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  1. Waltz is genious.
  2. The Hurt Locker kicked Avatars CGI behind.

    Shame Jeremy Renner lost too Jeff Bridges though.
  3. A review by a combat vet, who also provide a list of techcical inacuracies. Taken from Facebook.




    Recently the nominations for academy awards were announced and it was surprising that the independent movie "The Hurt Locker" was nominated for 8 awards, thats the same number of awards that Avatar was nominated for. Also James Cameron's ex-wife was the director of The Hurt Locker. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is about an EOD team in Iraq. Those are the guys that defuse IEDs. It's filmed in a semi-docudrama fashion and it works well for the most part. The two most note worthy things about this movie is how amazingly well they created the look and feel of Iraq. The movie was filmed in Jordan and at times almost 3 miles from the Iraqi boarder. The location was as close to Iraq as they could get without actually being in the country. Some parts gave me flash backs. The IEDs shown in the movie are also very accurate. From daisy chained 155mm rounds and VBIEDs it's done well and shows how sneaky and creative insurgents are with them. The other thing to mention is that this is the first movie about the Iraq war that is not politically motivated. It doesn't try to make American soldiers look bad or try to justify that the war is wrong, it just shows these men doing their dirty dangerous job over there. While the setting and theme is accurate, there are a lot of other mistakes in the movie that could have been avoided to increase accuracy and perhaps make the movie better and not all of them are "things you would have had to be have been in the Army to know" either.

    1) The year. Many of the problems in the movie could have been avoided if the director had not put a year on it. At the beginning of the movie it says it takes place in Baghdad 2004. This brings us to the next few problems.

    2) US Army personnel were not wearing ACUs (Army Combat Uniform) in 2004. All Army personnel in this movie are wearing ACUs. They would be wearing DCUs (Desert Combat Uniforms). The ACU wasn't introduced into the Army till mid to late 2005 and didn't phase out BDUs and DCUs completely till 2007.

    3) The Specialist playing Xbox 360 in the rec center. The Xbox 360 wasn't released till December of 2005. I guess he wanted it so bad he traveled into the future and brought it back for his deployment.

    4) Mentioning of Youtube. There is a scene where an Iraq is recording with a video camera the EOD team defusing a bomb. The Specialist pull security says "He is about to be put on youtube." Youtube wasn't founded till 2005 and didn't really become to popular till 2006. (Iraqi insurgents would sometimes try to record IED and other attacks on US forces to be used for propaganda.) Now lets move away from the year setting and to some of the military incorrectness.

    5) The EOD team travelling around alone. Repeatedly you see these three man EOD team travelling out on calls all by themselfs in one Humvee with no security other than the Specialist gunning on top. Countless times I remember us having to go on long boring random missions with EOD to give them security. They would also travel in 3 vehicle convoys which is the lowest number of vehicles you are allow to leave the wire with. So in other words, the point I am trying to make is they shouldn't have been allowed to leave the FOB at all.

    6) The classic camera-scope affect for optics that do not have zoom. The Sergent in the EOD team has an ACOG on his M4 and the Specialist has an M68 red dot sight. In multiple scenes, they look down their sights and the camera switches to a scope like frame and is zoomed in greatly on what they are looking at to make it feel like you are looking down the sight. This has been done many times in movies before, usually in sniper scenes. The problem here is their optics do not zoom in that much (the M68 not at all) and would have a recital (the M68 it would just be a red dot in the center).

    7) Drinking bottled alcohol. Alcohol is not aloud at all in a war zone. Yet there is a scene of them getting drunk and beating eat other up in one of their rooms one night. Now, there are WAYS to get alcohol over there but not bottled. Granted, the main character being the kind of guy he is he probably had a way to get some of over there anyway.

    8) Infantry abandoning a Humvee. The EOD team comes up on a Humvee that is empty but running. The crew is in a near by house for some reason. Leaving a vehicle out in sector with no one manning it? Thats a no go soldier!

    9) EOD personnel wearing Combat Infantry Badges. Only Infantry (MOS 11B) are awarded the CIB (Combat Infantry Badge http://dsf.chesco.org/heroes/images/combatinfantrybadge1.gif ). You see both the NCOs of the EOD team have them. This would be possible if they had a prior MOS and it was infantry. The E5 mentions he was Military intelligence before he went EOD so he definitely wouldn't have an CIB. The team leader was with Rangers before this. It is not clear if he was a Ranger before becoming EOD or if he just served with a Ranger Unit as EOD. Sure as hell acts like a Ranger though.

    10) EOD clearing buildings and going on dangerous missions by them selfs without back up. Another NO-GO. These three men clear a large building by them selfs and go off on a dangerous mission by them selfs into a dark part of Baghdad with no night vision or anything, let alone ignoring all the infantry that could have come with them. This does lead to one of them almost getting kidnapped and wounded. Needless to say, this an amazingly stupid thing to do. The team leader is a moron for doing it and while the other did object they ended up going anyway. Perhaps the dumbest thing done in this movie is when the E7 goes out side the wire by himself holding an Iraqi merchant at gun point trying to find a dead kids house. Then again, he was supposedly a Ranger.

    Despite these inaccuracies this is probably the best movie about the Iraq war made so far. It will be interesting to see how many awards it wins. It has already won many film awards on the independent level.

  4. Aloud instead of Allowed? Them selfs instead of Themselves?

    Wow. He/she provides a list of inaccuracies writing like that, wow.
  5. Originally posted by LikeASong:Aloud instead of Allowed? Them selfs instead of Themselves?

    Wow. He/she provides a list of inaccuracies writing like that, wow.


    Given the topic at hand, I'd say the fact he's an Iraq vet is more important than his grammer.
  6. Originally posted by wtshnnfb01:A review by a combat vet, who also provide a list of techcical inacuracies. Taken from Facebook.




    Originally posted by VeteranRecently the nominations for academy awards were announced......





    It's a movie. Period.
  7. I think the winners are all very worthy and Im glad Cameron didn't get anothe haul, but was it not all just a mite predictable this year? I mean Bridges, Bullock, Waltz and Mo'Nique were all dead certs from months ago. And Hurt Locker was the sensible choice for the other 2.
  8. Inglorious Basterds or District 9 or Avatar >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hurt Locker.


  9. Not only this years........the nominations and actual winners can be seen from a mile away.

    And when you're playing a blind man, HIV patient, psychiatric person or otherwise disabled or sick, or some Indian guy stars as an actual real Indian in some Western, you're 100% sure of an Oscar.
    And the movies where the (US) history is shown as they wanted it to have taken place in stead of depicting real history as it took place, is also most likely to win.

    Good example is Forrest Gump: a movie that changes actual history and a guy who is not exactly 100%...of course it would win an Oscar...

    Al Pacino? He should have deserved it 30 years ago alreay, and when did he win? In one of his dullest movies....playing a blind guy.

    It's all so obvious.


  11. THL is the weakest oscar winner like ever. Its way too long, has no interesting characters. Where is the plot?. The first scene was interesting but it pretty much portrayed the whole movie. What happened after that? freakin nothing! It was like boring and dead serious 24. The guy even looked like Jack Bauer.

    Im not saying Avatar should have won it but there were simply no great movies last year...
  12. i would give all the oscars to Up. great movie. doesnt matter its animated.