Hater Gonna Hate

As of the past week, there's been a bit of a backlash against The Hurt Locker. I happened to really enjoy it and I hope it wins best picture, though, like anything else, I'm willing to hear the other side of the argument so long as it's a reasonable argument. In this case I don't happen to think that they're very reasonable.

Most of what I've read strikes me as rather spurious. Of course there's lapses in reality in the film. It's a drama and not a very high budget one. Film making is, as I understand it, basically a form of creative lying. The Hurt Locker isn't a documentary and I don't know that anyone in the production ever claimed to be trying to make anything but a well put together, believable, and intense movie about the Iraq War.

Katheryn Bigelow might have been talking a big game about how realistic the film is supposed to be, but I don't know how relevant that is. Movies should be judged on what they are, not what its director or whoever is. Seperating the art from the arist is a difficult concept to understand and it's an even harder one to actually practice. Lord knows that I've either avoided or hated a film primarily on who is in it or who has made it (then again, I know that I've enjoyed movies by artists I hate and I've hated movies by artists I loved, so who knows what my problem is)

Sure there's plenty of thing to criticize in the film, but what I've read in the press seem to be nothing more than eloquent nitpicking. Plus, when you start to get sanctimonious or judging a character's intentions based off your own personal experience, your opinion goes from being disagreeable to being nonsensical. Lastly, if you think that there's only one way to read a situation, especially when art is involved, then you're a silly, silly goose.

I guess people are just bored with ripping on Avatar.

But, most importantly, I really liked The Hurt Locker. So fuck 'em.

At least one blog I follows threw up a counter argument, not that The Hurt Locker is in dire need of defenders or anything.