Zero Dark Thirty

[Martini Girl]

I'm really happy Jessica won. I just thought she was incredible as Maya. Still pissed Kathryn didn't get a nomination.

My mom, the die-hard Republican saw it and thought it was...... long. I think some of it just went over her head.

I wonder if the Academy member who's telling everyone not to vote for ZD30 has a horse in another race.... or some kind of connection to a top contender.

[bklynred]

Jan 14, 2013 19:40:29 GMT -4 GinFizz said:

I just saw on the poster this movie has my husband Kyle Chandler it it, so it's definitely jumped on my Oscar "to-see" list.

(Does one's positive reaction to this movie depend on whether one agrees it was right for the US to go in and kill Bin Laden, though?)

Good question. There's a lot of frank talk of killing in general that I believe is meant to make you uncomfortable. No one came out looking squeaky clean or particularly heroic here, IMO. No one's cheering at the end.

ETA: I'm pleased Chastain won & in slight disbelief Bigelow wasn't nominated for an Oscar.

[ijustworkhere]

No one's cheering at the end.

I think this is really the crux of why the film succeeds, narratively--the conclusion is not "Yay America" or "boo Osama bin Laden". There are so many layers to the film's story, and so much going on with the characters, and as others have said, no one comes out looking good at the end. It's a movie about how deeply and horrifically violence and hatred affect humanity on a global scale. The still shot on Maya at the end and the last line of dialogue (an unanswered question) drive home the point that there are no answers, there is no victor, there's only the fact that people are dead.

[canuckcutie]

Martini Girl - nope the disgruntled Academy voter doesn't have a connection to any other movies or they would get a serious smack down. Back when The Hurt Locker came out one of the producers was sending out emails trashing the other nominees and he got banned from the ceremony for one thing. So if it was someone who was say connected to Les Mis or Argo who was trashing ZDT then they'd get in big trouble.

[biondetta]

I watched this last night and overall thought it was very good. I didn't find the torture scenes to be overly gratuitous and has been pointed out, they weren't shown to be particularly beneficial. I would have liked a little bit more fleshing out of Maya, but I did appreciate the subtle changes in her throughout the film.

It's funny that some have mentioned the score. I don't remember any music in the film at all except for the very last scene! To me, that's a good thing. So many films seem to put too much emphasis on the score to get a point across. I liked the general quiet of this film.

[Atreides]

Just came back from seeing it. I really liked this movie and Jessica Chastain is fantastic. Kathryn Bigelow does a masterful job of directing and I can now join in on the WTF that she wasn't nominated for Best Director. It's almost three hours but I was riveted the whole time. To echo previous sentiments, I was a bundle of nerves during sequences like the final raid or the sequence in London (as soon as the date flashed on the screen, my stomach was in knots). You know how it's going to play out but you anticipate how it will play out in the movie and that's a testament to Bigelow.

In a way, it's like the TV series Homeland magnified up to feature-film scale and without the more pedestrian domestic subplots.

[canuckcutie]

Just saw it also. Loved it. I preferred it to Argo and thought it was more of an injustice that Bigelow didn't get nominated rather than those people think Affleck was the biggest slight.

The torture scenes weren't as bad as I feared and the violence certainly wasn't anywhere near that in Django.

I remember reading about the CIA agents being killed by an informer. So as soon as I saw Jennifer Ehle getting giddy I thought oh shit.

[bklynred]

On second viewing my stomach was turning the minute they started texting.

[forever1267]

Intense and compelling and fast-moving and disturbing. My anxiety levels are really high right now after seeing it. I'm not sure I breathed during the climax. Although when one of the soldiers (possibly Chris Pratt) whisperingly calls out "Osama" while in the house, the audience laughed at that. Cut the tension a little bit for them, not for me. It moved very quickly for a near 3 hour movie, and I jumped at every big explosion, even the ones you knew were coming. I also had the WTF thought when Bigelow was not nominated. I now have a bigger WTF about that. I still need to see The Hurt Locker.

On a shallow note, someone upthread mentioned the hotness of the male cast, and ITA on that.

[wilbert]

I just saw this movie and it makes no sense. A woman recruited fresh out of high school by the CIA is assigned to a high-level case like tracking Bin Laden and spends 10 years chasing a single thread that leads to his killing? Really? She somehow has the analyitical skills, linguistic skills, data analysis skills, to do all this? They figure out Bin Laden is in the house because if there are three females there must be three males? Really, how many wives is a Muslim allowed to have? Yup. That's right, one dude could have been married to all three. This movie's an ok movie but I'm betting not even close to reality.