Words’ Worth

Last night was the Academy Awards and if you paid any attention at all, you found that Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" was the winner for best picture. I enjoyed THL and I appreciate any attempt to raise awareness of our ongoing war(s) on a mainstream/personal level but Best Picture?

Now, I'm a movie buff so movies with big, glaring holes stand out to me and I'm a soldier so military inaccuracies also stand out to me and this one had its share of both. I'm not talking about little nit-picky things like patches and awards or whether unit X was in theater between such and such dates: I'm interested in these things but they don't color my enjoyment of a story. I'm talking about cliché plot devices and dramatic elements writers and film makers use to move along a story, seemingly without thought to the simultaneous eye-rolling going on in the movie-plex. Just as an example, my wife and I went to see the remake of "The Crazies" recently and were pleasantly surprised by its clever writing, austere visual style and its heavy emphasis on paranoia (rather than gore), especially in the critical third act. Only once did sloppy writing stand out enough to jar my wife and I out of our immersion and it was a time-honored horror movie doozy, the whole "Wait here, I'll be right back" bit.

/sigh. And they were doing so well up till that point. It was as if the creators/storytellers wanted to throw an extra helping of tension into the last reel and simply couldn't come up with a plausible way to separate the two surviving characters and so they dug into the big book of clichés and drew up that one, a gimmick that's so tired and hackneyed that its been lampooned famously by other genre movies.

Needless to say, that one little problem didn't at all ruin the movie for me but it was glaring enough to be picked up on by nearly the entire audience (especially the VFH kids behind us, lol).

The same was true for THL. Military-centric errors/lapses abound along with more than a few conventional ones. Did they further the story? Sure, each and every one. Did they ruin my enjoyment? Nah, overall I gave it a B. Was it a no-holds-barred, adrenalin-fueled thrill ride? Nope. Was it the most innovative, entertaining piece of storytelling released in '09 (which is what I assume the criteria are for Best Pic)? No.

What it did (and it does this admirably) was to assuage America's guilt over largely ignoring the ongoing conflict by raising awareness in a non-threatening way. Horrors on CNN are gauche and voyeuristic; horrors on celluloid (even ones portrayed in mediocre fashion) are interesting and laudable.

The thing is, you don't need to resort to poor storytelling and predictable plot devices to accomplish either of these two goals. Pick up a copy of "They Fought for Each Other" by Kelly Kennedy if you require proof. Or wait for it to filmed, I'd bet a dollar it's already been optioned- hopefully it'll be treated with the same respect "Band of Brothers" got.

That was really my only beef with the Oscars. I find the whole process interminably boring but I like it when people are honored for their hard work.

Here's one that was tragically overlooked:

Award for Best Golden Globes: Christina Hendricks.

Holy cow, that woman can fill out a gown.