Movie #12 - The Hurt Locker

From the movies nominated for Best Picture, so far I've seen Inglorious Basterds, Avatar, Up in the air and (last night) The hurt locker.
The Hurt Locker is a Kathryn Bigelow's movie and it follows the everyday life of an American bomb squad in the war in Iraq.
It won the Bafta for Best Film and some people seem to think it will take the Oscar too.
I'll leave any discussion out for now about who I think will take the oscar and who I think deserves it.
In any case, this movie does deserve to be on this list. Basically, because of the performances. Jeremy Renner is great and is nominated for an Oscar too. Anthony Mackie is also impecable and maybe should have had an oscar nod with this movie.
The story is pretty basic but it is powerfully captured. Cinematography is great too. There is one scene in particular with Jeremy Renner with a fire in the background which I really thought it could stand alone as a beatiful picture.
I've never been in a war nor have I have ever been in Iraq, so I couldn't say whether the movie is accurate or not, but it sure felt realistic. And here lie two aspects that for me made the film less enjoyable. First, I thought that the choice of camera angles and editing make it too much of a documentary and less of a film. And that, along with the second aspect, which is the fact that I felt that the soundtrack was often absent, made me feel less involved in the film. So, even though it's a very good film, very well done, it is not one of those movies that in the end I was completely taken by it. Nonetheless, it is a great movie that I do recommend.

There is still a couple of movies I'd like to see before the Oscars, namely A Single man (by the former main stylist at Gucci, Tom Ford) and A Serious man by the Cohen brothers.

Since I'm sure the movies list will have new entries this month, here's an update on how things are now.

1) Slumdog Millionaire
2) 2001 Space Odissey
3) Dr Strangelove
4) It's a wonderful life
5) JFK
6) In the Valley of Elah
7) In Bruges
8) The graduate
9) The Godfather
10) Inglorious Basterds
11) Garden State
12) The Hurt Locker