The Hurt Locker

The other day I went to see “The Hurt Locker“.  There was plenty of hype around this movie – 6 Oscars, 73 other award wins, and 47 nominations for more awards.  Not to mention that the director is Kathryn Bigelow, who is, among other things, an ex-wife of James Cameron.  (And as we know, in many cases, you are who you are married to, and if so, it’s extremely helpful in this case).

Anyways.  Obviously, with all that noise, I’ve heard quite a bit about the film, and I saw the trailer, and I had a slight idea on what it was and how it was.  I went prepared. Or so I thought…

The film turned out to be totally different from what I was expecting.  Actually, I think it turned out totally different from what anybody were expecting.  And that’s a good thing.  Surprise!  Somehow this film is very different from pretty much everything.  It has action, but it’s not an action.  It has drama, but it’s not a drama.  It’s supposedly has documentary, but it’s not documentary.  The storyline is very vague and doesn’t seem to stand out or lead anywhere, but on the other hand the film is rather long and I didn’t get tired of it at all. It’s very natural.

The way it works, I guess, is that this film is using atmosphere to tell the story, rather than dialogs, powerful music, and impressive shots.  As I said, at times you don’t really know where it goes and if it goes anywhere at all.  But yet somehow it all makes sense.  Also, one other thing that I really enjoyed, and which I thought was a cornerstone of this film is simplicity.  The whole situation in Iraq is not simple.  There are many sides to it and many points of views.   But this film drops down to a very simplistic view of the whole picture from the eyes of a few American soldiers.   There is no propaganda, there are no high-flying ideas.  It’s just that simple – a few guys at war.   It’s not about why they are there.  It’s about them actually being there.

The film is not very entertaining, even though it has a few hilarious bits and quite a few action sequences.  It’s simple, and yet deep.  It doesn’t force ideas upon thee, but it does make you think.  And as I said, it’s different from most films I’ve seen, and yet very similar somehow.

Overall, I’ll give it a 4 out of 5, and I would highly recommend it.

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye

I watched “Eagle Eye” recently.  I haven’t seen the trailer and the rough plot descriptions that I have seen around were way too vague, so I didn’t really know what to expect of it.  Once I saw it, I realized that the plot is indeed difficult to describe without spoiling it for those who haven’t seen it.  On the other hand, the covers are open pretty early in the film, so I wouldn’t felt robbed if someone told the truth.

If you don’t want to get any spoilers, stop reading here.  Maybe fast-forward to the last paragraph or so.  For the rest of you – the film is a bit too far fetched conspiracy of the computer going crazy.  It has all the attributes of any other conspiracy film – innocent victims, dictator’s plot for the greater good, lots of secrecy, lots of car chases and shooting, and a few federal agents.  The only difference here is that it’s not a human or an organization, but a supercomputer going nuts.

I think we’ve all seen films with computers going crazy.  These films had their time and place, except maybe for last one, which can still make it through.  I’m talking about the Terminator, of course.  Everything else should die off as an IT legacy.  Three year old kids these days know how to use a computer.  You can find one in absolutely every non-government office which has electricity.  Millions of people are connected to the Internet, have very sophisticated mobile phones, and have seen films about insane computers.  It’s just not working any more.

And I think that’s about the only thing that was bad in this film – the story.  Other than that, it was pretty good.  There are quite a few well-known people.  There are plenty of special effects.  There is enough suspense and drama.  And even something to listen to while everything moves, shoots, thinks, and explodes.

My overall rating is 4 stars.