First Teaser
Release date: December 19, 2012
Starring: Chris Pratt, Jessica Chastain, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Premise: The Navy SEAL Team 6 tracks down wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden
Meh.... I pass..... But I bet the Oscars won't. :yabbse-undecided:
Curious. Why do you pass? The trailer doesn't really show much from the movie. What makes you pass?
Quote from: RegularKarate on August 08, 2012, 11:01:03 AM
Curious. Why do you pass? The trailer doesn't really show much from the movie. What makes you pass?
What I've seen and I know from the movie just doesn't appeal to me enough to get me in the theater. When the DVD hits stores, I'll check it out (I like Bigelow's work).
Plus, if I wanna watch an over-dramatized story about the capturing and death of Bin Laden, I'll watch Fox News.
So you like Bigelow's work (reason enough for me to see a movie in the theater usually), but you're not going to give it a chance, but you're upset that it might win an Oscar. ok
My only current complaint with the movie is the utterly moronic title. I'm just going to call it "Beer O'Clock" from now on instead.
Quote from: polkablues on August 08, 2012, 11:41:23 AM
My only current complaint with the movie is the utterly moronic title. I'm just going to call it "Beer O'Clock" from now on instead.
Hah. Bigelow's got a thing for bad titles. The Hurt Locker? That one still makes my head hurt. And let's not forget K-19: The Widowmaker.
Quote from: RegularKarate on August 08, 2012, 11:33:06 AM
So you like Bigelow's work (reason enough for me to see a movie in the theater usually), but you're not going to give it a chance, but you're upset that it might win an Oscar. ok
1. I do like her work, specially the movies she made in the late 80's - 90's.
2. I rarely go to the theater. If I do go is to see something "special" like for example the only movies I've seen in theaters this year are: The avengers, Dark knight rises, The hunger games, Prometheus and Moonrise Kingdom . Planning to go watch THE MASTER (Obviously, like 10 times) and DJANGO UNCHAINED. Most of the time I wait for movies to come out on DVD and check them out.
3. I WILL give it a chance... When it comes to DVD.
4. I'm not upset. I'm just tired of the Oscars always giving awards to these type of movies, I haven't seen it yet but I'm sure the academy will be all over this. On another note, I really wanna see PTA win this year. But knowing how moronic the oscars are, probably won't happen.
5. OK.
Yep I'm in, that looks great. Can't wait for this.
Bret Easton Ellis Tweets Sexist Insult About 'Zero Dark Thirty' Director Kathryn Bigelow
The novelist-screenwriter, a member of the Academy, says the first woman to win a best director Oscar is "really overrated" because "she's a very hot woman."
Source: THR
On the same day The Hollywood Reporter hosted a breakfast to honor the most powerful women in entertainment and the progress of women in Hollywood in general, as well as the misogyny target-turned-women's rights activist Sandra Fluke, Bret Easton Ellis demonstrated just how far the fight against sexism and ignorance still has to go. At 11:32 PT, the novelist-screenwriter and Academy member took to Twitter to assert about the first woman to ever win a best director Oscar, "Kathryn Bigelow would be considered a mildly interesting filmmaker if she was a man but since she's a very hot woman she's really overrated."
Bigelow, who won the best director Oscar for The Hurt Locker (2009), has a new film coming out called Zero Dark Thirty, which will go into limited release Dec. 19. It recently began screening for critics and has been almost universally heralded as one of the year's best movies. Both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review bestowed upon it their best film awards. And I am currently predicting that it will score Oscar nominations for best picture, best director, best actress and best original screenplay, among others.
Ellis, meanwhile, probably is better known for his provocative statements than any of his films. The 48-year-old's opinions should be taken with a grain of salt, though -- he walked out of The Artist because he didn't find it entertaining but is now at work on a film starring Lindsay Lohan and a porn star.
Bigelow could not be reached for a reaction to Ellis' statement, as it came in the middle of the night. Ellis did not reply to a tweet about it.
"Ellis, meanwhile, probably is better known for his provocative statements than any of his films. The 48-year-old's opinions should be taken with a grain of salt, though -- he walked out of The Artist because he didn't find it entertaining but is now at work on a film starring Lindsay Lohan and a porn star."
Combo-Breaker.
@BretEastonEllis; if u were a "very hot woman" youd still be a shit writer.Say TY to Mary Harron.That MOVIE was the best book u ever wrote
-- Ellen Barkin
This movie is THE SHIT.
Quote from: modage on December 07, 2012, 09:30:49 AM
This movie is THE SHIT.
Do you have a reaction/review that you could share?
this was pretty good.
couldn't help but think of homeland as this started out (chilly white female cia operative in the field, yadda yadda) but that quickly dissolved with the sustained brute frankness of its portrayal of the "detainee program". from that point on, though, there's a lot of hand holding (ie REALLY stupid use of intertitles, though as with her previous film, there's not one iota of context provided for the actual title of the film) and much of the drama in the film is diffused. rather than really giving a sense of the exhaustive, draining, and undoubtedly confusing nature of the manhunt (i kept wishing tomas alfredson, fresh off of tinker tailor solider spy had made this instead), it plays out more like an outline of significant beats with dramatizations. it moves along at breakneck speed, somewhat of a dubious credit to bigelow since it, in my mind, betrays the material tonally. intellectually it can be seen as servicing the intent but that aspect seemed farily obvious from the get go, and wasn't something that needed was much reinforcing or emphasis as much as how the film feels. there are thrills to be had and bigelow has proved herself an expert crafts(wo)man at set pieces and action, but the film is slightly less than the sum of its parts. certainly a pretty damn good movie, but i feel like there's a better one that could've come from this story. the final act is a doozy and the way it's handled emotionally is spot on.
in other news, pain & gain (for which there was a trailer before zero dark thirty, so this isn't totally irrelevant) looks AMAZING.
Senators Call 'Zero Dark Thirty' 'Grossly Inaccurate' in Letter to Sony Pictures
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and other say the film's depiction of torture is "factually inaccurate," urging Sony to add a disclaimer to the movie.
Source: THR
A bipartisan group of senior U.S. Senators who have seen the new film Zero Dark Thirty sent a letter Wednesday to the movie's distributor, Sony Pictures, calling the picture "grossly inaccurate and misleading" for suggesting that intelligence obtained through torture played a role in locating Osama bin Laden.
The movie, a reconstruction by director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal of the decade-long pursuit and killing of the al-Qaida kingpin by the CIA and U.S. Navy SEALs, already has received critical acclaim from the New York Film Critics Circle and others and is widely viewed as an Oscar contender.
The film begins with an extended depiction of American interrogators waterboarding an accused terrorist, and many have argued that the film suggests that intelligence gleaned from that session and others produced information that led U.S. operatives to an al-Qaida courier who ultimately provided the location of bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has seen Zero Dark Thirty, calls that suggestion entirely false. She and the other Senators urge Sony, which is releasing the film, to add a disclaimer on the film.
"Zero Dark Thirty is factually inaccurate, and we believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film's fictional narrative," reads the letter, addressed to Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Michael Lynton.
Bigelow and Boal have said in a statement that their film is not political and does not take a position on whether torture led to the location and killing of bin Laden:
"This was a 10-year intelligence operation brought to the screen in a two-and-a-half-hour film. We depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden. The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes. One thing is clear: The single greatest factor in finding the world's most dangerous man was the hard work and dedication of the intelligence professionals who spent years working on this global effort. We encourage people to see the film before characterizing it."
Feinstein was joined in the letter by Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Senate Armed Service Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.).
McCain, a former GOP presidential candidate who was tortured by the North Vietnamese while held as a prisoner of war, told the Associated Press that he was "sickened" by the movie. McCain said the filmmakers had fallen for false claims by apologists for torture.
Feinstein, Levin and McCain all told The Hill that torture—euphemistically labeled by its defenders as "enhanced interrogation" — played no role whatsoever in leading the CIA to bin Laden, an assertion they forcefully repeated in their letter to the studio.
"We write to express our deep disappointment with the movie Zero Dark Thirty," the lawmakers wrote. "We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Osama bin Laden.
The letter continues:
"We understand that the film is fiction, but it opens with the words 'based on first-hand accounts of actual events' and there has been significant media coverage of the CIA's cooperation with the screenwriters. As you know, the film graphically depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees and then credits these detainees with providing critical lead information on the courier that led to Osama bin Laden. Regardless of what message the filmmakers intended to convey, the movie clearly implies that the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier for Osama bin Laden. We have reviewed CIA records and know that this is incorrect. Zero Dark Thirty is factually inaccurate, and we believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film's fictional narrative."
In the letter, the three senior lawmakers cite a recently approved 6,000-page classified report on interrogation tactics by the Senate Intelligence Committee that they say found waterboarding and other techniques regarded as torture by the international community produced no actionable intelligence. The exhaustive report required three years to complete and was approved by the committee on a 9-6 vote.
The senators write:
"The CIA did not first learn about the existence of the Osama bin Laden courier from CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques. Nor did the CIA discover the courier's identity from detainees subjected to coercive techniques. No detainee reported on the courier's full name or specific whereabouts, and no detainee identified the compound in which Osama bin Laden was hidden. Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program ...
"The CIA detainee who provided the most significant information about the courier provided the information prior to being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques."
The lawmakers also cite a letter to McCain from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta categorically stating that "... no detainee in CIA custody revealed the facilitator/courier's full true name or specific whereabouts. This information was discovered through other intelligence means."
Feinstein, McCain and Levin conclude the letter to Sony by saying:
"We are fans of many of your movies, and we understand the special role that movies play in our lives, but the fundamental problem is that people who see Zero Dark Thirty will believe that the events it portrays are facts. The film therefore has the potential to shape American public opinion in a disturbing and misleading manner. Recent public opinion polls suggest that a narrow majority of Americans believe that torture can be justified as an effective form of intelligence gathering. This is false. We know that cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners is an unreliable and highly ineffective means of gathering intelligence ...
"(W)ith the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right ..."
are we to believe there was no torture involved in the search for osama bin laden?
who are these guys kidding?
Quote from: Alexandro on December 20, 2012, 09:38:12 AM
are we to believe there was no torture involved in the search for osama bin laden?
who are these guys kidding?
What gives you the impression that torture was helpful in finding Bin Laden?
I don't know if it was helpful, but I wouldn't believe it wasn't applied. Haven't seen the movie, but I've read according to Bigelow and Boal that the film shows a number of tactics used (including torture) not pointing one in particular as solely responsible of finding Bin Laden.
That said...I believe every government uses torture under the radar for different ends, and I think is naive to believe otherwise. In the case of finding Bin Laden, I had always assumed it. I still do.
I'm sure torture was used somewhere along the line, since the search for bin Laden has been going on for so long. Whether it helped catch bin Laden is anyone's guess, and based on what we actually know empirically about torture, it's unlikely.
So yes, it's completely irresponsible to give the impression that torture probably helped us find bin Laden. I'll reserve actual judgment until I see the movie, but from what I've heard so far, it doesn't sound good.
If the film actually does present torture as one among many tools in our arsenal, that creates a dangerous false equivalency. We should never forget the wrongness of torture (assuming you believe that), nevermind the illegality of it, particularly since the public's impressions of how it works (and how well it works) come almost exclusively from far-fetched fiction.
I agree that torture is wrong of course. And I'll reserve judgement of it's portrayal in this film until I see it. Just as a hypothetical first impression, if someone told me there's a film about the 10 year search and final capture (murder) of Bin Laden from the point of view of a group of C.IA. agents where torture is never mentioned as something that happened, I would find the whole thing hard to believe.
Yeah I think we pretty much agree.
If I were making the movie, I would describe someone being waterboarded and deprived of sleep until they make something up, leading investigators down a dead end and generally screwing everything up. That is the context for torture that most conforms to reality and what we actually know.
This is interesting:
http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/dec/14/zero-dark-thirty/
from huffpo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/erin-brockovich-for-fasci_b_2334324.html
Erin Brockovich for Fascists
I suppose Zero Dark Thirty is going to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and that's the last anyone will hear of it. (Unless they pick Lincoln. Or Silver Linings Playbook, although violent, crazy loners got considerably less loveable late last week.) Zero Dark Thirty is the best-reviewed American movie of 2012, but no one who sees the thing is going to recommend it to anyone. It's plodding and grim (and long) if you like that sort of thing, and apparently critics do. Christopher Orr at the Atlantic says it's
Utterly authentic!
Enthralling!
Extraordinary! (2x)
Journalistic!
Meticulous! (2x)
Morally complicated!
Powerful!
Stunning!
Sprawling!
Troubling!
Vital!
Urgent!
Heavens to Betsy! And it's also a "tour de force" and "If The Hurt Locker cracked the door on (director Kathryn Bigelow's) cinematic gifts, Zero Dark Thirty kicks it wide open!" Which is the kind of writing adults generally eschew, lest they come off sounding like it's their first night in the big city.
It's also about as morally complicated as Julie & Julia. When this redhead gets an idea in her head (kill Muslims/make Beef Bourguignon) watch out! She won't take no for an answer!
(One of the small comforts in Zero Dark Thirty is that we don't see our goal-oriented heroine's home life. So we're spared the utterly thankless cute boyfriend character who supports her, then arbitrarily doesn't ("Can't you ever stop torturing people? This birthday meant a lot to me!") and then does again. See The Devil Wears Prada, J&J, every other movie with a woman in the workplace in the last 15 years.)
Woman gets idea, men don't listen, she doesn't back down, it turns out she's right.
And that's okay, too. There's nothing wrong with that movie. But it ain't urgent.
And when you apply the tropes of the genre to a movie that starts with a tragedy and leads to torture and assassination, it's kind of nauseating.
Zero Dark Thirty contains:
The scene where our heroine arrives at the office with high hopes but gets a crummy desk in a crappy corner.
The scene where she wants to do something but the boss gives her a Huge File of Things to do first.
The scene where she steps on another woman's toes... but then they become friends.
The scene where she tells her boss if she doesn't get to follow her gut she's going over his head.
The scene where she goes to the big meeting but doesn't get to sit at the table... but speaks up anyway!
I'm not saying these things didn't happen in real life. I'm just saying they also happened in Legally Blonde II.
--
A very long time ago, George Kaufman imagined Warner Brothers buying the rights to the Theory of Relativity and making it into a movie with Joan Blondell called Gold Diggers at College. Here's the pitch:
"... it's a very tough theory and, and there's never been a girl that's been able to understand it... and finally along comes a girl, attractive, of course, and says, "I am going to understand it"... So she pitches in and goes to work. She won't go to parties or dances or anything and she wears horn-rimmed glasses, and the boys think she's a grind and hasn't got any sex appeal. Underneath, of course, she's a regular girl..."
And it was funny in 1938, because it was so lame.
Did I say lame? I meant "vital."
--
The critics who love Zero Dark Thirty praise it for not taking a position, one way or the other, on torture and murder. Like that's a good thing, and not the moral equivalent of Saw. But Zero Dark Thirty does take a position. No one innocent gets tortured. No one who isn't bad gets killed, except by bad guys. The torturers and murderers -- our torturers and murderers -- aren't changed by doing what they do; they just become more determined. No one fucks up, except by letting their guard down, or by not listening to Extralegally Blonde. It's like Paul Fussell's description of Herman Wouk novels -- "their audience being untrained in irony, there are few blunders and errors and everyone does what he's supposed to do, with minimal chickenshit. Result: Victory." With apologies to Christopher Orr, it's the very opposite of "troubling." Our black sites are full of bad people, our hit squads never kill women or children when they can possibly help it, and the law is barely a technicality, and that's a good thing for everyone, especially women in the workplace.
It's not just vile, it's childish.
And going on about how deep it is just makes you sound like a boob.
Well, duh. I coulda told you that from the moment I heard they were making a movie about this. Can we please have a female filmmaker who's, y'know, actually relevant?
Quote from: ono on December 20, 2012, 11:41:24 PM
Can we please have a female filmmaker who's, y'know, actually relevant?
Sure. Lynn Shelton, Lone Sherfig, Miranda July, Lynne Ramsay, Debra Granik, Catherine Hardwicke, Claire Denis, Isabel Coixet, Lena Dunham, Andrea Arnold, Sarah Polley, Catherine Breillat, Sofia Coppola (for better or worse), Kimberly Peirce, Mary Harron, Nicole Holofcener, Kasi Lemmons... I'm sure there's a ton that I'm missing.
Julie Taymor. Titus is one of my all-time favorites.
Quote from: polkablues on December 21, 2012, 12:15:14 AM
Quote from: ono on December 20, 2012, 11:41:24 PM
Can we please have a female filmmaker who's, y'know, actually relevant?
Sure. Lynn Shelton, Lone Sherfig, Miranda July, Lynne Ramsay, Debra Granik, Catherine Hardwicke, Claire Denis, Isabel Coixet,
July and Ramsay are the only ones worth a shit and they've only each made one worthwhile film (haven't seen Kevin).
QuoteLena Dunham
You're fucking kidding me, right?
Quote, Andrea Arnold, Sarah Polley, Catherine Breillat, Sofia Coppola (for better or worse), Kimberly Peirce, Mary Harron, Nicole Holofcener, Kasi Lemmons... I'm sure there's a ton that I'm missing.
Coppola made one great movie, a dud, and one I haven't seen yet. Breillat is a misandrist and loves to shock. I respect her for pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable in film, but she's hardly relevant and hasn't been for a long while.
Point to JB for Taymor, but c'mon, polka, really?
Sorry, I misread your original quote.
Quote from: ono on December 20, 2012, 11:41:24 PM
Can we please have a female filmmaker who's, y'know, actually relevant to my specific tastes?
Seriously. You crossed off a lot of really great directors right off the bat.
Touche, but when you list the director of fucking TWILIGHT, there's gotta be something amiss.
Thirteen was so good I forgive Twilight.
Just watched this. I absolutely loved it, right up my alley, felt like it was influenced by Syriana (which is a film I quite like, contrary to popular opinion), but maybe that might have been because Alexandre Desplat scored both films.
I think the brilliant track 'Electricity' from Syriana was also used in this several times. A huge cast I wasn't even aware of, small Actors I've noticed and taken a note of from several films were featured here, so my respect for Bigelow just bumped, as I had whimsical intentions of casting them in the future. Surprised by the amount of small but great Australian actors in the film, good on them. Really surprised by why it's rated so low on IMDB. Films usually get overrated in the first 10 thousand votes, not the case for Zero Dark Thirty.
EDIT:Okay I did a little bit of listening of the actual soundtrack, and it's not the same track, but it's definitely a rendition of that melody from Syriana. It kicks in at the 1min mark
I liked it, but I'm not understanding how this is so critically acclaimed at all. The first third of the film might be one of the worst moments in film of 2012 (this is relative to well regarded films), it was so poorly staged and crafted that I was just waiting for them to just move on. Those torture scenes reminded me of Vimeo short films tackling torture.
The film eventually picks up, and I was engaged, but nothing really was overly astounding? I never really cared about the characters, and the OVERLY emotional monologues that were given were tonally out of context from the rest of the film.
It was very interesting seeing how they tracked down these people, and eventually the raid of the fortress was great, but a well-done documentary could have done the job better.
I think the film was lacking FEELING. If this makes any sense. I never really felt emotionally connected, and when it tried to it felt contrived. But maybe this is the point they were going after? I might be seeing this again anyways.
For me, Hurt Locker was a better film.
Quote from: Cloudy on January 05, 2013, 06:15:27 AM
I liked it, but I'm not understanding how this is so critically acclaimed at all...
The director has a vagina; her movies are mainstream, and viewed by the press as "serious". She also has a vagina.
Quote from: The Ultimate Badass on January 05, 2013, 10:20:55 PM
Quote from: Cloudy on January 05, 2013, 06:15:27 AM
I liked it, but I'm not understanding how this is so critically acclaimed at all...
The director has a vagina; her movies are mainstream, and viewed by the press as "serious". She also has a vagina.
This. Also because Bin Laden. 'Murrica! USA! USA! USA!
Quote from: The Ultimate Badass on January 05, 2013, 10:20:55 PM
Quote from: Cloudy on January 05, 2013, 06:15:27 AM
I liked it, but I'm not understanding how this is so critically acclaimed at all...
The director has a vagina; her movies are mainstream, and viewed by the press as "serious". She also has a vagina.
Putting
Ultimate Badass's blatant misogyny aside for a second... She makes really good movies. That's why.
Martin Sheen, Ed Asner Join 'Zero Dark Thirty' Protest (Report)
The actors are voicing disapproval over the Oscar-nominated film's depiction of torture as a strategy in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Source: THR
Martin Sheen and Ed Asner are joining the protest against the hotly debated torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal's Oscar-nominated nail-biter about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Hands down the most controversial film of awards season, Zero Dark Thirty has drawn complaints that it glorifies torture and also suggests that torturing prisoners played a crucial part in tracking down bin Laden.
Both Sheen and Asner have issued an appeal to fellow actors to let their conscience guide them in deciding whether to cast a best-picture Oscar vote for the movie, reports CBS' Los Angeles affiliate station.
The two are siding with David Clennon, an actor who is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, in his campaign urging other members to "sign on to the letter," according to the Los Angeles Times.
"One of the brightest female directors in the business is in danger of becoming part of the system," Asner was cited as saying in a press release.
A rep for Asner did not immediately respond to THR's requests for comment. Sheen's publicist could not immediately confirm the actor's involvement in the memo to Oscar voters.
Zero Dark Thirty has been nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture, but in a surprising snub, Bigelow did not make the cut in the best director category.
It opened in limited release last month and wide Friday, raking in $9 million and putting it on course to earn $25 million-plus at the weekend box office.
On Friday, Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal jumped to Bigelow and screenwriter Boal's defense against charges it justifies terrorism, saying in a statement: "Zero Dark Thirty does not advocate torture. To not include that part of history would have been irresponsible and inaccurate. We fully support Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal and stand behind this extraordinary movie. We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda."
Her response came following an opinion piece posted Wednesday on the website truth-out.org by Clennon. "I'm a member of Hollywood's Motion Picture Academy. At the risk of being expelled for disclosing my intentions, I will not be voting for Zero Dark Thirty - in any Academy Awards category," he wrote.
I feel like it's really stupid to think that this movie advocates torture. Is Martin Sheen a real dummy or something?
The movie clearly lets you make up your own mind about the events... is that what scares people? That they are deciding that torture must have been necessary?
Quote from: RegularKarate on January 14, 2013, 03:23:07 PM
I feel like it's really stupid to think that this movie advocates torture. Is Martin Sheen a real dummy or something?
The movie clearly lets you make up your own mind about the events... is that what scares people? That they are deciding that torture must have been necessary?
I don't think it's a stretch to conclude that the film comes down on the side that torture was necessary and useful. It makes it fairly explicit that the protagonist (after she gets past her initial squeamishness) and the other "good guy" characters feel that way, and what better barometer for the movie's stance do we have than that?
Even setting aside the question of whether or not torture was a useful tool in the search for Bin Laden, the movie completely punts on the question of the moral acceptability of torture, which is problematic.
Setting all THAT aside, I thought the movie itself was well-made and great and I didn't care about any of this while it was playing .
The film betrays it's journalistic tone a few too many times (the 9/11 audio, the monkeys, "a lot of my friends died trying to do this", "I'm the motherfucker who found this place"), but it is competently made and engaging. I can't help but feel like the last half hour would've made a better short film, though. The film did a pretty shitty job at portraying the passing of time. A few years go by and it feels like the next day, which made the film feel a bit disjointed.
They are essentially "allowed" to torture for the first half and then that's taken away from them. They essentially say "How can we find Bin Laden if we can't torture people?" and then they do... which brings up the question "did they NEED to torture in the first place?"... the film doesn't answer that question.
Except that they specifically show that torturing the first detainee led to the key information that kickstarted the entire process that ultimately led to bin Laden. The movie is explicitly stating that torture worked. Sure, they have to adjust their tactics later on, but it is never once questioned whether or not torture is useful, it's just assumed and demonstrated to be the case.
Quote from: polkablues on January 15, 2013, 11:15:13 AM
Except that they specifically show that torturing the first detainee led to the key information that kickstarted the entire process that ultimately led to bin Laden. The movie is explicitly stating that torture worked. Sure, they have to adjust their tactics later on, but it is never once questioned whether or not torture is useful, it's just assumed and demonstrated to be the case.
It showed that it worked, but it didn't show that it was necessary.
I guess I just need to retract my earlier statement... I see where people are coming from, just don't agree
I think buyoffs are the only thing the movie explicitly says doesn't work. If the movie is saying torture doesn't work, why depict it so much? This movie is not about torture, it's about capturing Osama Bin Laden, and it clearly depicts that torture was essential to that process. Sure that guy gives up information over lunch, but that only came after being emotionally and physically broken (and being led to believe he had already given information). Structurally, the movie seems to be trying to say that torture wasn't essential to the process, but that those other avenues were only explored due to having their hands tied, not due to any moral objection.
I didn't say that the movie says torture didn't work. I'm saying it doesn't say that torture was necessary. It happened and it worked, but it doesn't say it was necessary. It lets the viewer decide.
It DOESN'T depict that torture was essential to the process. It says that was the method they used and that it worked... it never says that that was the only option.
I'm just curious why people believe that if you see someone succeed one way that that means it's the ONLY way it can be done.
and yes, the main characters didn't stop using torture because of THEIR OWN moral objection, they did because of other people's moral objection. That's how these people saw things... I don't think that movie says they were right or wrong though.
The issue I have is that the movie showed torture working, while the real life intelligence officials have made it clear that torture did not provide useful information. So the filmmakers proactively decided to show torture being more effective than it actually was.
How do you know that the "real life intelligence officials" are reliable? This movie was based on a lot of research... I'm no journalist... I'm not good at knowing who is right or who is wrong, but the movie depicts events that the filmmakers believe happened based on their research.
Saying that the movie got facts wrong is a different story.
Quote from: RegularKarate on January 15, 2013, 02:13:02 PM
How do you know that the "real life intelligence officials" are reliable? This movie was based on a lot of research... I'm no journalist... I'm not good at knowing who is right or who is wrong, but the movie depicts events that the filmmakers believe happened based on their research.
Saying that the movie got facts wrong is a different story.
Yeah this. From what I read of the torture scenes, the movie was telling us "don't forget, this did happen" as opposed to making an official statement that it was necessary. Remember this was early on in the movie and timeline, when W was still in office. This manhunt spanned several years after this, will many false leads and dead ends. Does the movie clearly connect the dots from that single piece of intel to her figuring out the courier thing? A lot of the investigation minutia was hard to follow, but I don't think the point was without torture they would have never found him.
SPOILERSQuote from: ©brad on January 15, 2013, 02:24:16 PM
Quote from: RegularKarate on January 15, 2013, 02:13:02 PM
How do you know that the "real life intelligence officials" are reliable? This movie was based on a lot of research... I'm no journalist... I'm not good at knowing who is right or who is wrong, but the movie depicts events that the filmmakers believe happened based on their research.
Saying that the movie got facts wrong is a different story.
Yeah this. From what I read of the torture scenes, the movie was telling us "don't forget, this did happen" as opposed to making an official statement that it was necessary. Remember this was early on in the movie and timeline, when W was still in office. This manhunt spanned several years after this, will many false leads and dead ends. Does the movie clearly connect the dots from that single piece of intel to her figuring out the courier thing? A lot of the investigation minutia was hard to follow, but I don't think the point was without torture they would have never found him.
Most importantly, the last shot of the film shows her in a state of what it cost. How her obsession took over her ability to have compassion. The film clearly shows her disgusted with torture at the beginning, then later, how she becomes one of them. The line "You can help yourself by telling the truth" is obviously in direct juxtaposition with her disgust in the first scene. At that moment the audience is left wondering, will she help this man? That's how 24 would have handled it, with cliffhangers and contrived plot points where maybe she does help him; or maybe not, but whether she does or doesn't is the drama. It could be argued this scene is poking fun at that, because that's just not reality. Even if hypothetically she was someone to rise against the abuse, she would do so by reporting to her authorities, not by helping that guy escape or some stupid shit. We're not suppose to be on her side in that moment, clearly it is showing the descent into hell that her character is going through.
even at the end, when the mission is complete, Bigelow depicts all the soldiers with a day-at-work kind of energy, rather than any emotional America, the proud, the strong, the free bullshit. Obviously I like her way more, because it's at least attempting to be honest. It reminds me of the david simon show Generation Kill, about the first guys going into Iraq after 9/11. In one scene, a character goes on about how they're warriors for what there doing, but then his CO cuts him down by saying, "we're not warriors. we're machine operators."
This film is about grey areas, and asks questions about the cost of things, both personally and ethically. It's a non-cathartic film with a non-cathartic ending to spark debate. It's the type of debate I'm interested in because it's not cross platform. Liberals and Conservatives, assuming they're self thinking enough, will be on either side. Was catching bin ladin worth what they did? It's easy to saw no, but then again what about the people in the world trade center. It's also easy to say yes, but what about the people tortured that were innocent? Also, we need to think about that saying that torture doesn't work. why do we think that? we think that because movies always tell us that, I've never seen any stats to back it up. have any of you? I'm personally against torture, but not because I don't think it's effective. For all I know it's very effective. A society shouldn't rally against something with a catch phrase or sound bite. It simplifies the issue. Torture is bad because it's inhumane and medieval but saying it doesn't work strives to believe it's a polar issue in regard to information gathering, which is silly.
I think it's ridiculous that so many have been up in arms against this movie, especially people that have been telling stories in this medium for almost half a century. What is being said is less important than how it's being said. Kathryn Bigelow told a stark reality (though probably not 100% accurate in the minutia) version of what happened. She didn't say it was bad, but she also didn't say it was good. Though I bet she's leaning bad if either of the two, simply because the rhetoric of most American film is geared toward heroism, which really is just sexy propaganda, and this stands far outta that norm.
And really back to my original point, it comes down to that last shot. Maya is a destroyed woman of her own undoing.
Michael Moore Weighs In On 'Zero Dark Thirty'
BY THE DEADLINE TEAM
Michael Moore has never had a problem weighing in on controversial, hot-button political issues, and he gave his 2 cents about Zero Dark Thirty to Time magazine — the mag one that features director Kathryn Bigelow on the cover. An abbreviated version of his take appeared on Time.com, but Moore posted the full piece on his Facebook page:
In Defense of Zero Dark Thirty
There comes a point about two-thirds of the way through 'Zero Dark Thirty' where it is clear something, or someone, on high has changed. The mood at the CIA has shifted, become subdued. It appears that the torture-approving guy who's been president for the past eight years seems to be, well, gone. And, just as a fish rots from the head down, the stench also seems to be gone. Word then comes down that – get this! – we can't torture any more! The CIA agents seem a bit disgruntled and dumbfounded. I mean, torture has worked soooo well these past eight years! Why can't we torture any more???
The answer is provided on a TV screen in the background where you see a black man (who apparently is the new president) and he's saying, in plain English, that America's torturing days are over, done, finished. There's an "aw, shit" look on their faces and then some new boss comes into the meeting room, slams his fist on the table and says, essentially, you've had eight years to find bin Laden – and all you've got to show for it are a bunch of photos of naked Arab men peeing on themselves and wearing dog collars and black hoods. Well, he shouts, those days are over! There's no secret group up on the top floor looking for bin Laden, you're it, and goddammit do your job and find him.
He is there to put the fear of God in them, probably because his boss, the new President, has (as we can presume) on his first day in office, ordered that bin Laden be found and killed. Unlike his frat boy predecessor who had little interest in finding bin Laden (even to the point of joking that "I really just don't spend that much time on him"), this new president was not an imbecile and all about business. Go find bin Laden – and don't use torture. Torture is morally wrong. Torture is the coward's way. C'mon – we're smart, we're the USA, and you're telling me we can't find a six-and-a-half-foot tall Saudi who's got a $25 million bounty on his head? Use your brains (like I do) and, goddammit, get to work!
And then, as the movie shows, the CIA abruptly shifts from torture porn to – are you sitting down? – *detective work.* Like cops do to find killers. Bin Laden was a killer – a mass killer – not a general of an army of soldiers, or the head of a country call Terrorstan. He was a crazed religious fanatic, a multi-millionaire, and a punk who was part of the anti-Soviet mujahideen whom we trained, armed and funded in Afghanistan back in the '80s. But he was a godsend and a very useful tool to the Dick Cheneys and Don Rumsfields of the world. They could hold him up to a frightened American public and scare the bejesus out of everyone – and everyone (well, most everyone) would then get behind the effort to declare war on, um ... well ... Who exactly do we declare war against? Oh, right – Terrorism!
· The War on Terrorism! So skilled were the men from Halliburton, et al. that they convinced the Congress and the public to go to war against a noun. Terrorism. People fell for it, and these rich men and their friends made billions of dollars from "contracting" and armaments and a Burger King on every Iraqi base. Billions more were made creating a massive internal spying apparatus called "Homeland Security." Business was very, very good, and as long as the boogieman (Osama) was alive, the citizenry would not complain one bit.
I think you know what happens next. In the final third of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' the agents switch from torture to detective work – and guess what happens? We find bin Laden! Eight years of torture – no bin Laden. Two years of detective work – boom! Bin Laden!
And that really should be the main takeaway from 'Zero Dark Thirty': That good detective work can bring fruitful results – and that torture is wrong.
Much of the discussion and controversy around the film has centered on the belief that the movie shows, or is trying to say, that torture works. They torture a guy for years and finally, while having a friendly lunch with him one day, they ask him if he would tell them the name of bin Laden's courier. Either that, or go back and be tortured some more. He says he doesn't know the guy but he knows his fake name and he gives them that name. The name turns out to be correct. Torture works!
But then we learn a piece of news: The CIA has had the name of this guy all along! For ten years! And how did they get this name ten years ago? From "a tip." A random tip! No torture involved. But, as was the rule during those years of incompetency and no desire to find bin Laden, the tip was filed away somewhere in some room – and not discovered until 2010. So, instead of torturing hundreds for eight years to find this important morsel of intelligence, they could have found it in their own CIA file cabinet in about eight minutes. Yeah, torture works.
In the movie, after they have the name of the courier, they then believe if they find him, they find bin Laden. So how do they find him? They bribe a Kuwaiti informant with a new car. That's right, they find the number of the courier's family by giving the guy a Lamborghini. And what do they do when they find the courier's mother? Do they kidnap and torture her to find out where her son is? Nope, they just listen in on his weekly call home to Mom, and through that, they trace him to Pakistan and then hire a bunch of undercover Pakistani Joe Fridays to follow this guy's every move – which, then, leads them to the infamous compound in Abbottabad where the Saudi punk has holed up.
Nice police work, boys!
Oh – and girl. 'Zero Dark Thirty' – a movie made by a woman (Kathryn Bigelow), produced by a woman (Megan Ellison), distributed by a woman (Amy Pascal, the co-chairman of Sony Pictures), and starring a woman (Jessica Chastain) is really about how an agency of mostly men are dismissive of a woman who is on the right path to finding bin Laden. Yes, guys, this is a movie about how we don't listen to women, how hard it is for them to have their voice heard even in these enlightened times. You could say this is a 21st century chick flick – and it would do you well to see it.
But back to the controversy and the torture. I guess where I part with most of my friends who are upset at this film is that they are allowing the wrong debate to take place. You should NEVER engage in a debate where the other side defines the terms of the debate – namely, in this case, to debate "whether torture works." You should refuse to participate in that discussion because the real question should be, simply, "is torture wrong?" And, after watching the brutal behavior of CIA agents for the first 45 minutes of the film, I can't believe anyone of conscience would conclude anything other than that this is morally NOT right. You will be repulsed by these torture scenes because, make no mistake about it, this has been done in your name and mine and with our tax dollars. We funded this.
If you allow the question to be "did torture work?" then you'll lose because yes, if you torture someone who actually has the information, they will eventually give it to you. The problem is, the other 99 who don't know anything will also tell you anything to get you to stop torturing – but their information is wrong. How do you know which one of the 100 is the man with the goods? You don't.
But let's grant the other side that maybe, occasionally, torture "works". Here's what else will work: castrating pedophiles. Why don't we do that? Probably because we think it's morally wrong. The death penalty sure works. Put a murderer in a gas chamber and I can guarantee you he'll never murder again. But is it right? Do we accomplish the ends we seek by becoming the murderers ourselves? That should be our only question.
After I saw 'Zero Dark Thirty,' a friend asked me, "During the torture scenes, who did you feel empathy for the most – the American torturer or the Arab suspect?" That was easy to answer. "Oh, God, the poor guy being waterboarded. The torturer was a sadist."
"Yes, that's the answer everyone gives me afterward. The movie actually makes you care for the tortured guys who may have, in fact, been part of 9/11. Like rooting for the Germans on the submarine to make it back to port in 'Das Boot,' that's the sign of some great filmmaking when the writer and director are able to get you to empathize with the person you've been told everywhere else to hate."
'Zero Dark Thirty' is a disturbing, fantastically-made movie. It will make you hate torture. And it will make you happy you voted for a man who stopped all that barbarity – and who asked that the people over at Langley, like him, use their brains.
And that's what worked.
P.S. One final thought. I've heard fellow lefties say that even if the filmmakers didn't intend to endorse torture (Bigelow called torture "reprehensible" on Colbert the other night), the average person watching the movie is going to take it the wrong way. I believe it is the responsibility of the filmmaker attempting to communicate something that they do so clearly and skillfully (and you can decide for yourself if Bigelow and Boal did so. For me, they did.). But I never blame the artist for failing to dumb down their work so that the lesser minds among us "get it." Should Springsteen not have named his album 'Born in the USA' because some took it to be as a salute to patriotism (Reagan wanted to use it in his 1984 reelection campaign but Bruce said no)?
Spoiler
Late appearances mean skipping most early reviews, so here goes nothing...
For me and the torture issue, the reprehensible thing is that the film paints torture to be a considerable share of what it took to make the gain in developing intelligence over the course of the years. An excellent conservative magazine, Commentary, made the point the film is ambiguous with torture because what really got the crucial evidence in the end was the chief interrogator being nice and humane to a prisoner. Ehh, misses most of the point. If you took the film as some totality to what the investigation was for years, you would see torture taking up a much greater piece of the pie than probably true. The first ten minutes of the film is a tone establishment to what torture meant for "breaking a person." After years of torturing a prisoner, the final straw was broken when they showed compassion to someone. He didn't talk because of compassion. He talked since the effects of sleep deprivation got him to think he already talked. The investigators made him believe a terrorist plot was foiled when it wasn't but their knowing the details meant he revealed confided information.
If a film was pro torture and false historically, I could still support it if the quality was good. The film isn't horrible, but it's the kid brother to the Hurt Locker in a lot of unfortunate ways. Both films are about characters driven to a soulless existence because they encompass their lives with one passion and lock out meaningful human contact. Bigelow is good enough to know if you dialogue out this theme, it's meaningless, but the method of approaching the theme is to stretch out an investigation story. If the main character's identity gets lost in the process of a bigger story, a single shot can propel a hundred emotions. It can dig at those feelings of Bigelow wants that moment when Chastain is alone on the aircraft carrier and is exhausted she has seen the single purpose of her entire CIA career come to an end.
The approach is nothing new. Problem for me is the investigation story has to skip over a lot of details and branches of the investigation. It wants to encompass a bigger story it's not going to do justice for and also be about the personal story of someone as well. Better films about an individual losing themselves in a case begin to realize the who did what or didn't or how it all comes about doesn't really matter too much. Circumstances are different here. I doubt I would have minded the last 20 minute sequence which was a detailed look at how the Bin Laden kill went down if I felt the previous scenes were more detailed and a better umbrella. In the Hurt Locker, Bigelow isn't pitting a big story against her personal characterization interest. It's just about the life of a soldier and his dangerous business. The film can make smaller moments feel bigger and explore the environment of the story more. Of course, I thought the character depiction was better.
I know Zero Dark Thirty is based on an actual person and I don't know the circumstances of her story. She may really have been the only cog in the engine searching for Bin Laden. It feels like if that was true, she was doing this more toward the end of the investigation when it needed political push to take a huge risk and it was hard to come by. Her story definitely does not speak for all the earlier years when many organizations were looking into Bin Laden. Still, she is connected to that early history of the investigation. I just can't believe she was instrumental in almost every major development the way the film says. But because the film is obviously detailing someone in the agency who is for torture (I hear it's evenly split), it's taking one story and making it feel like it encompasses much more. Maybe too much.
This was the longest movie ever. It's a triumph that Chastain was so entertaining working with no character. If they changed the bad guy to a fictional character, the novelty would ware off and nobody would give a shit about this. It's so easy to root against Osama, doesn't mean they can get away with a boring protagonist. Better off watching a doc. Savings grace: James Gandolfini has a funny voice. I miss abu nazir. :shock:
Quote from: pumba on February 28, 2013, 10:56:41 AMIf they changed the bad guy to a fictional character, the novelty would ware off and nobody would give a shit about this.
Yeah, but they didn't do that because the movie doesn't exist without OBL. I mean I guess if PTA would have cast Kevin James as Daniel Plainview, CWBB would have sucked and nobody would give a shit either. Criticizing filmmakers for not doing something stupid makes no sense to me. I'm not trying to start a bitchfest here as your review is perfectly valid but statements like this always puzzle me.
Hahaha I would die to see the Kevin James version of cwbb... And the Aziz Ansari version. But miscasting and bad acting aside, Plainview would still be an interesting character.
It just felt like they were giving us the facts with a subtle approach to story and character... and I felt it was too subtle to connect with. At that point, why not just make a doc?
But I ono, anyone else find Maya interesting?
Quote from: pumba on February 28, 2013, 05:05:19 PM
But I ono, anyone else find Maya interesting?
Maya is interesting if you add a romantic* subtext to her (one-sided) relationship with bin Laden.
(That's how I interpreted that last shot, the one with the crying.)
*I'm not being completely serious with this, but in a way, I am.
Quote from: socketlevel on January 15, 2013, 02:57:21 PM
SPOILERS
Quote from: ©brad on January 15, 2013, 02:24:16 PM
Quote from: RegularKarate on January 15, 2013, 02:13:02 PM
How do you know that the "real life intelligence officials" are reliable? This movie was based on a lot of research... I'm no journalist... I'm not good at knowing who is right or who is wrong, but the movie depicts events that the filmmakers believe happened based on their research.
Saying that the movie got facts wrong is a different story.
Yeah this. From what I read of the torture scenes, the movie was telling us "don't forget, this did happen" as opposed to making an official statement that it was necessary. Remember this was early on in the movie and timeline, when W was still in office. This manhunt spanned several years after this, will many false leads and dead ends. Does the movie clearly connect the dots from that single piece of intel to her figuring out the courier thing? A lot of the investigation minutia was hard to follow, but I don't think the point was without torture they would have never found him.
Most importantly, the last shot of the film shows her in a state of what it cost. How her obsession took over her ability to have compassion. The film clearly shows her disgusted with torture at the beginning, then later, how she becomes one of them. The line "You can help yourself by telling the truth" is obviously in direct juxtaposition with her disgust in the first scene. At that moment the audience is left wondering, will she help this man? That's how 24 would have handled it, with cliffhangers and contrived plot points where maybe she does help him; or maybe not, but whether she does or doesn't is the drama. It could be argued this scene is poking fun at that, because that's just not reality. Even if hypothetically she was someone to rise against the abuse, she would do so by reporting to her authorities, not by helping that guy escape or some stupid shit. We're not suppose to be on her side in that moment, clearly it is showing the descent into hell that her character is going through.
even at the end, when the mission is complete, Bigelow depicts all the soldiers with a day-at-work kind of energy, rather than any emotional America, the proud, the strong, the free bullshit. Obviously I like her way more, because it's at least attempting to be honest. It reminds me of the david simon show Generation Kill, about the first guys going into Iraq after 9/11. In one scene, a character goes on about how they're warriors for what there doing, but then his CO cuts him down by saying, "we're not warriors. we're machine operators."
This film is about grey areas, and asks questions about the cost of things, both personally and ethically. It's a non-cathartic film with a non-cathartic ending to spark debate. It's the type of debate I'm interested in because it's not cross platform. Liberals and Conservatives, assuming they're self thinking enough, will be on either side. Was catching bin ladin worth what they did? It's easy to saw no, but then again what about the people in the world trade center. It's also easy to say yes, but what about the people tortured that were innocent? Also, we need to think about that saying that torture doesn't work. why do we think that? we think that because movies always tell us that, I've never seen any stats to back it up. have any of you? I'm personally against torture, but not because I don't think it's effective. For all I know it's very effective. A society shouldn't rally against something with a catch phrase or sound bite. It simplifies the issue. Torture is bad because it's inhumane and medieval but saying it doesn't work strives to believe it's a polar issue in regard to information gathering, which is silly.
I think it's ridiculous that so many have been up in arms against this movie, especially people that have been telling stories in this medium for almost half a century. What is being said is less important than how it's being said. Kathryn Bigelow told a stark reality (though probably not 100% accurate in the minutia) version of what happened. She didn't say it was bad, but she also didn't say it was good. Though I bet she's leaning bad if either of the two, simply because the rhetoric of most American film is geared toward heroism, which really is just sexy propaganda, and this stands far outta that norm.
And really back to my original point, it comes down to that last shot. Maya is a destroyed woman of her own undoing.
I agree with everything you just said.
I found the film to be more interesting because it avoids any easy answers regarding the moral dilemmas the characters and us face during it's running time. By showing how Maya "becomes one of the guys" without ever digging into how she was feeling morally about those issues, we as audiences are the ones forced to fill that gap. Her single mindedness works because the film is subjective to her point of view, and as you watch her get more and more obsessed with it and never being shown anything of her life outside of that, you start to wonder how big the emptiness inside her has become.
I disagree with GT regarding The Hurt Locker. I think this was much more involving. Chastain is the key I guess, because she is such in incredible actress and you believe everything she does from the first frame to the last.
Anyway, much much better than I expected.