Director Kathryn Bigelow has been on my radar for some time as a woman who directs action movies, but the only other one of her movies I saw was Strange Days (1995), with a science fiction premise (people A can rent people B's memories/brain waves, especially dangerous ones, and then plug the memories into A's brains to feel like they are experiencing the dangerous things themselves), starring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. Although I didn't really like Fiennes in it, it was very good, and later I read that Bigelow wanted him to exhibit just the characteristics that annoyed me (I think describing those characteristics might be a spoiler). Fiennes has a cameo in Hurt Locker, which is named for a term that writer Mark Boal (who also wrote the story of another war movie, 2007's In the Valley of Elah) learned in Iraq: hurt locker means a place you don't want to go.
Sorry, I buried the lead: Jack and I really liked this powerful war movie that Jack called "taut." We're not alone. The reviews have been good (here's one, but stop after the 6th paragraph if you are as serious as I about avoiding spoilers) and the blood is mostly offscreen, despite a lot of heart-stopping danger. Three men dominate the tale of a bomb squad in Iraq in 2004. Star Jeremy Renner, who plays Sgt. James, was in the excellent dramas Twelve and Holding and North Country (both 2005) and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Best Actor award for this and for the title role in Dahmer (which I did not see in 2002). Anthony Mackie (Sgt. Sanborn) has plenty of good work, including Notorious, as Tupac Shakur, and there is a sly reference in Hurt Locker to his leading role in Spike Lee's She Hate Me (2004), where he played a man who sold his sperm to wealthy lesbians (good stuff, Spike!). Mackie has 6 movies in post- or pre-production now, including, if imdb is to be trusted, two in which he will play Buddy Bolden, who was a seminal jazz cornet player (ha!) around the turn of last century. Brian Geraghty (Specialist Eldridge) was in Sam Mendes' very dark comedy Jarhead (2005) about Marines in Saudi Arabia, and rounds out the trio. Guy Pearce (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), L.A. Confidential (1997), Memento (2000--I like to call it Otnemem)) and David Morse (St. Elsewhere (TV, 1982-88), Contact (1997), and The Green Mile (1999)) have cameos, as well as Christian Camargo (whom I thought was J-Lo's husband Marc Anthony, but was really Rudy from season 2 of Dexter) as Colonel Cambridge.
Just watched Near Dark. Very very cool. It is worth it just to see what a bad boy Bill Paxton was, and to see Adrian Pasdar as a kid. Given the vampire craze now, remember that this was made in 1987. Wonder how it would play in the Twilight/TruBlood era??
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