Yeah, so I'm still mental. On top of which, I'm still properly ill. Like: sweating, unable to breathe, coughing, sneezing, sleeping for fourteen hours at a time, terrifyingly beautiful in a pallid, sunken, dull-eyed type of way. On the upside, I don't think I've eaten more than about seventeen calories since Sunday so am in with a shot of finally seeing what it's like to be heroin chic. Thrilled.
I was meant to go to a very fun conversation dinner at a swanky restaurant last night and meet lots of strangers, but it's amazing what a temperature and a massive emotional kick in the kidneys will do to your desire to fraternize. Instead I stayed in and watched The Hurt Locker, recent winner of all the big BAFTAs and likely future winner of lots of Oscars. I had heard it was good, set in Iraq, and that Guy Pearce was in it. Other than that, I was going in blind.
I am more than happy to admit that it was an absolutely brilliant suspense thriller. Edge of the sofa stuff, in a metaphorical sense (in reality I was completely slumped down under my blanket at all times and could probably have passed for dead). The guy who had the most screentime, an actor new to me, was really excellent, and the long set-piece scenes were cleverly weighted - the narrative arc more than sustained my frazzled attention over the 130-odd minutes.
But the Iraq setting felt cursory, more as a topical gambit than a genuine need to say anything unique about the country. The film's stated aim was to show what it is like to be a US soldier in these bomb disposal units, and maybe it was successful in that, but why exacerbate the huge gulf between the US military and Iraq by making films where all Iraqis are portrayed as terrifying threats, planting bombs and detonating them from old Nokias? It wasn't particularly illuminating and surely contributes to the continued problem. Add to that a few major plot hilarities, where these commandos go off on their own private vendettas and then face no punishment as a result, and you've got a good action flick, but not one that can really be taken seriously. There are certainly many soldiers who are highly critical of the film, as well as those who thought it was fantastic. I was left feeling like it was a slightly more erudite Top Gun, hugely enjoyable but not ground-breaking. And then the credits rolled and the director was revealed to me as Kathryn Bigelow. 'Name rings a bell...' I thought to myself. I scrolled through IMdB, trying to see why I recognised her. And then I saw her last hit: Point Break. Suddenly everything became clear.
My laugh-out-loud moment came when the three teammates were about thirty days into their time together, and were relaxing after a mission by swigging whiskey out of the bottle and having a brawl. Puffed, they lay down and it was only then that they revealed to each other that one had a son and another had a girlfriend. Much as I hate to further male/female cliches, it did make me giggle to imagine how long it would take girls in a similar situation to find out that one had a child and the other was in an unsatisfactory relationship. I'm guessing under an hour, although I'm prepared to concede that military life is probably not my ideal milieu.
I was meant to go to a very fun conversation dinner at a swanky restaurant last night and meet lots of strangers, but it's amazing what a temperature and a massive emotional kick in the kidneys will do to your desire to fraternize. Instead I stayed in and watched The Hurt Locker, recent winner of all the big BAFTAs and likely future winner of lots of Oscars. I had heard it was good, set in Iraq, and that Guy Pearce was in it. Other than that, I was going in blind.
I am more than happy to admit that it was an absolutely brilliant suspense thriller. Edge of the sofa stuff, in a metaphorical sense (in reality I was completely slumped down under my blanket at all times and could probably have passed for dead). The guy who had the most screentime, an actor new to me, was really excellent, and the long set-piece scenes were cleverly weighted - the narrative arc more than sustained my frazzled attention over the 130-odd minutes.
But the Iraq setting felt cursory, more as a topical gambit than a genuine need to say anything unique about the country. The film's stated aim was to show what it is like to be a US soldier in these bomb disposal units, and maybe it was successful in that, but why exacerbate the huge gulf between the US military and Iraq by making films where all Iraqis are portrayed as terrifying threats, planting bombs and detonating them from old Nokias? It wasn't particularly illuminating and surely contributes to the continued problem. Add to that a few major plot hilarities, where these commandos go off on their own private vendettas and then face no punishment as a result, and you've got a good action flick, but not one that can really be taken seriously. There are certainly many soldiers who are highly critical of the film, as well as those who thought it was fantastic. I was left feeling like it was a slightly more erudite Top Gun, hugely enjoyable but not ground-breaking. And then the credits rolled and the director was revealed to me as Kathryn Bigelow. 'Name rings a bell...' I thought to myself. I scrolled through IMdB, trying to see why I recognised her. And then I saw her last hit: Point Break. Suddenly everything became clear.
My laugh-out-loud moment came when the three teammates were about thirty days into their time together, and were relaxing after a mission by swigging whiskey out of the bottle and having a brawl. Puffed, they lay down and it was only then that they revealed to each other that one had a son and another had a girlfriend. Much as I hate to further male/female cliches, it did make me giggle to imagine how long it would take girls in a similar situation to find out that one had a child and the other was in an unsatisfactory relationship. I'm guessing under an hour, although I'm prepared to concede that military life is probably not my ideal milieu.
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