The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker
You’ll Know When You’re In It

A robotic rover treads over rocky terrain. The mechanized scavenger scans the land with several on-board cameras as the intense heat beats down on the rocky terrain. At first glimpse, one might mistake this scene as something out of a science fiction film. The reality of the matter is, the desert landscape isn't Mars but Iraq, and the roving surveyor is not Wall-E but a bomb-disarming military tool.

This is the opening of Director Kathryn Bigelow’s film, The Hurt Locker. Set in 2004, the film follows a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit stationed in Iraq. Jeremy Renner (28 Weeks Later) plays Staff Sergeant William James, leader of this suicidal brigade of bomb disarmers. Under his command is Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), each with their own interesting and unique outlooks on the job.

Bigelow succeeds in creating an intense, accurate portrayal of the American Soldier. Every unfamiliar face is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb in disguise. The film is intense and gripping while allowing for a healthy dose of character development to make us feel part of the experience. As James and his squad defuse car bombs and hidden explosives, we are right there with them – sweating and praying to God that they cut the right wire. If only it were that easy. This isn’t Mission: Impossible – this is the real deal, and things aren’t as simple as choosing the red wire or the green wire.

The Hurt Locker has been a pleasant surprise in an underwhelming summer bloated with hype and unrealized potential. The film is chock full with brilliant performances, with Jeremy Renner stealing the show as the multi-dimensional wild man William James. Don’t be surprised if you see some familiar faces, as The Hurt Locker boasts an impressive roster of cameos including Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, Evangeline Lilly and David Morse.

In the burgeoning subgenre of Iraq War films, The Hurt Locker is a near-perfect example of how to take a dead horse and breath new life into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is Jeremy Renner’s breakout role. I loved him in 28 Weeks Later and this is only further proof that the guy has serious chops. If you have a chance to check out The Hurt Locker in theaters, don’t miss out. It’s one of the best films of this summer and worthy of your time and money.


"This is a tasty burger!"

The Science of Lovely Little Bribes

The Science of Lovey Little Bribes

1. "Big Strong Girl" by Deb Talan
2. "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire
3. "Train Song" by Ben Gibbard & Feist
4. "I Was Made For You" by She & Him
5. "American Love" by Jack's Mannequin
6. "Birthday Gallery" by Daphne Loves Derby
7. "Little Bribes" by Death Cab for Cutie
8. "Restless Heart Syndrome" by Green Day
9. "The Ghosts of You and Me" by Less Than Jake
10. "Perfect" by Smashing Pumpkins
11. "Run" by Snow Patrol
12. "Living in Twlight" by The Weepies
13. "Nightswimming" by REM
14. "Winter Song" by Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson
15. "Your Winter" by Sister Hazel
16. "It's Not Over" by Secondhand Serenade

This is the current soundtrack for my life. Feel free to join me in the crushing, devastating flood of sadness and regret that currently flows through my veins. And let me know if you like the music, too.

Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Michael Bay brings forth a Sun-crushing robotic apocalypse

It might be a good idea for ushers to start handing out programs at the door when you see a Michael Bay film at the cinema. The pamphlet would be 50 pages or so and include all the character and plot information necessary to truly immerse yourself into one of his films. In the case of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, it would include a complete roster breakdown of all 42 robots with their names and affiliations and all the bits of coherent story he left out.

With two Transformers films that weigh in at a combined running time of 294 minutes, it’s hard to imagine much could be left out – but there’s something to be said about quality over quantity, I guess. As a sequel, there’s an obligation to make a bigger, better film than the predecessor. Michael Bay has certainly made a bigger film with Revenge of the Fallen, but is it truly superior?

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

Michael Bay must not be familiar with this old saying, as he goes out of his way to inflate Revenge of the Fallen to such bloated girth, the film crumbles under its shaking cameras and wobbly plot.

Ponderous. Incomprehensible. Cumbersome. Indecipherable. There are literally too many juicy adjectives to choose from to describe the mind-numbing experience that is Revenge of the Fallen. I imagine a staff meeting between Michael Bay and his crew, similar to the pointless scenes of boardroom meetings between military advisers that run rampant in his films. In this meeting, Michael Bay is discussing what made the first film so good, and after the group reaches a consensus on what worked and didn’t work… the distracted Bay (making “Kaboom!” noises in his head) picks up the list of negatives and decides to cram as much as possible into the sequel.

Characters like Ratchet, Ironhide and Bumblebee take a backseat to a pair of blundering, idiotic twins named Skidz and Mudflap. Their personalities are that of “gangsta” rappers and they take every opportunity to offend the audience’s intelligence, dropping memorable lines of dialogue like, “I’m gonna busta cap in yo ass!”


It’s almost as if Michael Bay watched The Phantom Menace and said, “I can do better than that!” I would much rather watch a television series dedicated to Jar Jar Binks' haphazard adventures than ever experience a single frame of footage featuring the twins again.

An amazing forest battle royale, an epic confrontation between Bumblebee and Ravage, and a super-charged climactic showdown are worth the price of admission, but don’t expect to come away from Revenge of the Fallen with any discernible idea of what you just watched.

It was completely mindless, and mostly boring – but there were some incredible moments of heroics and excitement hidden beneath all the explosions, screaming and running. Unfortunately, Revenge of the Fallen is the result of a Michael Bay film without the direct influence of Steven Spielberg. It lacks magic and wonderment and much needed coherency.

Not that any of this matters. Michael Bay films are notoriously critic-proof and this failure of epic proportions is sure to become one of the highest-grossing films of all-time. Michael Bay, for what it’s worth, is good at one thing – putting people’s asses in the seats - and in the movie business, that’s all that matters isn’t it?


"You're killin' me Smalls!"

HeroesCon 2009

Transformers Fun Facts

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen FUN FACTS!

14 robots last time, 46 robots this time (ILM only)

If you had all the gold ever mined in the history of man, you could build a little more than half of Devastator.

Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.

Devastator's hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid.

The pyramid destruction simulation was 8 times bigger than the old rigid simulation all-time record holder at ILM.

All robot parts laid out end to end would stretch from one side of California to the other, about 180 miles

Devastator's parts stacked tip to tip would be as tall as 58 empire state buildings.

If all the texture maps on the show were printed on 1 square yard sheets, they would cover 13 football fields.

DISK SPACE

The first Transformers took 20 Terabytes of disk space. Trans2 took 145 Terabytes. Seven times bigger!

145 terabytes would fill 35,000 DVDs. Stacked one on top of the other without storage cases, they would be 145 feet tall.

RENDERING TIMES

If you rendered the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the renders 16,000 years ago (when cave paintings like the Hall of Bulls were being made) to finish for this year's premiere!

A single imax shot in the movie (df250) would have taken almost 3 years to render on a top of the line home PC running nonstop.

IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

IMAX

Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.

Imax frames take about 6 times longer than anamorphic to render.

IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

ILM SCREEN TIME

ILM Screen Time is about 51 minutes.

DEVASTATOR

Devastator is as tall as a 10 story building.

Devastator has more than 10 times the number of individual parts found in an average car.

Laid out end to end, Devastator's parts would be almost 14 miles long.

DEVASTATOR TOTALS

Number of geometric pieces: 52632

The total number of polygons: 11,716,127

The total length of all pieces: 73090 feet

The total length of all pieces: 13.84 miles

*Thanks to Michael Bay and Paramount's Public Relations team for these fun little tidbits.