Red wire, blue wire

Thanks to the national holiday, we've been watching a lot of movies lately. Top on the Netflix queue was "The Hurt Locker." Now, I will admit I already sort of liked the movie without having seen any of it because of one thing- Kathryn Bigelow beat ex-husband James Cameron for Best Director at the 82nd Academy Awards. I saw "Avatar" in theaters in 3D and felt cheated, the movie just is not that good. Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but I did like "Dances with Wolves" and felt Cameron just refurbished the plot from his earlier work. So I was glad when she won, even though the two are on good terms.

While watching I was impressed with the filming and sense of authenticity and wanted to know, "where was this filmed?!" Turns out Bigelow wanted to get as close to Iraq's look as possible, so filming was completed in Amman, Jordan. Explaining the sort of feel she wanted audiences to grasp, Bigelow noted the environment was one of infinite hostility. The New Jersey Newsroom quoted her as saying, "You don't know if the gentlemen up on the third floor balcony over your left shoulder is hanging out his laundry or calling in your coordinates for a sniper hit. So, as relayed to me by members of the military that have been on various tours of duty, it's a constantly threatening environment." And some of the tension in the region wasn't spared on the filming crew and actors.

Jeremy Renner's IMDb page has his take on the experience as plain awful. Heat of up to 120 degrees, Jordanian children throwing rocks at him, and no security for those working on the film. Wikipedia gives a nice overview of the sort of things that happened during filming. Well, despite the bacterial issues and food poisoning I'm sure some people suffered, the movie is well done. And I really appreciate the step away from making a political statement, politics get in the way of trying to show what all of our hard working soldiers go through (regardless of their religious, sexual, ethnic, or socio-economic background). Ok, now I can get off the soap box.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Remember, Friday is Leftover Pie for Breakfast Day so honor the day appropriately, I know I will!