The Importance of the Hurt Locker in the Upper Echelon of War Films

THE HURT LOCKER will be remembered as one of the most important movies of the 00's.

this is a lofty claim for a film during it largely ignored during it release and starring virtually no one of note (the ralph fiennes appearance was basically a cameo) but this is going to be a landmark film for one major reason: that the war in iraq has finally been accurately portrayed on film and connected with audiences.

before i really get going, the hurt locker is about a bomb defusing unit working in Iraq in the second occupation (this one).

if you look back at movies dealing with terrorism and modern warfare post 9/11, you will see quite a few: in the valley of elah, rendition, stop-loss, grace is gone, the kingdom, and even vantage point. still, none of these movies really resonated as something realistic or relevant and had the critical acclaim to make it a lasting memory. of those, elah was nominated for an oscar but it remained largely ignored and like most of the movies above, it dealt more with the impact of the war at home rather than in the field.

im not in the armed services nor do i know anyone who serves in the army so it does seem pretty naive for me to sit here on my couch and type about the real experiences the film conveys. though in many ways, the actual realism is secondary to having a strong, lasting piece of media detailing this war, one of the most important historical turning point of the US. no reproduction is going to be 100% accurate but in this case, the message is more important.

true to life or not, this is a film that people have slowly latched onto as a gritty and true to life war film. it is not the constant explosions and adventure of the kingdom or the heavy handed armchair leftist touting politics of lions for lambs or rendition. it is a film that says that fighting in iraq is psychologically intense with bursts of incredible fear and imminent death with periods of intense boredom. this isnt a movie about politics, it is about the men on the ground that the politicos are arguing about.

i think that the only other film to capture this aspect of war is jarhead, the immensely underrated sam mendes film made about the first occupation of iraq. for all intents and purposes, a lot of war does seem to be waiting around. even in 'all quiet on the western front,' which i consider to be one of the greatest war movies of all time, there is a line to the extent of 'we wait around we fight and try not to get killed.'

that is war, right? watered down and simple. fight the other side and try not to get killed.

but its so much than that especially when dealing with a polarizing war such as that of iraq. there are so many other sides including the iraqi population. there are endless greys in these conflicts and on top of it, there are those for and against american occupation with the latter being far louder than the former.

in the hurt locker, nothing in the movie cried out to me of propaganda of either side. to me, it was a simple and beautifully done film with a solid message about a relevant topic that will continue to be discussed for many future generations. the hurt locker is a modern day 'all quiet on the western front,' 'full metal jacket,' 'saving private ryan,' 'mash,' or 'patton' and deserves it place as a major talking point about war in the modern era.

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as an aside, i want to go back to writing about movies from 50 years ago. think ill switch back to that

LETS GET AVATAR-DED!

AVATAR! 3D! AWESOME! WOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now that i got that out of system, i would like to welcome people back to mise en meh. ive been a little quiet since my ten megawatt list that took most of my christmas break from me. during that time i was writing i was watching A LOT of movies. i will resume the recent watching feature soon but for now i want to talk about avatar.

i saw it last week in a HUGE IMAX. as far as IMAXs go, this was a big one and of course it was in 3D.

i winced quite a bit during the movie. in fact, during each of the stupid navi dancing sequences, my wife and i were downright LOLing at the ridiculousness of it.

'silly navi. its going to take more than that to save ripley!'

before i start talking about what i liked in this awesome awful film, ill talk about the badness. going into avatar, i had heard a lot of things on this movie.

@secretcristina said it was about 'blue cats living in an internet tree'

@radmike likened to ferngully as did hitler

this is my favorite hitler video btw...but that is for another blogspot.

yes avatar was incredibly stupid. the plot was nothing new and downright silly with predictable turns, clear good and evil, and a lot of cinematic pilfering (the final battle between jake sully and the evil military guy reminded me a lot of the final battle scene in iron man). frankly, hitler is right and sam worthington is awful. REALLY awful. his acting is laughably mad and is frequently outacted by anything remotely on screen. in fact, signourey weaver really phones it in too and you have to wonder if any of the flesh actors were too distracted by the awesomeness of pandora to actually concentrate on acting.

but again, this movie is not about humans.

the world of pandora was the most amazing thing ive ever seen. floating mountains!? YEAH! crazy dog things!? WHOA! FERNGULLY RE-IMAGINED! FUCK YES!! i never wanted to leave the magical land of pandora and every moment in this world was so frickin' cool.

this is a game changer. much like the matrix did with action sequences, avatar made 3D movies with motion capture characters look silly. if you compare the navi with any of the characters in the zemekis trilogy of mediocre to attrocious IMAX films (polar express, beowolf, christmas carol), the navi reign and everything else looks silly.

a coworker of mine was comparing the 3D in avatar to beowolf. in the latter, characters would take out a weapon and seem to say something, 'look at my sword in 3D! it is totally in 3D! is this not blowing your mind!' or 'im going to swing a stein of ale and bits of red shit is going to come FLYING out at you because its 3D! ISNT THIS AWESOME!' with avatar, 'here are some floating mountains. it is impossible to picture these in 2D because this is a real place and these are really some floating mountains.'

avatar should NOT have won the golden globe for best drama. that should have went to hurt locker which should win the oscar as well. avatar was an outstanding cool film that will change the course of action films from now on. it is NOT a best picture. the story and the acting were passable to downright abysmal. cameron should get a best picture nod of course and possibly win but this film should not take away best picture honors from hurt locker, a brilliant, impressive, smart, understated, and all around excellent film. the hurt locker doesnt have weak points and will change the way hollywood will make movies about contemporary war.

next up for avatar is a sequel and maybe jimmy cameron should borrow the wachowskis to put in some cool bullet effects. that would be SWEET. seriously jim, i cant wait ten years to go back to pandora. i want to see some of those faraway lands referenced and maybe see the internet tree again.