Zero Dark Thirty

[Stewball]

What a story. And what a storyteller! Katheryn Bigelow is now among my top 5 working directors. Who'd have thought you could balance sensitivity with brutality in one movie and in one actress, Jessica Chastain, who's Maya is the feminine version of Jeremy Renner's William James in The Hurt Locker. Casting couldn't have been better.

Bigelow probably had a feminist (as opposed to feminazi) agenda for doing this, a motivation well placed in this case, what with the focus on Maya who is the heart of the story in the eye of the storm, and the prime mover behind keeping the CIA in the hunt. The story takes you from phone recordings on 9-11, through the 10 intervening years and the near real-time portrayal of the operation, to the perfect ending with Maya in the C-130. For me, this closes the book on the 9-11 event (some would say closure), while at the same time helping us never to forget what the whole thing was about and that Al Quaeda is still out there--re: Benghazi. This ought to shore up the fears so many directors have of sticking to the history, using research to fill out the story and the characters instead of fabrications which usually end up being disappointing.

The political accusations from both sides prior to its release are near nil after they moved the wide release to Jan 11. I saw one pro and one con element and they were both muted. It's showing now in only one theater in metro Phoenix, and the two screens showing it had the parking lot overflowing by 2-3 times what I'd ever seen there before at night, much less mid-afternoon. My ONLY negative is the absent or nearly unnoticeable music. I'm giving it a 10/10, but if they'd have let me pick the music to play over the credits (Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue), I'd be giving it an 11.

For me this closes out 2012 for any award considerations, leaving this in contention with my other 10, Life of Pi. It's a tossup, art vs. grit.

[ayall]

Also recently caught this.
I thought it was just slightly above average per Katheryn Bigelow ineptitude.

Knowing that Bigelow was the director, this movie actually exceeded my expectations.
However, ANY other director (including M Night Shyama-mama-ding-dong) could/would have done a good/better job.

This movie had crazy potential, and the most credit i'll give Bigelow is that she managed not to screw it up, but my only gripe is that the ending([spoiler]the raid[/spoiler]) of this flick is relatively weak to the build up and what actually occurred in reality (coulda been done much better).

I personally preferred Argo to this for award consideration, but 0dark30 is entertaining none the less.

[Stewball]

Whatever.

[Dunder74]

She wasted no time making this. I will watch it, but I sincerely doubt it is the epitome of film the critics have made it out to be. The Hurt Locker was good, I guess, and it'll probably be better than the caveman family movie.

Bigelow is so overrated it hurts. The only reason, and it's a stupid one, that she is famous is because of that Oscar, and the only reason she won it that year is because no one honestly considered anything other than The Hurt Locker and Avatar.

My only wish is that her next film be different.

[Stewball]

The air is thick with pretension.

[ayall]

Bigelow is so overrated it hurts. The only reason, and it's a stupid one, that she is famous is because of that Oscar, and the only reason she won it that year is because no one honestly considered anything other than The Hurt Locker and Avatar.

Couldn't agree more.

[Jorg]

Bigelow is so overrated it hurts. The only reason, and it's a stupid one, that she is famous is because of that Oscar, and the only reason she won it that year is because no one honestly considered anything other than The Hurt Locker and Avatar.

Couldn't agree more.

+1

Still, I think Zero Dark Thirty was a better work than Hurt Locker.. I don't think it's too much calling it one of the best movies of the year (it was a pretty lousy year after all). I'd rate it a 75/100 whereas Hurt Locker probably gets a 65-70 from me. Haven't seen Argo + The Master + some others yet, but so far it's the only movie that I've seen that comes close to deserving best picture imo (yeah and TDKR, but that one doesn't suit the academy). Also Chastain's performance is probably good enough to win best actress.

[ShogunRua]

Katheryn Bigelow is one of my favorite directors ever and "The Hurt Locker" cracked the 50 greatest masterpieces I have ever seen.

I'm very excited in seeing her most recent effort. But whether you like or dislike her films, calling her a bad director is just plain dumb.

[ayall]

"The Hurt Locker" cracked the 50 greatest masterpieces I have ever seen.

Even for you, Shogu, this is low.

If THL is in your "top 50 greatest masterpieces" you have ever seen, then you must not have seen to many movies or your taste is just complete shit (no offense, by the way).

THL was a decent (maybe even good) film, but by no means on any respectable critics "top 50 greatest ever," I doubt many would even consider it top 50 greatest this century.

As for Bigelow, I think (and many agree), that she's nothing special.
She's not much of an artist (Not even close to Kubrick, PTA, Aronofsky, etc.)
Her production values is very bland and matches that of a simple 1990's high school film project.
I would say, at best, she's the female equivalent of Micheal Bay.

As for THL, i enjoyed it and thought it was entertaining, but it had many flaws and was definitely over rated.
I somewhat despise her obsession with US armed forces and completely disagree with her point of view.
The most credit I will give her is that she's able to extract talent from her cast, but at the same time; that would be like giving credit to the guitar instead of the guitar player.

[nauru]

Her production values is very bland and matches that of a simple 1990's high school film project.
I would say, at best, she's the female equivalent of Micheal Bay.

One of the things Michael Bay is really good at though is great production value...