Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Unless it's nominated for a tournament at some point, I don't think I'll ever watch The Theory of Everything. It just doesn't interest me.

Like you, cricket, I have no interest in this at all. I only watched Hawking because it was on TV 10 years ago.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I was really looking forward to this movie. I've seen Stephen Hawking interviewed and discuss his theories. I thought this would be a very inspiriting, personal story, but nope...it wasn't.

I don't know if you guys noticed but I'm attempting to watch 2014 Academy nominated films, both best picture and best actor.

I liked The Theory of Everything more than you did, but I'm not sure that it was good enough to be a Best Picture nominee.

Which Oscar nominees have you seen already, and which movies are still on your watchlist?

So far I've seen these:

Grand Budapest Hotel

Boyhood ...I liked it but now that I think about it I was too generous, I would give it a 4.

Birdman

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash (I didn't like it so I shut it off after 15 minutes)

I still need to watch: The Imitation Game, American Sniper and Selma

It's a shame that you didn't like Whiplash. I thought it was the best movie of the year.

I haven't watched Selma yet because it just didn't interest me, but I'll probably watch it at some point when I have the time.

I couldn't review Whiplash because I didn't watch it. But I found the ballastic nature of the music teacher including throwing a chair at a student unbelievable. In this day in age, he would have long ago had the cops called on him by one of his disgruntled students or had the pants sued off him. His character was way over the top.

If I can't believe a characters actions as being real in the context of the film, then I can't believe the film. The movie might have gotten much better and turned out good, I don't know.

You should try to get past that and watch the movie. It's amazing.

You're probably right about that.

Let me ask you did the music teacher keep up the same basaltic behavior through out the film? If not then I might try it again.

He didn't throw things at the students throughout the movie, but he did and said a lot of mean things to them to motivate them.

Can you tell me in a nutshell what made you like the film so much?

The intensity of the whole movie. The student who was driven to be the best that he could be versus the teacher who would do anything to have the best orchestra, regardless of how his actions affected each individual student. They played off each other perfectly.

I didn't know anything about the movie before I watched it. I actually thought it was a horror movie at first, so I was avoiding it, but I kept reading great reviews of the movie, so I decided to give it a chance. It drew me in from the very beginning, and it just never let go. The final scene is incredible, but you have to watch the whole movie to feel how intense that scene is.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writer: Mark Boal
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty
Genre: Documentary style war drama

Premise: Shot in hand held camera documentary style on the streets and desert of Jordan. The film chronicles a team of three soldiers in Bravo company, who's mission is bomb removal and detonation during the Iraq War.

Review: If you think war is the ultimate expression of waste and achieves nothing but misery...than this film is for you. The Hurt Locker is not a war buddy film and not a CG action film that glories killing and war. Just the opposite, this film endeavors to show the utter chaos and futility of war.

The film follows the last couple weeks of a tour of duty rotation of three EOD soldiers, explosive ordinance disposal. Their job is to deactivate, remove or explode IED explosives left as booby traps by Iraq insurgents. A dangerous job.

The film was shot in Jordan which lends an ultra realistic feel to this fine film. The littered desolate streets look like Iraq during the war.

The three lead actors are relatively unknown, all give naturalist portrayal of soldiers. Nothing is over the top or hammed up. This is a smaller budget indie film, but don't think that means it doesn't look good...it looks real, it feels real. Of all the Iraq war films I've seen this one is the closest to giving a feeling of what it must have been like to be there on those foreboding streets where any of the locals could be holding a remote control bomb.

This won a slew of Academy Awards for 2010 including:
Best Motion Picture
Best Achievement in Directing (Kathryn Bigelow who was the first woman director to win)
Best Writing, Original Screenplay (the screenwriter, Mark Boal was a journalist who went along with several bomb crews during the Iraq war)
Best Achievement in Film Editing

The beauty of the story is that there is no real story. The lead in the three men team is killed and is replaced with a hot shot Ranger (Jeremy Ranger) who's an adrenaline junkie and constantly puts the other two men in danger with his risk taking.



Anthony Mackie plays a soldier who's the coordinator of communications. He's seen too much stupid stuff happening during his time in Iraq. Despite his common sense he has to follow the orders of the Ranger. The scene he does towards the end of the film where he says he is sick of Iraq was powerful.

The junior member of the team is Brian Geraghty his job is to take the point and to keep an eye out for hostiles. He's a bit green and just wants to get home in one piece. In some ways he's like we would be if we were thrust into this hostile environment.

The Hurt Locker does an excellent job of showing just how chaotic the Iraq war was. It doesn't preach, it doesn't tug at the heart strings, it doesn't pull out any of those old archetype characters. It's refreshing. If you don't like war, you should see this film. It's not perfect but it's the best Iraq war film out there.

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Good review. I really like The Hurt Locker, it feels like you're stepping into the boots of a soldier. Very realistic feel.

Thanks 101, You summed up the film perfect, 'feels like you're stepping into the boots of a soldier.' I totally agree with that.

I usually don't like war movies, but The Hurt Locker has been on my watchlist for a while because of its great reviews. Your review might make me push it up a little bit higher on my watchlist.

I think you would appreciate the film GB. I don't know if you would really like it, but it's not about killing or gore and not real violent. It's not character driven, nor is it story driven...It's done as a semi-documentary style with hand held cameras and a near absent sound track. I found it refreshing, this is one of the type of film making I like.

I never expect to like a war movie, but sometimes I can appreciate them.

Good point!

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