03.05.09

well we got a fat inch of dump just outside the city on monday and we finally got around to getting at it last night. gathering snow from the shady spots.

and laying it out all nice and pretty.

the setup:

the guinea pig:

then we ripped it!

we also set up a little grinder bench at the base to make the session complete.

it was a good night to stay younger.

The anti-communication film known as THE HURT LOCKER

the hurt locker hurts to watch

the hurt locker has taken several oscars; best director, editing, sound, sound editing, writing and of course best picture.  sound and sound editing i can get behind.  if you want proof watch the movie without sound and see how much more boring it is.  but its kind of ironic that the suck locker won for sound when there is not much need for sound since the characters fail to communicate.  critics and audiences agree that this is not an anti-war film and theyre right, however they fail to realize that this is an anti anti-communication film.  This is established up front with the death of the likable sergeant matt thompson played by guy pearce.

T is for Talkative Thompson

thompson talks to the two men in his command.  they have such a good rapport with each other that disarming bombs and talking about dick size is fun.  thompson tells us how the bomb will be blown and how the explosion will happen.  hes obviously telling us since we just joined the tour and dont have any prior detonations experience.  but dammit, the man just talked too much.  he made the other men comfortable enough to joke about growing a grass business, he made us comfortable enough to not feel so worried about the broken wagon or the volatile nature of the explosives he handles with care.  but communication begins to break down.  thompson sees specialist owen eldridge running and yelling and asks ‘why is eldridge running?’ luckily they have talked enough in the past that he knows he should start running too.  unfortunately, if thompson runs to safety the hurt locker wont live up to its name so his organs are exploded inside his special (seemingly worthless) suit.  if you dont know about the pressure caused by an explosion too bad.  thompson is dead so no one is left to explain it to you.  interesting to note that this pressure doesnt effect james when the man with the cage bomb blows.  but of course no one is going to explain that either because now that thompson is dead no one is going to do a good job of communicating for the rest of the movie.  not to each other and certainly not to us. 

maybe james is hard of hearing

it would make sense, blasting heavy metal, months riding around in noisy hummers and making things blow up, its understandable that his hearing would be shot.  but he is married so more likely he hears but chooses not to listen.  and it doesnt really matter anyway since others communicate poorly as well.  i just assumed theyre all married.

in his first defusing james sets off a smoke bomb.  why is his bomb suit equipped with a smoke screen?  no matter, the bigger question is why he takes so long to answer sergeant jt sanborn as to why he set it off in the first place.  maybe he couldnt hear him through all the smoke.  

the soldiers securing the perimeter also lack certain communication skills since they were unable to convince a cabbie that the street was closed.  but forget about the soldiers, all their guns and hummers didnt mean the same thing to the cabbie as james’ handgun apparently.  the whole introduction of james was horrible from the unnecessary smoke bomb, the lack of response to his team, the failure of the soldiers to kill the cabbie blowing through the roadblock and the extremely forced  (and fairly unnecessary) tension before the cabbie puts the cab in reverse.

and the movie continues to ride the downward spiral.  when james throws his cans (headset) out of the carbomb i wanted a child killer with a knife to sneak up and stab him while sanborn tries to warn him over the radio hes not listening to.  this scene illustrates to me that james is a poor leader more than an amazing maverick bomb expert.  i care about james about as much as i care about barnes -actually i like barnes more. barnes has character depth, james has character void.

other characters who communicate poorly

ralph fiennes as the contractor team leader.  ignore the fact that the EOD team was rolling around the desert without an escort… why does the contractor team leader take so long to identify himself to friendlys?  ill tell you why, more unnecessary tension.  in fact, the entire scene with the contractors is unnecessary tension and terribly unrealistic.  

• how does the guy (fiennes) with the sniper rifle get picked off in the first exchange?  im not a sniper and i know that the most important part of a sniper exchange is concealment. 
• how does sanborn not get picked off for an eternity longer?   especially since hes lying in the same place fiennes was.
• how does sanborn miss the guy in the window but score a headshot on a moving target?  one is harder than the other, guess which one.
• how does the sniper in the window fall OUT of the window instead of being blown backwards into the hut?  you know those sniper bullets are pretty big right?
• and how come those big bullets dont just rip through that mud hut? 

and all of the above completely ignores the fact that an EOD team is not a sniper team, ranger experience or not.  but it becomes obvious that we are following an EOD team with skills beyond others.  why else would the three of them go hunting down the trigger man for the night bomb, with no backup and then split up?  

we already know james has a communication problem, but after sneaking out of the base to go on his rambo mission how far into the base does he walk before he decides its a good time to start talking? he seemed well past the dead line to me but ive never been on a military base so i dont know if they actually have dead lines.  but with armed guards, barbed wire and towers it certainly seems like there should be one.  and how come it was so easy for him to get off the base riding shotgun with a hoodie but so hard to get back on with his hands up and holding id?  

mrs. james.  dont label me a misogynist, blame mark boal, hes the one who wrote the characters and made that bitch CHOOSE not to listen.  she clearly hears james talking about the recent incidents in iraq and tells him to peel some carrots or something like that instead.  frankly, i would have ignored him too since i know he cant listen either.  for this reason ill let james slide for the ‘crank call’ he makes to her on the sat phone.  he doesnt talk and she doesnt listen but he called anyway so its the thought that counts.  i cant wait to get married.

other issues

the editing is good but is it oscar worthy? the answer is yes but only if chronology isnt important. the biggest example of this is when james pulls on a wire revealing several attached bombs. its a great scene, dramatic and shot well enough to make the movie poster, but the following sequences are horribly spliced.  recall the film at this point cuts back and forth from james snipping wires to a ‘haji’ running down steps.  he must have been on the top floor since james seems to be able to snip all the bombs before the ‘haj’ gets to ground level and drops a mysterious black box.  i may be wrong, but i believe that same black box shows up in james’ collection of ‘things that almost killed me’.  lets ignore the mysterious black box, why it was shown hitting the ground and how it (possibly) ended up in james’ toy box.  the ‘best’ editing gave the impression that james is very fast at defusing bombs.

in conlcusion

there is more. and im sure if i watched the movie a second time i could find more but i really dont want to go through that again.  in my opinion this film did not deserve the best film oscar.  but then again it was up against avatar which didnt even deserve a nomination.  but the meshing of dances with wolves at best (and the last samurai at worst) with aliens is a rant for another day.

Hello world!

the default post title stays the same because of its classic roots in beginner programming. plus it reminds me of hello.jpg so its double classic. 

so lets get this started.