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Marc
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
To appreciate THE HURT LOCKER the only thing you need to know about bombs is that they blow things up.
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Marc
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:17 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
It looks like THE HURT LOCKER will struggle to gross the $10 million box office I predicted. The only way this movie is going to do well is if they pull it from theaters in a month and re-release it after it gets Oscar nominations.
As someone who would like to see the film recognized for it's artistic achievements, I'm afraid if it continues to falter at the box office it will be ignored by Academy members. And for those members who will experience it for the first time on DVD, the movie's punch will be softened on the small screen.


Last edited by Marc on Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Joe Vitus
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:19 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
billyweeds wrote:
Marc wrote:
Quote:
But also more than a little dull. Maybe the dullness is intentional, to keep it from veering into action movie territory, but there was a good stretch there in the middle I found it hard to sit through.


Joe, I didn't find a single frame of THE HURT LOCKER dull.


Nor I. But I bet I know one part Joe found dull, because it's a scene those who nitpick this masterpiece seem to zero in on. It's the standoff against (the only way I can describe it) "the house with the windows." It seems to be played out in real time and those who aren't totally into it can check their watches at that time.


So those of us who don't like a movie as much as you are "nitpicking" rather than just not enjoying it was much? Bull. At any rate, no that's not a segment I was referring too.

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Marc
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:38 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
To appreciate THE HURT LOCKER does not require an understanding of bomb mechanics anymore than an appreciation of PSYCHO requires a knowledge of plumbing or an appreciation of CITIZEN KANE requires a knowledge of setting type.
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billyweeds
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:00 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Marc wrote:
It looks like THE HURT LOCKER will struggle to gross the $10 million box office I predicted. The only way this movie is going to do well is if they pull it from theaters in a month and re-release it after it gets Oscar nominations.
As someone who would like to see the film recognized for it's artistic achievements, I'm afraid if it continues to falter at the box office it will be ignored by Academy members. And for those members who will experience it for the first time on DVD, the movie's punch will be softened on the small screen.


Marc--Though the movie has only made a certain amount of money, it is regarded as quite a hit. I don't think it's going to have any trouble getting a raft of Oscar nominations. Check it out; the received wisdom is that THL has broken the jinx on Iraq War films.
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lshap
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:12 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 4248 Location: Montreal
I studied the mechanics of bomb defusing and basic electrical engineering before going to see The Hurt Locker. I loved the film, although I noticed they used Xcelite 3K clippers which only work on grade D wiring.
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yambu
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 6:46 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
I haven't seen HL. In 1980, Masterpiece Theatre had a seven-parter called "Danger UXB" (for unexploded bombs.) Anthony Andrews played a brand new leftenant of a special group whose job it was to defuse the duds that fell on London. In it you learned everything there was to know about the making of bombs, their misfiring, and their defusing. The technology was pretty simple back then, but it added so much to those unbearably tense moments.

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lady wakasa
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:15 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
yambu wrote:
I haven't seen HL. In 1980, Masterpiece Theatre had a seven-parter called "Danger UXB" (for unexploded bombs.)


I remember that...

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whiskeypriest
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:18 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
Joe Vitus wrote:
billyweeds wrote:
Marc wrote:
Quote:
But also more than a little dull. Maybe the dullness is intentional, to keep it from veering into action movie territory, but there was a good stretch there in the middle I found it hard to sit through.


Joe, I didn't find a single frame of THE HURT LOCKER dull.


Nor I. But I bet I know one part Joe found dull, because it's a scene those who nitpick this masterpiece seem to zero in on. It's the standoff against (the only way I can describe it) "the house with the windows." It seems to be played out in real time and those who aren't totally into it can check their watches at that time.


So those of us who don't like a movie as much as you are "nitpicking" rather than just not enjoying it was much? Bull. At any rate, no that's not a segment I was referring too.
What segment(s) were you refering to?

I'm with Marc: everything you need to know about the work SSgt. James does you learn in the first maybe three minutes of the movie.

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ehle64
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 2:47 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A
is this the only film CURRENT>
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gromit
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 2:51 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai
I found the characters fairly cliched. And the film clumsy when it tried to delve into the psychology of the main character. Also, the character and sub-plot with the psychologist (I kept thinking priest, but that's probably from too many MASH reruns) was poorly conceived and seemed on auto-pilot. The film used corny shortcuts to show angst, such as putting on the helmet in bed and taking a shower fully dressed (which of course involved hunching down and crying).

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:28 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Whiskey,

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT


Sorry, I can't be specific. It's a three hour movie, and I know a lot of stuff about twenty-thirty minutes in began to drag and I was fairly bored. Obviously, if I was interested, I could remember what happened in that section vividly. I guess the stuff with the shrink was part of it. Hard to remember the order of everything that happened. A lot of stuff with the kid. In fact, I think it was when they discovered the "human bomb" that I began to get engrossed again.

I thought the scene involving the Brits was pretty good, as well as the shower moment afterwards.

A lot of the movie felt a little forced to me. I know I felt they "cowboyed up" James a bit too much. I'm a little surprised he wasn't punished or busted down a few ranks for what he pulled. They made it seem too heroic for so long, and I started wondering if I was watching a recruiting film. But when they tried to break away from celebrating him, it felt equally forced. Probably the ridiculous moment was where the team leader theorized about killing him "accidentally."

And it was only at the end that you realized how dangerous and how warped James was by the war. The last segment with him back at home was painful. But also felt a little false to me, since I work with returning vets all the time and I don't know a single one that wanted to return, and believe me the services will give people just about anything in the world to get them to go back. But if those final scenes didn't feel true to me, they certainly weren't boring. It did feel like something left over from a Vietnam drama: the guy so fucked up by war, all he wants to do is go to war. Not that this can't happen still, but the movie seemed bent on showing a typical unit, not an extraordinary one, and it doesn't connect with my experiences of returning soldiers.

I also felt the leader breaking down at the end and saying he couldn't do it anymore was pretty fake. I kept thinking, Well you don't have to do it anymore. Tomorrow is the final day of your rotation. It seemed more an Oscar moment than a logical progression.


Last edited by Joe Vitus on Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:23 am; edited 1 time in total

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billyweeds
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:06 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Joe's entire post should have a SPOILER ALERT.
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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:24 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
I added one. I figured it was so long, and we were so into the conversation, that no one would read it if they didn't expect plot revelations. But anyway, you're probably right that there should be a warning.

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whiskeypriest
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 7:22 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
Joe Vitus wrote:
I added one. I figured it was so long, and we were so into the conversation, that no one would read it if they didn't expect plot revelations. But anyway, you're probably right that there should be a warning.
I agree with both you and gromit about the psychologist character, which I thought was the one glaring narrative weakness in the movie. I think I mentioned earlier they couldn't've been more obvious about his ultimate fate if they had named him "Col. Deadmeat." Let's just say that, for the rest of your posts, we reacted differently.

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