Skull Mason
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The Hurt Locker ---
- Thread starter Flashy
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justasimpleguy
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I am appalled in a way to read people commenting about this movie like it should have been some kind of "entertainment." It's a movie about real shit that is really happening in a country half way across the world because America is addicted to oil and the neocons had control of our government for the last 8 years. If that is entertainment to you, you're probably the kind of person who watches videos of US drones blowing people up. You are also a sick fuck.
Yes yes, they really stretched it in a few places with the accuracy. But that didn't have anything to do with combat, it was the few times Renner's character did such outrageous shit that I knew he would have been slapped with a court martial.
I found the bomb disposal sequences and the sniper battle incredibly tense. And when Renner finally returns home and realizes he no longer belongs there, ouch.
And Flashy, if you really think people don't get addicted to war, you don't know jack. Read War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges and come talk to me again.
Yes yes, they really stretched it in a few places with the accuracy. But that didn't have anything to do with combat, it was the few times Renner's character did such outrageous shit that I knew he would have been slapped with a court martial.
I found the bomb disposal sequences and the sniper battle incredibly tense. And when Renner finally returns home and realizes he no longer belongs there, ouch.
And Flashy, if you really think people don't get addicted to war, you don't know jack. Read War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges and come talk to me again.
An unfair assessment of her talent. It's not as though she hasn't delved into traditionally male-oriented themes in her previous films. But that autistic-like focus and drive Renner performed in his role was disturbing at times yet riveting. Great stuff.
Skull Mason
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D_Gunther Snotpole
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I didnt get the hype. Yeah it was a good movie, but BEST picture? And what did you find tense? You know the star of the movie is not going to get blown up..so where is the tension? Instead of feeling tension during the bomb disposal sequences i felt compelled to ask why this guy was doing this(which was probably the intention of the movie), and then I figured out I really dont give a shit cause I had no connection to the main character. And I didnt find any of the psychological dramas between the main characters and those around him compelling or realistic.
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It is about a real war, but it is not about "real shit".
i never said people do not get addicted to war...i said it went for the "war is a drug angle...but that is bullshit to a degree."
i said that the absurdity of the situations, the nonsense of the beyond belief situations and the pathetically short way they *DEALT* with the drug that is war was pathetic. You want to study the character of someone addicted to war, by all means do it...but do it right.
There are plenty of examples of people who are addicted to it, without making scenes so absurd they could have featured in top gun
do you deny that you can show the addiction and adrenaline and rush of war for those in combat and also show it within a realistic portrayal of the military? I am absolutely sure that you cannot deny that it cannot be done.
spending two minutes at home at the end of the film, throwing a cereal box angrily into your shopping cart and spending 45 seconds with your wife and kid, to me, sorry is not an adequate representation of the very real syndrome of war addiction.
or do you disagree with that?
do you disagree that you could not have formulated a story that still focused on the rush of combat and addiction to danger/war without doing the ridiculous Top Gun of EOD version of "sorry Goose, it's time to buzz the tower".
it was a sorry representation of the hell *AND* drug that war is, cutesied up with alot of incredulous nonsense.
Everyone knows that war is a drug to some...you do not have to make it absurd and devalue that very serious topic by turning it into a Tony Scott type thriller film that is totally implausible, then hide behind the "realism".
War as a drug is a serious, real topic...as such, it would have behooved the writer and director to *EXPLORE* and *STUDY* that within the realm it occurs, accurately, passionately, objectively, and doggedly...not in a Maverick learns his lesson after Goose dies type of way.
I did not want "entertainment" from this movie...i expected a searing, realistic story, that would get to me...that is not being "entertained"...it is having expectations that a film that claims to realistically burn into your head the drug of war, will actually do what it says...not go implausibly silly when trying to address a hugely important issue of war.
You want to study war in a serious film? I am all for it...but make it *SERIOUS*. Take artistic license, but remember when you take something as serious as war, and then turn elements of it into a joke, you cannot really complain when it is laughed at.
no, they did not stretch it...they snapped it...in most places. Nothing to do with combat? which film were you watching? The sniper scene, and the scene where they are running around alone to try and get the trigger men were completely absurd. How can you say it was not in combat?
Do three man EOD teams wander around alone out in the desert with no support whatsoever? Do they then split up late at night in Baghdad to chase the bad guys? I am sorry, but it was like a bad action movie
so, the first time he did it, he would have been court martialed...movie over, and the 5 more times that he pulled that crap were just nonsense in the movie.
of course they were tense...because they were totally unrealistic. the whole point of the disposal sequences being "tense" is complete nonsense, because you know it would not happen anywhere remotely close to it.
US troops just leaving their humvees totally unattended on the street? a guy going into a shitty rusted out car to disable the bomb in an evacuated area? they would have just detonated it...instead, he and his "team" sit their with no protection within 5 yards of the car...to save a burned out 1982 Chevy? The whole movie was filled with that garbage.
every scene is a spit in the face of the reality of what EOD does, and, as usual goes for the cheap and easy tension.
and how was the sniper battle tense? it was absurd. A lone EOD team, with no support convoy or security, out in the middle of the desert, with no air support...runs into a team of British SAS who are now contractors? The entire British SAS team gets wiped out, but the EOD team, defeats all the insurgents? There just happens to be one lone house in the middle of nowhere, and the SAS team just did not bother to check it?
and, while we are at it, would it have made more fucking sense to just blast the fuck out of the house with the .50 caliber machine gun on the Humvee that would have torn that place apart and punched through the walls with no problem? Ah yes...the SAS guy already tried that and was immediately killed...so of course nobody touches the most powerful weapon in the unit again, or considers crouching lower behind the armor protection on the mounts...it was that type of endless absurdity that defied reality to such a degree that made it *IMPOSSIBLE* for me to suspend the disbelief required to watch the more *IMPORTANT* topic of the the addiction to combat, which, was made to look silly by the absurdity of the situations.
yeah...imagine how nice it would have been had that lasted for more than a minute of the whole ridiculous film and involved no acting other than a silly canned speech to a 6 month old and throwing a box of cereal in your cart...
then of course, it cut back again to the grand finale...him walking, alone, down the road, in about his 10th court martial level offense in 120 minutes.
sorry.
i will suspend disbelief, but only so far before i find things to have jumped the shark...and this film did that within 25 minutes.
Addiction to war? An important and worthwhile study...this, however, trivialized it.
you could have done it a million ways, studied a dozen units, like Delta Force or Seals, many of whom display those characteristics and go back again and again, without creating this silly, unrealistic, not to mention, insulting look at EOD.
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if she was so talented how come she made a bunch of nonsense over the past 27 years?, most not adding up to a hill of beans?
She has done virtually nothing to show excellence up to this point. she is nowhere near the league of other women who were directors.
heard of Jane Campion? Agnes Varda? Chantal Akerman? Catherine Breillat? Claire Denis?
all were far superior, not to mention they all *WROTE* most of their films as well.
(this does not make one less of a director, since most directors do not write most of their films, but these women are all far superior to Bigelow in every way)
Leni Riefenstahl? (a twisted propagandist, but a film revolutionary in technique)
and delving into male oriented themes mean nothing if the story is not good. Many male directors have delved into female things for decades, overwhelmingly so...frankly, with rather horrible results a great many times.
as for the drive and focus of Renner performing his role the only way i found it disturbing was knowing that none of that stuff he was doing would *EVER* be done by a member of an EOD team.
IMO
how exactly was it "anti-american"? I did not see that at all. In fact it was almost completely unpolitical in that regard.
and kindly do not tell me i did not "understand" it. I understood it perfectly. It was trying to focus of *SOLDIERS* not politics, or BS...that is commendable. However, it still failed because the soldiers it portrayed were placed in silly situations that would not happen
and tell me, what war movie is *EVER* "pro-war"? Virtually every war movie, even those set it "good" wars (like WW2) is at its heart anti-war.
and, i will point out, just as a note of fact, the day that Hurt Locker won the Academy Award, on last Sunday, was the day that Iraq had its second free parliamentary election which was a great success.
I saw no politics at all in this...and it easily could have been
D_Tully Tunnelrat
Experimental Member
I'll agree with your list there Flash, and add in Lina Wertmuller as well. She was the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director in 1976 for Seven Beauties. Unfortunately she did not win (obviously). Swept Away, and the Seduction of Mimi are also great films. She is generally very under appreciated now, as her best work was in the 70's.
The last name that belongs in this list is Sofia Coppola. You may not like her work, but she has talent, and aside from Wertmuller, Campion, and Bigelow is the only other woman to have been nominated for the award.
As to why the Academy gave her the award? Who knows, but a decent bet is that the clear, but apolitical "war is hell" message of the film hit the proverbial liberal morality bone with Academy voters, who interpret almost real as real. And so far, it is considered the most definitive movie on the Iraq war.
The Academy is such a myopic, and insular institution it's no longer the heavy weight it once was. There are so many great human stories from around the globe, many beautifully told, and yet anything from outside the US boffo box office complex is relegated to Best Foreign Film status. The only foreign film that has won since '28 is Slumdog Millionaire, with an American distributor.
Realism of the story aside, I think I am the only person who saw this movie and felt that the renegade attitide of the hero and his following success were a romaticization of war and that the film verged on pro-war propaganda. I guess you could take it the opposite way and think that the only person who is okay with the type of situation in the battlefield is someone like the protaganist who is addicted to war. But to me, it seemed to emphasize Will Rogers type heroism and other cowboy attitudes.
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.OH .......MY ........GAWD! ..........is there no end to this dissertation?..
Oh my, yet another bolded, blue colored posting from the new gadfly of the politics forum
well, apparently, people are not even allowed to tell stories about Sofia Coppolla being a nice person, huh? Nor are they able to discuss who won best picture in past years when it was rather absurd?
maybe we can all read some of your recent shorter dissertations.
http://www.lpsg.org/2657569-post17.html
http://www.lpsg.org/2652872-post76.html
(i tried to get through the above "post", but it was so full of different colors, quotes, bolds, and general nonsense, that i stopped right when i got to the green parts...i will assume it did not get more intelligent from then on, even though you switched colors.)
http://www.lpsg.org/2648415-post33.html
http://www.lpsg.org/2650897-post61.html
(the above post was lovely multicolored follow up to the previous Dali-esque disaster i mentioned)
sorry...i did not check your posts prior to the past 6 days because you have been posting at a clip of roughly 30.5 posts per day during this time, and checking all that can be rather tedious, especially coming from one as full of it as you. I can guess that there were probably plenty more of *your* dissertations lying about the place, begging to be noticed prior to the past 6 days though.
Always nice to hear the opinions of the guy involved in fights in 8 different threads on the first page of the politics forum, where he has the most posts in 7 of them, who calls people tools, tells them to shut the fuck up, calls them dumbasses, and a litany of other things when they disagree.
plenty of people post very lengthy opinions on here, such as midlifebear, dee blackthorne etc. and many other posters whose longer speeches can be interesting and informative as well. It is amazing that you are yet able to only pick out certain ones, eh?
i'll make a note of your objections, while you keep tilting at those imaginary windmills you profess to have stormed in your past, Don Quixote.
thanks for contributing *SO MUCH* to the thread.
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As Flashy indicates, coming from you this is rich. Thank you for giving me a belly laugh maxie.
Sorry, I must take the responsibility for the green parts. You wandered into me responding to one of its tedious rambling response/attacks towards me and I took the liberty of editing and responding in that hideous shade of green- with intent of lightening up the situuation. I spoke to a matter, he responded to another (post 61) asking them to explain what I had written
how would they know? a few days later, (post 76) he dredged it up again. I tend to keep max on "mental ignore" most of the time. His use of that inane bolding-color makes it easy to zip by his blither. Since I try to ignore max, I didn't see his second run (post 76) directed at me, until yesterday. There is no reason for me to respond to his second run, since, A-it's now long gone by (my initial post) and B- whatever I respond to wiil be met with the max slice and dice process. Whatever I place in a post which is readily factually provable, he ignores if it goes against him, if I place an opinion, he takes it and attacks (often, days later and again days later).
Again, back to The Hurt Locker, it was jaw dropping in its many absurdities. It may have had an intent; however, the mark was widely missed if it indeed had one. How it earned a top award, we may never know.
Sorry, I must take the responsibility for the green parts. You wandered into me responding to one of its tedious rambling response/attacks towards me and I took the liberty of editing and responding in that hideous shade of green- with intent of lightening up the situuation. I spoke to a matter, he responded to another (post 61) asking them to explain what I had written
Since I try to ignore max, I didn't see his second run (post 76) directed at me, until yesterday. There is no reason for me to respond to his second run, since, A-it's now long gone by (my initial post) and B- whatever I respond to wiil be met with the max slice and dice process. Whatever I place in a post which is readily factually provable, he ignores if it goes against him, if I place an opinion, he takes it and attacks (often, days later and again days later).
LOL
i bet you would not have not needed to respond in green though, had someone not been so dead set on being so innovative by posting in bold blue. After all, he is a beautiful unique snowflake. The rest of us with our non bold, dark gray print are clearly beneath the special one.
D_Tully Tunnelrat
Experimental Member
I met her and her brother Roman many, many moons ago, when she was still a teenager at American Zoetrope: Francis' offices. She was unaffected, and kind then as well.
Thanks for the laugh, esp. the DF line, that was great stuff and just enough of rant to keep it all flowing. Could not agree with you more. Aptly stated: the Academy is just one big PR machine, which promotes all the wrong films, for the wrong reasons.
Loved almost all of Sergio Leone's movies. Ironically none of Eastwood's Oscars is for his roles in any of those films, but he got two for Million Dollar Baby, which is his most maudlin film. Go figure.
also, since Dakota Fanning was 12, how exactly is she supposed to watch the R rated films to vote anyway? I would think the MPAA would be pretty pissy about that :smile:
Flashie and Northie . . . truly in a class by themselves. A marriage made in heaven.
Sorry, I didn't read your posts. Way too much there, and I imagine it's more of the same repetitive, self-conscious rambling. But thanks for posting those links. If your intention was to embarrass me, it may have backfired. If any readers are interested enough to look at the context (and I don't mind, but I don't recommend it unless you're really bored) they might just see things differently than you. Those posts illustrate my response when repeatedly pushed by cyber bullies, persistent pestering blowhards and other assorted fools. No apologies for that.
I did pick up on one theme in my 10 second scan of your texts: There is a huge difference between taking taking the time and care to respond fully, thoughtfully, carefully and substantively on a complex subject vs. obsessively pontificating one's own self-absorbed opinions and egocentric experiences. Clearly that is a distinction lost on the two of you.
Keep it real y'all! . . . or just keep on with them wild exaggerations and various obsessions and compulsions.
Whatevah . . .
Now back to the movies!
Sorry, I didn't read your posts. Way too much there, and I imagine it's more of the same repetitive, self-conscious rambling. But thanks for posting those links. If your intention was to embarrass me, it may have backfired. If any readers are interested enough to look at the context (and I don't mind, but I don't recommend it unless you're really bored) they might just see things differently than you. Those posts illustrate my response when repeatedly pushed by cyber bullies, persistent pestering blowhards and other assorted fools. No apologies for that.
I did pick up on one theme in my 10 second scan of your texts: There is a huge difference between taking taking the time and care to respond fully, thoughtfully, carefully and substantively on a complex subject vs. obsessively pontificating one's own self-absorbed opinions and egocentric experiences. Clearly that is a distinction lost on the two of you.
Keep it real y'all! . . . or just keep on with them wild exaggerations and various obsessions and compulsions.
Whatevah . . .
Now back to the movies!
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