The Hurt Locker

I just watched "The Hurt Locker" and I enjoyed it very much. It amazed me that I could be riveted to the screen when for a lot of the movie, NOTHING is happening. Two guys are lying in the dirt staring at a house through binoculars. But I couldn't turn away. Sue me, I dug it (some people probably would sue me, since some people care WAY too much what I think about movies). Anyway, with regards to "The Hurt Locker," people keep complaining that it's unrealistic, but I have to ask, compared to WHAT? It's probably a thousand times more realistic than the war movies I watched growing up. None of them showed flies crawling into the eyes of snipers while they lay in wait. I don't know what people were getting at. Did it mess up some of the details? I'm sure it did. Movies are fictional, not reality, so I take them with a grain of salt, but I respect them for what I can see that they've gotten right, and "The Hurt Locker" gets a lot of things right that I've seen other movies get wrong. I think it's funny that an equal number of people complained "this movie is propaganda! It felt like a two hour commercial asking me to enlist!" and "this movie was propaganda! It was blatantly anti-war!" That in my eyes is the mark of a successful war movie.

Out of curiosity, and because I made the statement "I don't usually like 'Best Picture' winners," I went through and compiled a list of every 'Best Picture' winner that I would consider a movie that I love; a movie that has shaped/changed my perception of the world, a movie that I still think and talk about long after I'm done watching it, movies I can really say I love and I'd watch again (or that they're worth watching again, even if I don't want to, since I don't typically sit down with a big bowl of popcorn and pop "Schindler's List" in very often). For those of you who are interested, here's that list:

Gentlemen's Agreement
All About Eve
The Sound of Music
West Side Story
In the Heat of the Night
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Rocky
The Deer Hunter
Kramer vs. Kramer
Terms of Endearment
Platoon
Schlindler's List
American Beauty
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Crash
Slumdog Millionaire
The Hurt Locker


Honorable mention goes to "Braveheart," because I quote it a lot, but looking at it, I really don't think the movie is very good, just individual lines and scenes are good, so I reference them. For the record, I also suspect that "Rebecca" and "Casablanca" will be on this list as well if I get around to watching them again. I think I was too young to appreciate them when I first saw them, so I need to see them again. Probably same with "The Apartment". In fact, I recently bought "Ordinary People" for this very reason. I'll also probably add "Unforgiven" to this list once I finally see it. I quote the damn thing enough already. And I might add "No Country for Old Men" to the list once I see it.