Hurt Locker and I Tole ya Months ago

Hooray for Hurt Locker.  This is the first year in the last ten or so that I've actually seen most nominated movies due mainly to the On Demand feature of Time Warner Cable which showed more than a few and Avatar which got me to actually go out and see it as well as a few others. Hurt Locker pleased me, not only because I thought it is a really good movie, but because for the first time those Hollywood cocksuckers didn't portray our troops as sadistic rapists, drug addicts, and genocidal maniacs (in Avatar they were also called morons).  Sandra Bullock has shown that just working and working finally pays off; good for her.  I can't quarrel with any of the awards because this was a good year for good movies.  I noted that Simon over at PJ yesterday was as much of a snob as he accuses Hollywood of being; he's an elitist and (so he says) a former liberal who claims he's really talented, and who am I to differ?  Today he acts as if he never said any of it and sees non-liberal movies winning Awards and coming back and cheer leading conservative movie makers.  Yeah, movies that gross $14 million are going to take over.  NOBODY saw it while even cheesy horror movies make buks.  It's so fucking easy to stand on the sidelines and hurl insults toward those who actually work on something.  One thing does stick in my calloused claw is that Avatar should not have been frozen out, after all a hundred million people loved it and the format is going to change movies forever.  The "word" seems to be that everyone hates James Cameron (everyone in Hollywood always hates success in others) and they just showed him who is boss.  Avatar should be judged by a different standard than almost any other movie, ever.

Now for something snarky: I watched the Awards along with the NBA games both with the sound off.  The few Academy sound bits I caught seemed insufferably pretentious, the actresses were decidedly unglamorous titless wonders, and the guys didn't lisp or swish like figure skaters at the Olympics.  BUT the NBA games without the moron announcers were really really good.  A particular surprise was the athleticism of the Washington Wizards team (lets call them the Washington Political Criminals) is on the astounding level. "March Madness" and the NBA playoffs shape up as an exciting and spectacular pair of events.

A few more notes on the movie, Hurt Locker, the one I've been touting for a few months now.  Kathryn Bigelow, The woman producer/director who is now known as the ex wife of Avatar-Titanic creator James Cameron, is a person who has earned her chops on her own in a couple of other really good movies, Point Break, Strange Days and nine others in which she either produced, directed, or wrote (a few were co-written with her then husband).  She vanished from sight because of the no grossing Harrison Ford staring vehicle K-19: The Widowmaker  (AKA The Career Tanker) which grossed bupkis.  So she's got an enviable  track record in action movies going way back but that one "failure" sidelined her for seven years.  Hurt Locker was actually made several years ago and shown at the 2008 Venice Film Festival to raves and raves but nobody wanted to touch it.

Movies

Be sure to check "FilmDrunk" and make it one of your new faves. Guy is "famous" for his 70 minute review of Titanic.  This week he does a funny twenty minute rant on Avatar, a movie that if it wasn't in 3D would garner a world gross of around $30o.  He heaps rousing praise for my nomination for best picture, The DGA  and Producers Guild Best Picture Award  winner, "Hurt Locker," easily the best movie in a long time, but that was about something that doesn't portray the U.S. Military as a bunch of moronic fascists and rapists.  BIG surprise is that it's winning those hard left prestigious awards at all, most likely because the director is a WOMAN (ex wife of Avatar producer James Cameron), but don't let the obvious phoniness of the nomination from the always PC Academy stop you from seeing this terrific movie.

A Really Good Movie

It's called The Hurt Locker and for the first time in years our fighting men and women are portrayed as braver than hell, doing a job you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, and behaving decently in an indecent situation.  None are dope fiends, sexual deviates, or genocidal bad guys.  The movie focuses on a small force of men whose job is to locate and then explode IEDs that are buried everywhere. The continuing tension is more than any young man should have to endure, they are under constant sniper attack, and suicide bomber assault making the movie very tense for most of its length . This is a super good movie and I urge you to go and see it. Amazingly, it has been nominated for an Oscar but I bet it gets trashed by the Hollywood Pigs.  It was televised on ON DEMAND here in LA for 48 hours prior to theatrical release.  Klavin review here (he didn't like it but fuck him)