now THAT I'd love to see!!
I didn't get that message at all. The main character is the one who is having trouble fitting into a 'normal' life, but it seemed he was like that before he ever joined the Army. The other men on his team were not like him, and except for the younger one, didn't diss the war effort.
The men on the OED team were under pressure from being in a very dangerous job. They talked about the increased number of IEDs they were having to remove, but remember, this story takes place after the increase in al Queda operations, but before the surge in Coalition forces. I didn't come away from the movie with a negative view of the war in Iraq at all.
Oh me too! I think we'd have to produce that one ourselves though.
Glad to hear they’re doing a prequel and sequel. I liked District 9 a lot.
It was a garbage year for movies.
And the best piece of garbage won.
“Up” was not garbage.
According to the director, it’s about the “War being a Narcotic”.
I agree the protagonist had problems before he joined up, but during the course of the movie those problems do become more “pronounced”, shall we say. Besides, I don’t recall that the main villain (the shadowy figure who is planting all these IED’s) ever gets caught. The implication of the movie was that the IED situation was getting worse and worse and it was, in fact, merely a matter of time before the squad got caught out by them. Lets put it this way, its not the way Al Qaida movies inc would depict their fighters.
I'm confused. Do you have some examples?
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