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 Zero Dark Thirty is Katherine Bigelow's follow-up to her Oscar-winning movie The Hurt Locker, this time following the CIA as it tracks down Osama Bin Laden over the last 10 years. Interestingly enough, the movie was supposed to have its climax with Bin Laden escaping at Tora Bora during Operation Anaconda, but the real-life raid by the U.S. Navy's Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU, "Seal Team 6") that resulted in his death forced a total reworking of the movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcBjOVKKxh0 The movie itself is rife with controversies: Bigelow & screenwriter Mark Boal had contacts in the CIA & were accused of leaking real-time classified information during research of the film. Another major controversy is how the movie treats torture, and some critics are concerned that its depiction seems to forgive the horrible act since it "produces results." Apparently the waterboarding scene is supposed to be incredibly unsettling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxC_JNz5Vbg Having read No Easy Day, former DEVGRU operator "Mark Owen's" account of Operation Neptune Spear, there's signs that the movie corroborates with his memoirs. Owen mentions that the lead CIA analyst was a woman (assigned the psedunym "Jenn"). Considering Bigelow can do spectacular action scenes I'm really excited to see how she handles the mission at the end of the film. One concern I have is how "accurate" this movie is; many vets I've talk to about The Hurt Locker scoff at how insane the plot is and how the characters act. Even though Bigelow & Boal are trying to take a more journalistic angle to this film, I'm curious how much was embelished to make a more compelling narrative. Then again, all my gear queer mall ninja friends will be bitching about "how inaccurate the DEVGRU's kit are."  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSEBstlH6WY Kinda odd that nobody's discussing this film, which got limited release today & is getting serious Oscar buzz. It didn't open here in Portland yet, so anybody that's seen this please chime in & give us your opinion.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 08:38 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 01:44 |
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Interested in seeing this film as I actually liked the Hurt Locker, but I know it wasn't well received overall on this forum. I don't remember the Hurt Locker being that terribly realistic as a war movie, it's human drama parts were good though. So that's what i've been expecting from Zero Dark Thirty. I'm not too concerned about the torture part being unrealistic, I know better, and anyone who actually believes torture produces results isn't going to have their mind changed once they are told otherwise. Our torturing prisoners of war is only one of many many massive screw ups since we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. If this scene is making members of congress very uncomfortable then maybe that's a good thing anyways. Maybe they'll be in less of a hurry to go to war with every single country that looks at us the wrong way, and I have a feeling this movie is trying to send a similar message.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 15:07 |
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John Mccain and a whole CIA gang were throwing a fit about this movie recently for it's depiction of torture. I'm real anxious about what's in the film, but am definitely anticipating seeing it as I think it's going to be pretty fascinating. For al of the Glenn Greenwalds throwing twitter fits about whatever depiction there might be (though fairness to him he didn't react until he saw the film) I worry that the message trying to be sold is the "a few bad apples, a sorry time from a sorry era, went too far trying to keep us safe" narrative to avoid the truth of torture and abject dehumanisation being integral and imminent parts of U.S. foreign policy. Like, whatever happened to the revelation that the Benghazi attack was in part a response to illegal detentions at the local CIA black site?
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 16:49 |
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Danger posted:John Mccain and a whole CIA gang were throwing a fit about this movie recently for it's depiction of torture. I'm real anxious about what's in the film, but am definitely anticipating seeing it as I think it's going to be pretty fascinating. For al of the Glenn Greenwalds throwing twitter fits about whatever depiction there might be (though fairness to him he didn't react until he saw the film) I worry that the message trying to be sold is the "a few bad apples, a sorry time from a sorry era, went too far trying to keep us safe" narrative to avoid the truth of torture and abject dehumanisation being integral and imminent parts of U.S. foreign policy. Like, whatever happened to the revelation that the Benghazi attack was in part a response to illegal detentions at the local CIA black site? As much as I wish Bigelow had the courage to do that story, I think it's important to bear in mind that this is still Hollywood, not scathing investigative journalism. I haven't seen the film, but I noticed that the Christian Science Monitor gave it a pretty bad review (among all of the glowing reviews) for not taking an explicit position on torture, which they said was immoral. I can see myself having the same feeling, so I'm eager to see how it plays out in the film- I hope it's the most brutal, inhumane torture ever put to screen, and demonstrated to be absolutely inexcusable regardless of the veracity of the information obtained. Also, I saw an ad for this movie (it was a TV spot that I think was during a football game) that had omitted a single shot or mention of Jessica Chastain. Combined with her sexy male-gaze poo poo in the Lawless trailer makes me really want to make a Sexism in Film thread to complement the Racism in Film thread. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 22, 2012 around 17:23 |
| # ? Dec 22, 2012 17:21 |
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The problem McCain/Greenwald/several journalists have with the film is that at no point in the hunt for Bin Laden did torture produce information that led to the eventual raid. However, the movie makes it seem as though torture gave them Bin Laden's whereabouts, which is not true. That's a big problem. Unlike Hurt Locker, this film is clearly trying to be close to the source material of the raid, and for them to make this kind of change for no real reason is strange.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 19:07 |
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FlamingLiberal posted:The problem McCain/Greenwald/several journalists have with the film is that at no point in the hunt for Bin Laden did torture produce information that led to the eventual raid. However, the movie makes it seem as though torture gave them Bin Laden's whereabouts, which is not true. That's a big problem. I guess it's up for debate, but what I heard (from critics, as well as actors in the movie), is that it explicitly doesn't portray torture as being an accurate source of information, and that its moral basis is highly questionable. We'll all have to see the movie and decide for ourselves, but I suspect there's a good conversation to be had in this thread once we've all seen it. That said, I did find The Hurt Locker to have an oddly disjointed tone when it came to being pro/anti-war, so I wouldn't be surprised if Bigelow let the "cool" factor get in they way of responsible storytelling. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 22, 2012 around 19:23 |
| # ? Dec 22, 2012 19:19 |
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Jewmanji posted:Also, I saw an ad for this movie (it was a TV spot that I think was during a football game) that had omitted a single shot or mention of Jessica Chastain. Combined with her sexy male-gaze poo poo in the Lawless trailer makes me really want to make a Sexism in Film thread to complement the Racism in Film thread. It sounds like your problem is less sexism in film and more sexism in film trailers.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 19:35 |
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I've heard good things about this film. They say that the filming began before bin Laden's death and thus had a pessimistic tone that promised no catharsis. After they got the news of bin Laden's death, they didn't re-tailor the film's tone but just tacked the raid onto the end. This sounds like a good idea, because it shows exactly how the people involved experienced it: lots of boredom, frustration, and fear, which ends with an abrupt climax. No predictable build-up to a climax. The film doesn't open in Europe until late January.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 20:22 |
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LtKenFrankenstein posted:It sounds like your problem is less sexism in film and more sexism in film trailers. Are you saying there's not rampant sexism in film? Or that there's a meaningful distinction between how movie studies market their products versus what they actually depict in them? I was using it as a quick demonstration. As far as this film is concerned, I thought this was interesting: http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenand...-oscar-campaign On a more related note, I heard that Zero Dark Thirty opens with Audio clips from people inside the WTC during its collapse can anyone say more about whether that's where the timeline of this movie begins? I'm a little surprised that they wouldn't go for a more sweeping history, but I suppose you can only tell so much of the story in a 2 hour film, and this is particularly focused on the manhunt. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 22, 2012 around 20:52 |
| # ? Dec 22, 2012 20:47 |
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It's supposed to span the full 10 years.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 20:58 |
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Jewmanji posted:On a more related note, I heard that Zero Dark Thirty opens with Audio clips from people inside the WTC during its collapse can anyone say more about whether that's where the timeline of this movie begins? I'm a little surprised that they wouldn't go for a more sweeping history, but I suppose you can only tell so much of the story in a 2 hour film, and this is particularly focused on the manhunt. I'm curious if/how they'll address Tora Bora now that it's not the film's climax.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 21:13 |
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Christianity Today's review talks about how the torture is portrayed as dehumanising and that the film is actually fairly nuanced.
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| # ? Dec 22, 2012 21:49 |
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First of all I want to say gently caress you to the annoying fatass sitting behind me who was laughing way too much during the film. Yes there are slight asides and a few smart retorts that are meant to break tension in scenes but he was acting like he was watching Louis CK do standup a few times. He also struck me as one of those fat annoying nerds because he'd speak to himself loud enough a few times especially near the end saying poo poo like "Breach charge" when the SEALs were using a breach charge! And he said "BAD rear end" when they showed the helicopters. And yes, this was a grown man probably in his mid 30's. Anyways... Yes we can all say "haha we know how it ends" but even the end of the film which is approximately a 20-25 minute scene of the raid on the compound is well put together and just amazingly tense. It doesn't take cheap shots at either administration (Bush or Obama) though it cleverly (Minor spoiler) has a couple scenes occur with televisions on in the backdrop. The first being Bush's Mission Accomplished speech. Not much attention is drawn to this, but we all know how ironic that banner statement was. A more pointed one though is from I believe a 60 minutes interview with candidate, not president Obama. Where he states that the United States will not torture under his watch. These are not done though in a ham fisted LOOK AT ME MAKING A STATEMENT way. I think they operate perfectly fine. This film is a marathon in a way. It's not rushing to make bold statements and its bizarre to me that anyone could come away from this thinking it was endorsing torture. The film in my view lays bare the very real human costs of torture, but it neither celebrates nor completely shuns such a position. To me though, if you come away from this film thinking that torturing subjects is not at all morally dubious than you are a better person than I. Which is to say there is no easy answer. Some have pegged this film as A-Political. Some have said that it endorses the use of torture. I think the AV Club accurately sums up though why this film is great and how it handles things better than I could articulate. In fact I think the entire AV Club review is a great encapsulation of the film and why it works without really spoiling much at all. I really really enjoyed this film and intend to see it again in the next week. http://www.avclub.com/articles/zero-dark-thirty,90029/ And it hasn’t, based on some reactions pegging it as a torture apologia, a CIA hagiography, or a little of both columns. Others have pointed out that in the film, not a single useful piece of information is gleaned from torture, and it’s more concerned with the reality of torture than its efficacy. The latter case is far more convincing, but the fact that two people can watch the same movie and come to opposite conclusions speaks well of Bigelow and Boal’s thrilling procedural, which has a journalistic quality that still allows for some nuance and ambiguity, where the fog of war can cloud up the scene. It’s impossible for a film like Zero Dark Thirty to be entirely apolitical—and presenting it as a piece of just-the-facts reportage makes it, if anything, more suspicious—but the Rorschach blot Bigelow and Boal have made out of this loaded story speaks well of their methods. A rough triangulation of opinion columns puts them right on the money. Jewmanji posted:On a more related note, I heard that Zero Dark Thirty opens with Audio clips from people inside the WTC during its collapse can anyone say more about whether that's where the timeline of this movie begins? I'm a little surprised that they wouldn't go for a more sweeping history, but I suppose you can only tell so much of the story in a 2 hour film, and this is particularly focused on the manhunt. Yes this is how the film begins. And I think it handles this without feeling particularly exploitative because it really helps frame the story. This is where things begin so to speak. I'll also mention some basic timeline structure here that has very minor spoilers: Begins on a black screen with phone calls from people in the World Trade Center towers. It's harrowing but it definitely puts you in the right frame of mind for the rest of the film. It does its story beats and jumps a couple years and then jumps a couple more and hten jumps a couple more. Yes its condensing a lot of history in to two and a half hours but the way the film handles things is strong. I never felt confused. soggybagel fucked around with this message at Dec 23, 2012 around 00:12 |
| # ? Dec 23, 2012 00:08 |
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Calling a film apolitical is pretty silly.
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| # ? Dec 23, 2012 00:31 |
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A lot of films have tried to be apolitical this past decade. All "lets honor those who serve" but lets not actually make a statement about morality/ethical nature of what is happening and so on.
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| # ? Dec 23, 2012 02:54 |
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soggybagel posted:A lot of films have tried to be apolitical this past decade. All "lets honor those who serve" but lets not actually make a statement about morality/ethical nature of what is happening and so on. Danger is saying that the stance that you're describing is inherently political, and he's correct. It might seem unfair but it's impossible to tackle these sorts of subjects without being political, whether you intend to or not. It goes back to that Christian Science Monitor review of Zero Dark Thirty- to neglect to take sides as an "apolitical" attempt to shore up greater interest in your film, or to make a claim as being "un-biased" is presumably worthless. The director and the audience's prejudices make it impossible for the movie to be non-political. Every single frame of the film is political in some way. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 23, 2012 around 03:12 |
| # ? Dec 23, 2012 03:09 |
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Oh. Well I wasn't describing the film as Apolitical. And i used that avclub excerpt because it articulates why I think this movie works without getting heavily political. I agree completely this film is inherently a loaded gun.
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| # ? Dec 23, 2012 03:12 |
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Baron Bifford posted:I've heard good things about this film. They say that the filming began before bin Laden's death and thus had a pessimistic tone that promised no catharsis. After they got the news of bin Laden's death, they didn't re-tailor the film's tone but just tacked the raid onto the end. This sounds like a good idea, because it shows exactly how the people involved experienced it: lots of boredom, frustration, and fear, which ends with an abrupt climax. No predictable build-up to a climax. That isn't what happened. She was working on a film about Tora Bora, Bin Laden was killed and she scrapped the project to rush this into production. wiki posted:Bigelow and Boal had initially worked on and finished a screenplay centered around the December 2001 Battle of Tora Bora, where bin Laden was once believed to be hiding. The two were about to begin filming when news broke that bin Laden had been killed. They immediately shelved the film they had been working on and redirected their focus, essentially starting from scratch. "But a lot of the homework I’d done for the first script and a lot of the contacts I made, carried over,” Boal remarked during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He added, "The years I had spent talking to military and intelligence operators involved in counterterrorism was helpful in both projects. Some of the sourcing I had developed long, long ago continued to be helpful for this version."
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| # ? Dec 23, 2012 03:20 |
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Watched this last night. Honestly, the torture scenes were not that bad/graphic, I've seen much worse. So if you're wary of seeing this film because of the torture, I wouldnt worry about it.
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 15:39 |
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Baron Bifford posted:It's supposed to span the full 10 years. Does the movie pretend that Osama bin Laden existed only in a ten year period from 9/11/01 to 5/2/11 in which he began as an old man and grew into a very old man or does it at least try to give some background into the late 80s and early 90s?
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 16:20 |
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Osama bin Laden was 54 years old when he died, which is not at all "very old" by today's standards. He just always looked like poo poo, and being pursued by a global superpower for a decade probably aged him quite a bit. The Unnamed One fucked around with this message at Dec 24, 2012 around 17:30 |
| # ? Dec 24, 2012 17:26 |
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Alastor_the_Stylish posted:Does the movie pretend that Osama bin Laden existed only in a ten year period from 9/11/01 to 5/2/11 in which he began as an old man and grew into a very old man or does it at least try to give some background into the late 80s and early 90s? Why should it? It's about the manhunt following 9/11.
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 18:15 |
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Granted a truly holistic view of the War on Terror wouldn't be possible with a feature film; however focusing on Bin Laden and not covering some aspect of the U.S. involvement with the mujahideen and the Saudi-U.S. relationship through the 90's seems disingenuous. Granted, if the underlying theme that the movie is striving for (or at least discussed in interviews) is a "journalistic objectivity" of the situation then to have the narrative start expressly in the aftermath of 9/11 is a stark statement on media narrative in it's own right.
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 20:54 |
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Danger posted:Granted a truly holistic view of the War on Terror wouldn't be possible with a feature film; however focusing on Bin Laden and not covering some aspect of the U.S. involvement with the mujahideen and the Saudi-U.S. relationship through the 90's seems disingenuous. Granted, if the underlying theme that the movie is striving for (or at least discussed in interviews) is a "journalistic objectivity" of the situation then to have the narrative start expressly in the aftermath of 9/11 is a stark statement on media narrative in it's own right. It's interesting to compare how a lot of procedurals address the issue of timeline. I'm not a huge aficionado of the genre, but typically any movie that is obsessed with the details can hardly spare additional story-line unless they want to sacrifice the narrative value of their protagonist. I think Zodiac is a great example of the balancing act required- there's a huge time-frame involved, a lot of characters, and a lot of details, and juggling them all is very very difficult. Bigelow seems to have wanted to use one character's arc as the framing device for this story, so the timeline here seems to make logical sense from a narrative perspective, but from a political one, it is... interesting. I bet they toyed with the idea of doing a flashback/montage/monologue/prologue type thing as in Argo, but may have found it too unwieldy for what they were trying to achieve. By all rights, the story of Bin Laden prior to 9/11 is quite complicated, no matter what your politics are. It's not at all appropriate for the genre, but it would be interesting to see a sort of Joseph Campbell/George Lucas style prequel showing the pre-9/11 story, with emphases on the stark differences in media/surveillance/paranoia etc, replete with Greek Tragedy levels of political hubris and schadenfreude
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 22:34 |
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Movies can draw from real events in order to convey a story arc and/or message. Movies are not history books or documentaries.
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 22:41 |
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Tender Bender posted:Movies are not [...] documentaries. Well, I mean... some of them are.
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 22:46 |
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Tender Bender posted:Movies can draw from real events in order to convey a story arc and/or message. Movies are not history books or documentaries. If you're going to make a procedural about Osama Bin Laden you may as well get the details right. I think a film-maker expects a certain level of scrutiny about how "truthful" their story is (otherwise why bother going to the trouble of getting CIA informants?) Neither Danger or I (correct me if I'm wrong, Danger) are saying that the timeline of the movie (2001-2011) is immoral, wrong, or unjustifiable in anyway, just that it's a creative/political decision that's interesting to mull over. Also, I think you can only go so far in adapting a sensitive non-fiction story to your own "narrative" before you are deserving of criticism (Oliver Stone's JFK, for example). By all means, stretch the truth in order to tell a compelling story, but every choice you make to alter the "true" narrative will be dissected. And that's ok, that goes with the territory. I'm not suggesting that that's what Bigelow has done here, by any means, but the choice of timeline here is a very strong statement, and we're just trying to parse out what it means as best we can without having seen the movie. I'm sure it wasn't a decision made lightly. Don't think for one minute that Bigelow wanted to make a story about a strong independent woman in the intelligence community who spends an enormous part of her life striving for a single goal- who just coincidentally happens to be Bin Laden. Maya is merely the framing device for a more important story. Bigelow has admitted as much- in her research for the film, she was already prepared to tell the story when she found out about the person who inspired Maya's character- that was merely a bonus for her. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 24, 2012 around 22:57 |
| # ? Dec 24, 2012 22:51 |
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Right, of course film isn't a documentary. However, what isn't shown is just as important to a reading of it's visual language as what is included.
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| # ? Dec 24, 2012 23:56 |
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Jewmanji posted:If you're going to make a procedural about Osama Bin Laden you may as well get the details right. To be fair, though, it's not a movie about Osama Bin Laden.
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| # ? Dec 25, 2012 02:56 |
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sethsez posted:To be fair, though, it's not a movie about Osama Bin Laden. I know you're being obtuse, but rather than baiting me into calling you out so you can spring your explanation on us, why don't you just say something about it rather than throw a pithy reply out like that? These threads are great for discussion, but only if you actually discuss stuff. You might have real insight into this, and I'm genuinely curious about your position. I think everyone here knows it's not "about" bin Laden in the strict sense that he isn't a character that appears on screen, but that doesn't mean the movie isn't "about" Osama Bin Laden. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 25, 2012 around 03:33 |
| # ? Dec 25, 2012 03:30 |
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Jewmanji posted:I know you're being obtuse, but rather than baiting me into calling you out so you can spring your explanation on us, why don't you just say something about it rather than throw a pithy reply out like that? These threads are great for discussion, but only if you actually discuss stuff. You might have real insight into this, and I'm genuinely curious about your position. You seem to be very mad. Why are you mad? I haven't seen the movie, but I really don't get why you get this upset. From what I have seen and read about it, it's a movie about revenge and the national trauma 9/11 caused and what it did to USA as a country. In broad terms.
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| # ? Dec 25, 2012 04:31 |
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Yeah seriously relax, guy. It was a pretty straight forward response to the post he quoted. There was nothing pithy or baiting about it like he was setting some trap for you. And he's right anyways, its not a movie about Bin Laden. Seriously you guys are getting awfully analytic about this considering you haven't seen it. It could easily prove to be not that big of a deal if they don't include any prior history of Bin Laden.
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| # ? Dec 25, 2012 05:02 |
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Sorry, I wasn't upset, it just seemed low-content and didn't really add to the discussion in a meaningful way. I should have used different language. No one is getting upset about the content of the film, it's just fun to discuss these sorts of things, and just saying "Zero Dark Thirty isn't about Bin Laden" sort of begs a discussion. I should make an extra effort not to sound hostile, but I'm not sure what it is you want to discuss at this point, or if we're all just supposed to chime in with how much we want to see the movie- that doesn't really seem worth having a thread for. When I said I was genuinely curious about the position, I should've said "earnestly", because I meant no offense and I am curious about it. I don't want to monopolize things, so please chime in! edit: Just to reiterate, I wasn't making value judgments based on the movie I haven't seen. Any over-analyses is just a symptom of my excitement to see it. I have really high hopes for it. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 25, 2012 around 06:20 |
| # ? Dec 25, 2012 06:17 |
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Jewmanji posted:I know you're being obtuse, but rather than baiting me into calling you out so you can spring your explanation on us, why don't you just say something about it rather than throw a pithy reply out like that? These threads are great for discussion, but only if you actually discuss stuff. You might have real insight into this, and I'm genuinely curious about your position. I said what I had to say. It's not a movie about Bin Laden any more than The Maltese Falcon is "about" the titular item. Criticizing it for not getting into the history of Bin Laden more is missing the point... it's about the hunt for him after 9/11, but it's about the mechanics of the hunt and the general feel of the people involved in it. Bin Laden is a big, complex, extremely powerful MacGuffin, but for the purposes of the story this is telling he's still a MacGuffin. Is it dehumanizing and reductive? Of course it is, but that's what happens when a person is treated as a target to be eliminated rather than as a human being. His history only matters in the context of how it helps the people hunting him.
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| # ? Dec 25, 2012 17:31 |
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sethsez posted:I said what I had to say. It's not a movie about Bin Laden any more than The Maltese Falcon is "about" the titular item. Criticizing it for not getting into the history of Bin Laden more is missing the point... it's about the hunt for him after 9/11, but it's about the mechanics of the hunt and the general feel of the people involved in it. Bin Laden is a big, complex, extremely powerful MacGuffin, but for the purposes of the story this is telling he's still a MacGuffin. I found that explanation much more useful for me in understanding your point, so thanks for taking the time to explain it. I'm not sure I agree with you, but it's interesting for me to consider. Isn't a MacGuffin considered more or less a swap-able object? That is to say, you could replace it with a similar type of thing and the story wouldn't be altered in a serious way? I understand your position (I think), and you may be right, but it seems like Bin Laden isn't merely an icon in this movie, but that his effect sort of permeates every inch of the story (with black sites, torture, etc etc.), and somehow the notion of it being non-fictional (partially, of course) gives OBL slightly less of a tacked-on feel that say, the crystal skull from Indiana Jones 4. Isn't that sort of stretching the definition of MacGuffin? Sorry if this is seen as splitting hairs, I really am interested. quote:Is it dehumanizing and reductive? Of course it is, but that's what happens when a person is treated as a target to be eliminated rather than as a human being. This is really interesting as well, and I think MacGuffin or not, this will definitely be something the movie bears out. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at Dec 25, 2012 around 18:31 |
| # ? Dec 25, 2012 18:28 |
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Jewmanji posted:I haven't seen the film, but I noticed that the Christian Science Monitor gave it a pretty bad review (among all of the glowing reviews) for not taking an explicit position on torture, which they said was immoral. I can see myself having the same feeling, so I'm eager to see how it plays out in the film- I hope it's the most brutal, inhumane torture ever put to screen, and demonstrated to be absolutely inexcusable regardless of the veracity of the information obtained. One thing that's struck me about the torture argument and has been brought up by several commenters elsewhere -- who's to say that Bigelow and Boel's sources weren't okay with or even pro-torturing of detainees, and thus the story is being told somewhat from their point of view?
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| # ? Dec 25, 2012 20:04 |
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I found this film to be very interesting because it forces one to think about torture, it's use and misuse during the time these events happen, and the horrible things countries do in time of war. It's a fantastic espionage film that confronts us about morality and what choices that people make. It's amazingly directed and has fantastic acting. Ahab lives. I have to say that it's also very disturbing with how things are portrayed with regarding said torture, death, shooting, etc and unless you go in as a complete mindless Neanderthal, you won't enjoy watching these scenes.
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| # ? Dec 26, 2012 02:55 |
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GATOS Y VATOS posted:I found this film to be very interesting because it forces one to think about torture, it's use and misuse during the time these events happen, and the horrible things countries do in time of war. It's a fantastic espionage film that confronts us about morality and what choices that people make. It's amazingly directed and has fantastic acting. Ahab lives. Maybe the problem people are pointing to has nothing with how brutally the torture is portrayed and everything to do with how its use is justified , leading people to use words like "misuse" as if there is a right way and a right situation to torture people in.
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| # ? Dec 26, 2012 06:23 |
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Having gotten home from watching it, is it a problem if I were to put stuff in spoiler tags, or should I just not mention such content, period? I can say this much: I can't ever watch the National Geographic movie (SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden) with a straight face ever again.
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| # ? Dec 27, 2012 06:09 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 01:44 |
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I saw this last week during a pre-screening in NYC. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Amazing directing and acting (the female lead will most definitely get a gently caress ton of nominations and win many awards). My favorite aspect of the movie was how it kept me on the edge of my seat during the final 30 minutes even though we all know exactly what happens. This and Lincoln are currently my top films of the year, with Skyfall coming in a close third.
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| # ? Dec 27, 2012 06:36 |
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