Black Hawk Down | SpoutBlog

Hurt Locker Trailer Blows Away Iraq War Hurdle. Clip of the Day

By Christopher Campbell posted 10 months ago

Back in September, Kathryn Bigelow told SpoutBlog that there’s a misconception regarding the failure of movies dealing with the Iraq War because so far we’d really only seen dramatic films about soldiers coming home. We hadn’t exactly seen any war movies about the ongoing conflict. “I mean, war is inherently dramatic, look at Black Hawk Down,” she explained, picking a film released a year prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Now it should make more sense that she referenced that specific title, as a new international trailer for Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker almost makes this film appear to be Black Hawk Down reset in Iraq. There seems to be a lot of similarly chaotic action involving an ensemble of talented actors running around a war-torn metropolis. The main difference is all the stuff with Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), which actually makes it potentially even more appealing to the action movie crowd, they who never tire of the “which wire do I cut?” cliches.

So why are we only seeing an international trailer, with no domestic release date for The Hurt Locker in sight (Summit Entertainment’s 2009 preview only mentions a Spring opening)? …Read more

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Ridley Scott to enter a BRAVE NEW WORLD

By Kevin Buist posted 1 year ago

io9 has confirmed an earlier report that Ridley Scott will direct an adaptation of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian future novel. Scott says that Leonardo DiCaprio approached him about adapting the book, and it looks like he will star in the film as well. This is exciting news; not only does it herald the return to science fiction for the director of Blade Runner and Alien, it also means that Leo, who is working on a live action adaptation of Akira, has two dystopian future projects in progress.

Brave New World is one of my favorite books, and Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies, for many of the same reasons, but I’m still having trouble getting excited about this news. Scott’s work on Blade Runner was amazing, but that was 26 years ago, and he hasn’t made a science fiction film since. I’d like to believe he can jump back in the saddle, but considering what he’s been up to for the past two and a half decades, I have my doubts. While the quality of Scott’s filmography is admittedly debatable, it’s safe to say he’s made some pretty terrible movies, Kingdom of Heaven and A Good Year come to mind. Even his films that have some potential end up falling short. American Gangster, while not a bad movie, felt like only like a sufficient execution of a script Scorsese would have passed over in the nineties.

Even if Scott can get his Blade Runner mojo working again for Brave New World, it could still be really bad. …Read more

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