It’s definitely kind of poetic that this and Avatar competed for the big prize: Avatar, an entertainment ultimately about entertainment itself (with filmgoers as disabled bodies borrowing better lives via onscreen avatars), borrowing the mythology of war in ways that directly reference current events, but all in the service of pure escapism, more purely than any movie I’ve seen in recent memory; and, THL, which is actually directly about this experience of war, and what it means to people’s lives, and believably “realistic”, except also done in the format of a crazy over-the-top action movie, and sort of intended to make you feel the pain via bombast and tension and blast. The two movies are so polarly, incredibly opposite that they’re almost similar.

I also was struck by how beautiful the lighting & sound design are in the hurt locker; in its way it’s as 3d and immersive as Avatar, but without the glasses. I felt like I had dust in my mouth half the time, and was surprised I wasn’t sunburned when the film ended.

Not a fan of the closing frames though, with the cut-to-buttrock macho moment. But I’m willing to accept it.