Zero Dark Thirty - Anticipation/Discussion Thread

i mean i guess you could say it's simply a ripping yarn

I don't at all agree "walks away believing what they already believed" -- how do you know? That gushy woman in the screening elevator I described now thinks there was a heroine named Maya who made hotels and office buildings everywhere safe from Al Qaeda.

Also the words I most believed in the dialogue were put in the mouth of her asshole boss -- ie, UBL was largely irrelevant by 2008-11.

morbz, i'm saying i find fault with the logic, not espousing it

If we're going to judge movies now based on what stupid people walk away from them believing, ain't nobody's favorites gonna be safe.

last time I checked, stupid people are part of "everyone."

i still don't get the logic where it's not CIA propaganda because everyone just walksaway believing what they already believed, but it's somehow still a worthwhilemovieeven though it doesn't actually inform or shed light on anything

― da croupier, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 15:03 (7 minutes ago) Permalink

OTM

bcz it operates by the rules of a fictional "sophisticated" mersh thriller, which is all many ppl care about.

That woman in the elevator really affected you.

Michael Atkinson:

(Bigelow's) early films represented the sort of stylistic intensity that rises and falls in popularity quickly, and the new century saw her profile in decline – until embedded-journalist Mark Boal’s screenplay for The Hurt Locker and a low budget ($15 million) gave her the chance for a trimmer, steelier, less bullshitty sensibility makeover. Now, just two movies and a stack of awards later, she’s practically institutionalised as the era’s Hemingway or James Jones, the anointed chronicler of postmodern wartime.

But the queen of the Asymmetrical War Film has never been to war – a circumstance that enables her to make a claim that no one of Hemingway’s or Fuller’s experience would ever make: that Zero Dark Thirty is “apolitical”. It’s what a CoD player might say, if pressed to account for the endless replays of gory combat that fill his day. Let’s leave aside the issue of the ginned-up torture-means-finding-bin Laden thread; since when is narrowing down a global manhunt and assassination to its pure procedural facts not political?

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/duty-calls-zero-dark-thirty

she’s practically institutionalised as the era’s Hemingway or James Jones, the anointed chronicler of postmodern wartime.

if internet chatter is anything to go by, people in the military think her movies are still pretty bullshitty

Zzzzzzzzz

dude yr keyboard is jammed

Had me until he started comparing it to a videogame. Shit like that is invariably written by people who've never played one.

http://filmmakermagazine.com/64175-zero-dark-thirty-and-the-new-history/

We've been waiting for Mr. Starbursts of Joy to step in..

Too taboo to win the Oscar http://m.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/how-zero-dark-thirty-crashed-just-outside-compound/61499/

great headline dipshits

I didn't have that strong a reaction to this: found the first 30-45 minutes a little dreary, thought it got better after that (starting with the suicide bomber who got to Chastain's team). The thing that's driving me up the wall is who one of the actors is. He's one of the CIA guys at the big meeting where Chastain's theory is presented--guy in his 30s, he sort of chairs the meeting. I think I've clicked on every actor on the IMDB page, and I can't find the right guy. Anyone know who I mean?

Mark Strong?

Stephen Dillaine and John Barrowman were also kicking about.

No, I'd checked those guys (just checked again). Wish I could quote a line...Anyway, I'll figure it out eventually--I don't want to sidetrack the thread going through the whole cast.

If you pause this at exactly 1:54, the actor I'm trying to identify is sitting to Chastain's left; he turns his head and looks right at her. I can't put a name to him...he's really well known, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAtWcvCxPhc

Mark Duplass?

I think it's gotta be Jeff Mash, Mark Duplass, James Gandolfini, John Barrowman, Stephen Dillaine, or Jason Clarke.

Jeff Mash (CIA Deputy Director) is the closest visual match.
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjE5MDM4MDE4M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDA4OTUxMg@@._V1._SY314_CR19,0,214,314_.jpg

Once you mentally tilt his head forward 10 degrees and put less flattering side lighting on his malar bags.

Thanks--so it's Mark Duplass, and I know him from Safety Not Guaranteed.

dude gets a lot of work these days

Opinion piece in a LGBT paper, guns ablazin', by one Susie Day.

See the pale, strawberry-blonde woman help US agents starve Muslims, strip Muslims naked, drag Muslims around on dog leashes, water-board Muslims, kick and punch Muslims, scream in Muslim’s faces, hang Muslims from the ceiling, and cram Muslims into tiny wooden boxes — all without losing an ounce of her femininity.

These interrogations are hard to watch. Why are these interrogations hard to watch? Because they are hard on the Muslims? No, because they are hard on the CIA interrogators. See the cruel Muslims forcing the CIA interrogators to wring accurate information about bin Laden out of them.

Poor CIA interrogators. They must do their job, yet their interrogation work is both banal and evil. The interrogators are sad. Wait, sad interrogators! Here is something you can be cheerful about: Hannah Arendt is no longer alive to write about you!

http://gaycitynews.com/zero-dark-thirty-the-womans-guide-to-success-thru-torture/

Tired of people writing about films when they don't know how to read films.

Appreciate the link though.

John Barrowman cameo had many in the theatre guffawing. Most incongruous cameo ever. What is up with the casting?

Hard to really call it a "cameo" in the traditional sense since about 20 people in the US watch Torchwood.

I can't believe I didn't recognise Edgar Ramirez, and I've seen Carlos three times all the way through!

lol

oh, and henry francis doesn't have a line in this either

she reads it about like I do, Gukbe, you simply don't agree with her political framing.

who the fuck is John Barrowman?

nah, Henry Francis had a line. I think

It's not the political framing, it's the "this Is what happens from a narrative perspective so is is what the film means" mentality.

John Barrowman is everyone's favourite American-Glaswegian who played the pansexual Captain Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and the spin-off Torchwood. Also occasionally does panto.

Should add that you and I, Morbs, are probably pretty much exactly the same in regards to our political stances on this subject.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxr8vzatJc1qca7yw.gif

Not to stereotype, though he is pretty hammy.

See the 3,000 human beings who tragically perished in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11. Do NOT see the hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of human beings who tragically perished in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan due to subsequent US invasions, bombings, and drone attacks. Do NOT see flashbacks of the United States creating and supporting dictatorial regimes to facilitate oil drilling in the region. Do NOT see Western sanctions imposed on Iraq years before September 11, 2001, which killed an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children. Also do NOT see people having qualms about the wisdom of killing bin Laden in the first place or the ethics of assassinating anyone based on a president’s secret “kill list.”

I feel like this is pretty much completely misreading the film as well as not understanding how to engage a film.

"engage" as a verb that way = gtfo

it's easy to play the "that's not what the film IS" game when the film is so little

yeah people with strong political beliefs about the movie are ranting about how all the film is is a glum progression through a "osama has got to be got" narrative that hops from one terrorist event to the next climaxing with ubl's death

i should say strong political beliefs about the real life events that the movie exploits to no end other than "I think we can all agree torture happened and this shit is heavy"

anybody who pulls some "oh, please leave it to the cineastes" crap needs to realize this isn't just playing in arthouses and isn't trying to

i mean i realize that some filmies get upset when people judge a movie for what it isn't rather than what it is, but when you make a reductive blockbuster out of one of the hottest topics in us foreign policy and call it journalism sometimes you just gotta deal with that

I can still bitch about it though. And seriously, where this film is playing is irrelevent.