Hurt Locker vs Avatar

Having endured Kathryn Bigelow’s Hurt Locker, I sat motionless in my semi-recliner musing  over connected feelings from the close of “Eyes Wide Shut” and/or “The English Patient”. From inside I could hear the voice of Elaine, “Oh. No. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. It’s too long. Quit telling your stupid story, about the stupid desert, and just die already! Die!!”.

My mind wandered onto thoughts of the incredulity that accompanied the Avatar experience. Cameron’s stunning movie pedigree, the concept development coming to fruition 15 yrs later and the pioneering 3D work come as a sharp contrast to what appears as a thrown together, amateurish war commentary vehicle. It wasn’t so much that I preferred the other nominees that I’d seen (District 9, Blind Side, Up in the Air) but that but I didn’t really even grasp the redeeming value or purpose of The Hurt Locker. A pure documentary would have been far more appreciable and applicable to the topic.

We really have some cowboy, with little regard for the safety of his fellow soldiers at the helm of a disarmament crew?  And he’s deactivated 853 situations without a problem. It seems like a rambling piecemeal video reminding us for the billionth time that some people in Hollywood would rather pretend war is avoidable than face the evil that exists. If anyone of them were President in 41, they would have surrendered after Pearl Harbor and we’d all be speaking German or Japanese.

And speaking of Pearl Harbor, any of the 6 episodes I’ve seen so far of “Pacific” are embarrassingly superior to any section or all of THL. So my disturbance is not so much from type as it is from degree. Supporting some twisted, mindless thought pattern through the use of the movie medium is nothing new and even Avatar, from my view, follows this familiar road. It’s the immeasurable variance between the two enjoyment factors that shows as a blue whale on my radar.

Hollywood would like the fact that they entertain us (Avatar) to be replaced with the thought that they are some type of courageous heroes. (THL) In fact the word courage seems to be in every other sentence that drivels out of their mouths. As another contrast, the real heroes’ in “Pacific” don’t like to be described as such because they were “just doing their jobs”; or simply prefer not to talk about it because the degree of the trauma is indigestible. (Continued discussion becomes chewing on regurgitated emotional vomit) Interestingly, the so called courageous actors, directors, producers never show either of these symptoms.

Hollywood talks about and makes movies of topics that they self determine to be counter culture, when in fact they are totally consistent with their culture. This pretence at risk is necessary to cultivate their ‘courage’ on the other end. This make belief world is well beyond the fantasy of Avatar even though they frown on movies of this genre. Of course they think their courage is real, they champion causes no one else will, they stand for right in a world of wrong, they risk everything for conscience and principle. As in Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Love is actually hate and those having real courage are maligned and destroyed by those who are motivated by cowardice. More than a reminder that this pretense continues, the Oscar result shows the degree is ever deepening.