saw it tonight on demand. well, pay per view on demand. $4.99. still beats renting a possibly scratched copy from blockbuster and possibly NOT getting a copy at all, since blockbuster is terrible with stocking good films.
OK, a little rant here.
If "Avatar" wins over this film for Best Picture, it just proves again how far apart from reality the academy voters are. It is the perfect yin and yang thing here: "Avatar" wins, it's a symbol of how we want aesthetic over a realistic depiction of what's going on in the real world. We want to escape...OK fine. That's what movies are for. Sometimes. Sometimes they can represent what we're missing in real life.
This could be "Platoon" for this generation. It's the first full-on *war* film about the Iraq invasion. And it pulls no punches, and it gets it right.
The film's three central characters represent three different perspectives of how war affects a person, and what war means to each of them. For some, it's just something they're not cut out for and they need psychiatric help even when they're in the field. For others, they have nothing to live for...and nothing to die for, either. And for the main character, Will James, war is all he feels he has...even though he has *everything* to live for (a wife, a son).
Some of the scenes are just downright nerve wracking. Whether it's a tense moment in disarming a bomb from a man who's got the thing literally bolted to him, or a standoff in the middle of the desert (featuring a nice little cameo by Ralph Feinnes), the film's pace is dictated by anxious intensity and nail biting suspense.
But the film's opening quote (taken from "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" by Chris Hedges) explains James' character and his motivations, and give meaning to the last scenes of the film, and the final scene in particular.
This film is not perfect, but i think it's important to see. and i think it's an important film to win Best Picture over something like "Avatar".
now watch fucking "the blind side" win...
out of