District 9

[gran guerrero]

Trailers everywhere but I refuse to watch them. Trailers spoil way too much!

Off topic about Avatar: Anyone got to see the free 20 mins?

isn't watching like 20 mins of it worse than watching the trailer?

Seems like a cocktease

[Stabwound]

Watch District 9... now.

The real amazing part is that this was the lead actor's first acting role (besides some small nameless part as "Sniper") and he pretty much carried the entire movie. This movie could have easily sucked depending on who played the lead but this guy did an awesome job.

[project dragon]

Avatar's trailer has me slightly concerned.

[phata$$]

Avatar looks like a combination of Cirque Du Soile and Starship Troopers.

[kthx]

Did Myazaki do spirited away?

[phata$$]

Yeah.

[Squeezer]

About the The Hurt Locker.. It had some beautiful shots.. and... ehh... yep that's it. The director/writer clearly gave fuck all about doing even the slightest bit of research into the army/Iraqi war, and that's exactly where this movie quickly became a big failure. We're supposed to believe it's a deep psychological portrayal of soldiers (in this case bomb disposal specialists) in war, or maybe the war-aspect wasn't even important and it was just about the adrenaline-junkie sergeant? Either way it gets a LITTLE problematic when I don't buy ANY of the scenes. Everything that happened was so goddamn unrealistic, this should've been labeled as a fantasy movie. It's just insulting how little research this director bothered to do. This movie deserves none of the good reviews that it got, it's was as realistic as GI Joe, except that movie doesn't act like it is.
I'll just stick to Generation Kill if I want a good portrayal of soldiers in (the Iraqi) war, or I'll go back to good ol' Tour of Duty.

District 9 sounds awesome though, can't wait for it.

I get that the storyline wasn't exactly believable (with the whole Sgt. that gets addicted to disarming IEDs), but what about it was unrealistic? Maybe the sniper battle, but they were simply helping out a group of stranded mercenaries. They were a specialist team tasked with disarming bombs. Thus, they rolled out when an IED was discovered, disarmed the firing mechanism and left the work of disassembling the bomb to the army corp of engineers. Furthermore, the film was shot in Jordan, which is about as close as you're going to get to filming in Iraq right now. I thought some of the scenes captured the paranoia perfectly. The fact that they have to disarm the bombs while a crowd of spectators looks on. Or the part where the one soldier freaks out at the guy holding a video camera, who's signalling to the other guys across the way. That's the kind of situations I've heard about from people that I talk to.

Not to mention they told two different stories. As I said, one was about an IED disarming specialist team and the other was about the first days of the invasion in Iraq. One covered the army, the other was about the Marine Corps. The army does things differently than the marines and while I wouldn't necessarily say one was better than the other, I think it's a misnomer to assume that the Hurt Locker is unrealistic.

Both were written by journalists that spent time embedded in the shit, so I'll trust them instead of you to accurately depict what happens over there.

edit: and just to be clear, I loved "Generation Kill."

[Dabram]

You for real? You felt 3 cowboys riding around on their own in their humvee was a realistic view of what soldiers go through in Iraq?
These bomb disarming scenes seemed very unrealistic and suicidal at all times. I didn't believe any of that shit. Luckily for us, the audience, these guys were capable of much more than bomb disarming, which gets boring rather quickly ya know?
So we find our heros cruising around in the desert (on their own of course), which is always a perfect opportunity to show some pathetic British mercenaries how to take out some enemy snipers.. To take the extra piss out of these Brits (who had already died or run away by then) two of our heros go and lay in the exact same spot where this British guy got killed by the sniper. They stall for a couple of minutes, trusting the enemy will wait till they're ready to kill them, and for extra stylepoints they even snipe down an enemy who's on the run!
Oh yeah, infantry guys, your job is hella easy too. We get a nice display by our bomb disarming specialists how to clear out a building/area. All you really need is three guys, well technically ONE would be enough because: 'Hey we're with three, so let's all split up so we can COVER GROUND FASTER'. LOL?
I also found it very realistic when our gung-ho sergeant sneaked out of the camp in the evening by carjacking some iraqi, just to find himself having to run all the way back to camp from the middle of baghdad. Luckily he was wearing a hoody, which is all the disguise you'll ever need if you get lost in the middle of baghdad, this is an important life lesson.
The army of course didn't care one bit about our hero's escapades. Which isn't a surprise to us of course, we all know the army gives fuck all about discipline, orders, ranks and such drivel. In reality Iraq is just full of units of 3 cruising around in their humvees doing whatever the fuck they want. RIGHT???
I also just LOVED the touch of throwing in a random colonel/shrink whose purpose it was to give some extra psychological depth to our 3 heros, they weren't clichés at all. Also really dramatic and surprising was when he got killed!! Like WOW i didn't see that one coming, JUST when he randomly decided to cruise along with our three musketeers....

But yes I agree, Jordan looks a lot like Iraq!!

I dislike this movie just as much as Saving Private Ryan and any other overrated movie which portrays itself as 'historically accurate' and is swallowed as such by a huge audience while it's anything but. It makes me quite angry and makes me write essays about it.
Very different yet also very popular movies like Der Untergang and Schindler's list also rank highly in the list of movies that I think should come with a warning to the audience that what they're gonna see is absolute fantasy and holds no further merit.

If you ignore it's inaccuracies, it's a very nicely shot action-movie, however I found it hard to do watch it as such because the movie seemed to take itself so seriously.

PS. Glad to hear you liked Generation Kill tho. :P I spent last month (re-)watching Tour of Duty, we really deserve another series like that imo.

[Galleleo]

I liked Der Untergang and Saving Private Ryan, however I never watch a movie thinking it is going to accurately tell me what history has been like. I watch a movie to enjoy the movie and I couldn't give a damn about how accurate it is.

It probably helps that I didn't actually study history.

[Fit of Rage]

Watch District 9... now.

The real amazing part is that this was the lead actor's first acting role (besides some small nameless part as "Sniper") and he pretty much carried the entire movie. This movie could have easily sucked depending on who played the lead but this guy did an awesome job.

It just got to me how much the dude said "fook"

Must be a South African thing

[MaGi kOz]

I liked Der Untergang and Saving Private Ryan, however I never watch a movie thinking it is going to accurately tell me what history has been like. I watch a movie to enjoy the movie and I couldn't give a damn about how accurate it is.

It probably helps that I didn't actually study history.

Ignorance IS bliss.

[Galleleo]

That is you being ignorant, I do know history, not as much as Bram as I didn't actually study it, but I am not completely ignorant.

I just don't think about it when I watch a movie.

[Dabram]

I don't know much about history I'm a bike messenger. I do know common sense, if a movie tries to be serious and relies on being realistic/believable, yet is full of inaccuracies, it makes me sick. :P

[MaGi kOz]

I don't know much about history I'm a bike messenger. I do know common sense, if a movie tries to be serious and relies on being realistic/believable, yet is full of inaccuracies, it makes me sick. :P

It's just a movie.

[Squeezer]

Bram I respect your opinion and all, but...

A few days ago I went upstairs and talked to the head of the Veterans Outreach Center on campus about putting on a showing of the Hurt Locker and he said it's the most realistic movie he's seen regarding the Iraq War.

He was also part of a 4 man team that rode around in a humvee disarming IEDs when they were discovered. In his experience, that's largely what happened (save for the movie dramatics, like the guy removing his suit and shit like that). At one point he even encountered a group of Aussies stranded in the desert and they came under fire, though no one was hurt. They had to lay in the desert for like 6 hours unaware of whether the shooters had fled or not. Though this guy was only the driver for the bomb specialist, he said his time in Iraq was a lot like that.

I also recommended he watch Generation Kill

edit: And I'm seeing District 9 on the big screen later today with Summa. I'm pumped.