Blind Spot 2012: The Hurt Locker

As I did with The Band Wagon, I'm going to submit my liveblogging feed of what I thought of this movie. This one definitely does have spoilers in it, so if you want to remain spoiler-free about this, I suggest you don't read.

8:48 pm: OK, here we go with The Hurt Locker, a recent Best Picture winner I have not seen. It's a war movie, so I don't have high hopes, although Saving Private Ryan impressed me recently.

8:50: At first I thought, "Oh wait, John Krasinski and Jake Gyllenhaal are in this!" But then I realized I was thinking of Jarhead. Another war movie I haven't seen.

9:00: I may not be texting much because I have to focus rather hard on the movie itself. Why are war movies so difficult for me to follow?

9:06: I can't decide yet whether I like this new guy or not.

9:12: THAT IS A LOT OF BOMBS

9:15: "Right now, what are you thinking about?" "You wanna know what I'm thinking about?" Well, yes, that's probably why he asked.

9:20: Oh crap. I have no idea what happened in the last 3 minutes or so. I zoned out and started thinking about phone plans instead. Come on, Hannah! I know this is a war movie, but YOU CAN DO IT!

9:26: OK, I like the new guy, but he's going to be in mega trouble any moment now.

9:30: Young hotshot has fans.

9:39: Oh, hey, I *thought* that sounded like Ralph Fiennes' voice! Nice.

9:41: I just zoned out again. This time I was making plans to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off after this. I'm sure this is probably a good movie. I just can't get into it.

9:49: Are these even the same people I was watching earlier? I can't recognize anybody.

9:53: Only an hour left of this movie!

9:54: Wait, wait, wait. Those two guys drinking together look the same. I'm so confused.

9:59: The idea of hanging out with my friends and standing around punching each other is a very weird idea. This is what guys do, huh?

10:00: ...Actually, most of the guys I'm friends with would think that was dumb too.

10:01: As they count down the days, I count down the minutes. 16 days for them, 52 minutes for me...

10:05: Is that the kid he hung out with? Oh man.

10:09: Holy cow. This scene is terrifying.

10:12: "They all look the same." That is how I feel about EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE. Dress everyone the same and I can't tell them apart.

10:19: This last section is getting much more interesting... We'll see if it redeems the rest of the movie for me.

10:21: Nope, it's lost my interest again.

10:28: I always feel a little ADD when I'm watching a movie like this. I keep trying to make myself focus, but my mind keeps wandering to all sorts of other things. I want so badly to just pause the movie and do something fun and pick it up later, but I only have 25 minutes left... I can make it through! I can!

10:32: Wait, wait. Is that the kid we thought was dead? Could he not tell them apart? Is he really alive?

10:38: I don't get the title of the movie. Is it a term I don't know?

10:48: So the one thing he loves is bomb teching rather than his kid? That's quite a downer of an ending.

10:49: Final consensus: A few really, really good scenes interspersed with a LOT more long, dreary sequences that I couldn't for the life of me care about.

Official review, as posted on Hannah and Her Movies: The Hurt Locker has a few very, very good scenes, scenes I haven't seen before or that were done in an interesting, original way. But those were all in the final 45 minutes, and there were far more long, uninteresting combat scenes where I had to fight VERY hard to stay focused on the story. A large part of this is a genre prejudice, I admit, but war movies have overcome that before and been very touching for me (Saving Private Ryan being the most recent example). The Hurt Locker just doesn't offer enough, certainly not to justify it as a Best Picture winner.

Blind Spot Movies So Far (In Order Of How Much I Liked Them)

Beetlejuice (1988)
Office Space (1999)
The Band Wagon (1953)

The Hurt Locker (2008)


Blind Spot Movies Left (Roughly In Order of How Interested I Am in Seeing Them)

The Exorcist (1973)
Rushmore (1998)
Carrie (1976)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Nosferatu (1929)
The Seventh Seal (1957)