And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Hurt Locker!
Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 82 (2009)
As previously mentioned, I am convinced that the movie going public will never forgive Shakespeare in Love for it's upset Best Picture victory. So the question is raised: How do people feel about The Hurt Locker's upset win?
It seems to me that this movie is in the same boat as Shakespeare in Love as it both beat some stiff competition and became something of a watershed for the Best Picture Oscars: It beat out Up and Avatar. It was the lowest grossing nominee. It was a low budget/small scale movie triumphing over the bigger budget movies. It's director, Kathryn Bigelow, was the first female to win Best Director (and who also beat out her former husband James Cameron). It was the first movie since Mrs Miniver to be about a war that was then in progress.
An impressive legacy to be sure but what of the movie itself?
It certainly is compelling in it's depiction of working in a bomb disposal unit. The setting, Iraq, is also handled convincingly as well as the distrust the troops get from the locals. I don't doubt the realistic manner of the situations and how they are handled but I do question the reckless behaviour of some of the grunts: I may not be a military expert but I'm pretty sure you don't go acting like a tool when the dangerous task of bomb disposal is in progress,
Still I won't fault this movie for it's incredible use of tension and the sense that one is put right into the action. Many war movies can claim to do that but this one, I feel, actually pulls it off.
Looks like we have winner.
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