FADE IN:

INT.   HOLLYWOOD STUDIO CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY

“Hurt Locker” scribe MARK BOAL slams his mighty fist down hard on the conference room table, making the HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVES surrounding him jump in their leather seats.

MARK BOAL

Now listen up.  I don’t care about your liberal preconceptions and your smug certainty that you’re somehow better than those men and women out there in Afghanistan and Iraq just because you work in the movie industry and they actually work!

EXECUTIVE NO. 1

But, but…

MARK BOAL (pointing an accusing finger)

Put a sock in it, meat puppet!  You want to use those American heroes as a backdrop for some politician’s reelection campaign?  Well, you can take my Oscar and stick it in your Fonda-hole!  I’m not having any part of it!

Ed. Note:  We now pause for a photo of sensitive, introspective hipster Boal:

Big Hollywood has been all over the story of screenwriter Mark Boal’s collaboration with the Obama campaign’s usurpation of the work of our SEALs and other covert warriors in hunting down Osama bin Laden.  It’s outrageous – you know you’ve crossed a line in the sand of decency when even Jurassic liberal-saur Maureen Dowd seems creeped out by your shameless SEALS-ploitation.

As Big Hollywood has pointed out before, Boal is Hollywood’s go-to guy for sending the leftist message du jour about our troops.  When President Bush was in office and the party line was that fighting terrorists was a bad thing, Boal was there with In the Valley of Elah (2007).  That one painted our soldiers as hideous psychopaths driven crazy by the war, so nuts and evil they murdered one of their own because of, well, Bush or something.

(more…)

In a world in such disarray, it should not be of any surprise that within only a few short days of hearing about one of the most devastating blows to the U.S. Special Operations community, some citizens are doing their best to capitalize on this loss for their own personal gain—Hollywood and our own Administration.

Director Kathryn Bigelow with screenwriter Mark Boal

Screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow, those responsible for anti-war film The Hurt Locker, have decided to assist President Obama in his re-election. Together, they have been granted unprecedented access to some of America’s most classified data pertaining the death of Osama Bin Laden and the dark secretive world of our U.S. Navy SEAL’s and Joint Special Operations Command. They will be using this information to create a film about the “heroic leadership” within this administration based upon the U.S. led Navy SEAL kill mission which inevitably made OBL fish food.

It wouldn’t be surprising at all to see anti-war actors like Sean Penn, George Clooney, or Matt Damon partake with leading roles.

Sony Pictures is behind this madness and the same politicians who so tirelessly have gone out of their way to prosecute CIA and military interrogators are supporting them. With an S&P rating lower than any president, Obama needs all the help he can get for re-election.

Timing is everything. The release of this film is scheduled to open October 12th. October leaves just enough time to socially condition a grave amount of Americans in believing President Obama is truly the “chosen one.”

(more…)

Beginning in June 2007, filmmaker Tim Hetherington and war correspondent Sebastian Junger embedded themselves with a U.S. Army platoon in the truly God-forsaken Korengal Valley of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. A companion piece to Junger’s new book War, Restrepo is their feature-length documentary centered on a fifteen-man outpost in one of the most remote and dangerous war zones on earth. 

Trailer is NSFW

Its cinema verité style, interspersed with commentary from soldiers interviewed after the deployment, puts you in the center of the action – and inaction – alongside a half dozen or so principal characters. It captures the chaos and the boredom, the courage and the fear, the tension and the playful abandon of their stretch in Outpost Restrepo, named after their young medic, a Korengal casualty.

In between IED attacks, firefights, digging in on a cliff-side, negotiating compensation with the villagers for a dead cow, mourning dead comrades, rooting out arms caches in the village, and general horsing around, these soldiers, painfully young but becoming men before our eyes, offer honest and revealing emotions about these experiences. One soldier says he can barely get his head around it all; he just hopes that “one day I’ll be able to process it differently.” (more…)

I don’t have much to say, and won’t until Episode Four.

This episode certainly speaks for itself, but there’s one thing I should note. If you found the first episode a little intense, you might want to steer clear of this one, as it makes the first one look like “The Brady Bunch.” Sample comment from someone who called me about a week after watching it: “I’ve been disturbed all week.” You will be taking one giant leap further into the heart of darkness. Shortly into the next episode, you will be firmly at its center.

And then I’ll have something to say.

**STRONG CONTENT WARNING**

If you’re new to all this, just click here for all the background, including the series prologue and Episode One, “Return To Ramadi.”

You can also see episodes from my time in the Triangle of Death, prior to Ramadi, as referenced in the series prologue, here.

Usually when I’m moved to write a searingly original piece for Big Hollywood, I do a quick search of the Internet to see if my thoughts might not really be as groundbreaking as I thought. More often than not, I come across an article that says exactly what I was trying to say, only more clearly and eloquently. I then post a link to it on Twitter with the caption “good read!” and I’m done.

Blogging is easy!

Such was the case with my analysis of  The Hurt Locker. I loved the film. After watching it, however, the thing that bothered me was the quote at the beginning, “War is a drug.” In the end, it serves as the theme of the film, but I found it to be way off the mark, and not even supported by the film itself. To me, The Hurt Locker seemed to be clearly not about addiction, but about purpose. What would motivate someone to return to a horrific war zone, to face death and dismemberment on a daily basis? A sense of purpose. That is what motivates people, not “a rush.”

I set to writing. Then I read Walter Owen’s piece in Vanity Fair, who put it together better than I would have: (more…)

The real fun of the Oscars isn’t the cut-throat competition for the little gold naked man but guessing who will make the biggest idiot of himself. 

The Academy Awards show has a fine tradition of pampered celebrities popping off with something stupid when they hit the stage.  It must be something about TV cameras and the opportunity to make damn fools of themselves before tens of millions of people around the world that the Hollywoodoids find irresistible.  Notice how you never hear any fallout from the “technical awards” ceremony?  You know, the non televised ceremony recognizing the boring technological stuff that actually makes movies possible that is usually held at the Beverly Hills Elks Lodge with hosts Steve Guttenberg, Charo and/or one of the lesser Sweathogs.

Some of the past magic moments are legendary.  Remember back in 1993, when Tim Robbins and his then-gal pal, tranny vomit insanity enthusiast Susan Sarandon, harangued the crowd about the detention of Haitian refugees?  Of course, right after that these stars led the way by opening up the grounds of their mansion to these huddled Haitian masses.

Roberto Benigni engaged in memorably tiresome antics after winning “Best Foreign Language Film of 1997” for the Worst Film of All Time, the insanely appalling Life Is Beautiful.  Life has certainly aged well, and Benigni’s shtick has only gotten fresher, contributing to the runaway freight train of success that his career has become since then. (more…)

It’s safe to say that the contest for the Academy Award’s best picture Oscar was never any deeper than a three horse race: The Hurt Locker, Avatar and Up in the Air were the frontrunners all along. As the weeks and months have progressed, it has become more and more apparent that Jason Reitman’s touching drama about a layoff artist looking for love has dropped off the radar. Two horses have pulled ahead as we head into the straightaway.

And it’s Avatar by a nose! If history is any indication, James Cameron’s eco-action flick will be the big winner at the industry’s annual self-love fest. Three main factors point to the bloated opus taking home the best picture statue.

First off, it’s a box office smash. Now, that doesn’t always translate into gold at the Oscars – see last year’s unconscionable failure to even nominate The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s critically praised film that was, at the time, the second-highest grossing film of all time – but it’s a pretty solid indicator. (more…)

When the Academy Award nominations were announced, there were ten nominees for best picture (above the usual five) and the category included both small movies and large commercial successes. The biggest movie nominated in that enlarged category was “Avatar,” the highest grossing movie of all time. Even though the James Cameron movie is not the best movie nominated (it’s actually not a good movie, either), its box-office gross and several other factors give it a real chance of winning the best picture Oscar. 

In that race, many people see the competition coming down to “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” the two movies with nine nominations each. According to the LA Times, “Over the last 20 years, the movie with the most Academy Award nominations has won best picture 15 times.” Now that “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” have received the same number of nominations, the award could go to either without much surprise. Although “The Hurt Locker” seems to be the front-runner for critics based off high-profile previous award shows, ”Avatar” still has a lot going for it.

Firstly, the special effects in the movie are fantastic. Few can deny that the visual aspects of the film are great and stand out as one, if not the, best thing about the movie. Secondly, many film critics have enjoyed the film and many in the industry have noted their support of this film giving this movie critical backing, both inside and outside of Hollywood. The film also has a liberal message about preserving the environment at all costs that some voting members could show appreciation for by voting for it.  (more…)

BEST PICTURE – DRAMA

Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Precious
Up In the Air

BEST PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

(500) Days of Summer
The Hangover
It’s Complicated
Julie & Julia
Nine

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE

Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
James Cameron – Avatar
Clint Eastwood – Invictus
Jason Reitman – Up In The Air
Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds (more…)

The budget for ”Brothers,” per director Jim Sheridan, is $25 million, which probably doesn’t include marketing for promotion and … well, tell me again how Hollywood is driven by profit and not ideology? We’re a month away from 2010 so it’s hard to argue “Brothers” went into production before everyone was well aware that every single war film flopped miserably.

But who does the snob Sheridan choose to blame in advance should his war-themed film flop? Not his own bonehead decision to jump into a genre with a 100% failure rate, not the investors who dove in with him … no, he blames We The American People: 

Midway through a conversation with director Jim Sheridan about his latest film, “Brothers,” he abruptly asks, “Do you think anybody will go see this movie?”

I say what I think he wants to hear – that a cast led by Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal is sure to draw people. But we both know that movies that so much as touch on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned out to be tough sells. …

“I think the American people just don’t think there is a war on, so why should they have to go to a movie about something that doesn’t exist? Their state of denial is hard to overcome,” Sheridan said.

Unbelievable. (more…)

I jumped at the opportunity to join “The Hurt Locker” press junket. The film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow (“Point Break,” “Strange Days,” “Blue Steel”), has been a favorite of mine since catching a 3 a.m. Cinemax screening of “Near Dark” some twenty-five years ago. No director — not the Scott brothers, not Michael Bay or even Clint Eastwood understand or are able to get inside the skin of driven men of action like Bigelow. This makes even her rare misstep like “K:19 The Widowmaker” much more watchable than it deserves to be (actually, I watch it all the time).

The junkets are simple. You sit in a hotel room with other writers and one by one the film’s participants stop by for a few minutes. So, in no particular order, as a group we had the chance to interview Bigelow, screenwriter Mark Boal (“In the Valley of Elah”), who researched the film in Iraq, and actors Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty.

All were charming and personable to be sure, but whenever politics or previous Iraq War films came up, things would get a little tense and surreal as each responded by assuring us they weren’t worried because “Hurt Locker” wasn’t at all political. Again and again, the film was described as a straight-forward war picture that just happened to be set in Iraq. (more…)

With “Wolverine” opening this Friday, summer finally, finally arrives.

We’ve celebrated the good.  We’ve dreaded the bad.

Now on to the maybes; those that could fall either way, or just do the minimum by delivering a couple hours of forgettable entertainment. I’ll take that and truth be told, when the lights dim, they’re all “maybes” to me because when the lights dim I’m twelve again. But the lights aren’t dimming now and in the cool light of day I’m on the fence over these.

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May 22nd: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - The first one was a splendid concept brought down by a cookie-cooker plot involving a dad having to redeem himself. The hope is that the sequel is looser and less constrained by boilerplate convention. I’m a little ticked The Mighty Mickey Rooney wasn’t brought back, but it’s still a great concept and one helluva cast. (more…)

That the SEALs solved the pirate problem with three shots/three kills last weekend was no surprise; what was should have been really interesting to those of you in the Industry was the American public’s reaction.  The public was thrilled.  The good guys won, the bad guys lost – decisively.  There is a lesson there for you.

Here’s another lesson.  During an unpopular war, a popular star risked everything to bring a bestselling book to the screen about American fighting men battling a cruel and vicious enemy.  In 1968, you might think an unabashedly pro-war movie where the Americans were the heroes and the enemy the villains would have been soundly rejected, and it was – by the liberal elite. 

Roger Ebert, who never saw a film trashing the American fighting man he didn’t praise, still lists John Wayne’s “The Green Berets” as one of his most hated films forty years later.  But the public welcomed it, a film that could tell good from evil, and turned it into a hit.  It even spawned a hit song.  Where is the next war movie that outrages Roger Ebert while lining audiences up around the block? (more…)

For those who’ve agonized over Hollywood’s portrayals of the Iraq War, I give you “The Hurt Locker.”

The film’s second trailer hit the Internet today and, as I sit here wearing my (apparently passe) Camp Liberty t-shirt, I must say it looks pretty good.

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YouTube "Hurt Locker" trailer 2  

Billed as the “first non-political Iraq War film,” “Hurt Locker” follows the story of Staff Sergeant William James, a maverick bomb removal expert who leads a team trying to save lives – including their own.

It was directed by Kathryn Bigalow, who is herself something of a maverick.

Bigalow has made her name in Hollywood as one of the only female directors of action films. Her credits include “K19: The Widowmaker,” “Point Break” and “Strange Days.” (more…)