the hurt locker

well the student movie night didn't go quite as planned. there was some miscommunication regarding who was actually bringing along the dvd - resulting in us not having one to show. oops!
anyway, after gaz took a trip home [btw - i'm not referring to myself in the third person, it's a different gaz!] we settled down in the cold churchhouse loft with snacks and our very large screen to watch 'the hurt locker'.
i could go on about how it garnered best film oscar [amongst many] but i personally don't put any worth on the flakey goldness of the oscars as they really only have one purpose - and that's to do a little self glorification. as it stands, the hurt locker *was* the best film of that year... period!
so it was good to get a chance to watch it again. it's not really a standard war movie in that there is no over the top action, non-stop large scale battles, or even the psychological examinations a la platoon. it's a relatively small film, the focus being on one man and the 2 or 3 men who he works with. these guys are bomb disposal experts - in iraq. we come into the movie part way through their tour, ride along with them in the incredibly tense situations of ied's that they have to deal with along with snipers - they are never safe, and you get a real sense of that. then we leave them in the same way we were introduced to them. it's great to see a movie that breaks the mould.
that's all there is to this movie. it's tense, sometimes slow, often thoughtful, sometimes moving, always brilliant.
there were other good movies that year [avatar, inglourious basterds, district 9, up] but there really was no contender for *best* movie...