Clash of the Titans (2010)

I don't know how this movie made it to the cinemas. It should have gone straight to the dvd rental store. I have nothing too much to say about this film because in summary, its exceptionally bad. Full stop. Rotten tomatoes critics rate it at 30%.

Visual effects: On the first sight of the Roman gods, I couldn't help but burst out laughing (perhaps this movie should be in the 'comedy' category). The visual effects were so...1980s. It looked like normal humans were filmed and subsequently, the movie makers put some sort of glowing ring around their bodies to give them this god-like effect. Hello, we are in the 21st century. I'm sure we can get better visual effects than that with our current technology!

Script: There was nothing clever about the script. Every single line was predictable and cliche that it was so cringe-worthy. Such as, "I've been watching over you...We belong together."

3-d: Why bother with the 3-d effects? There were hardly any scenes that required it. The use of the 3-d effects was not creative at all. There was nothing really popping up or etc that made you feel like you were part of the movie (that's the point of the 3d effect right, to make you feel that props in the movies are floating out of the screen and into the seat you are sitting in). Instead, we have to endure murky visuals wearing 3-d glasses that gave me a headache. This movie will work perfectly the same way 2-d. I read somewhere that the 3-d effects were incorporated at the very last minute. It definitely looked like a very rushed job.

And I expected many more battle scenes. The Kraken who is suppose to be this deadly formidable creature didn't even have a battle scene at all. All the Kraken did was flip around in the ocean like a giant squid, made a few roars and then was immediately killed by Perseus (demi-god protoganist).

When they were making this expensive film, didn't anyone tell the director, Louis Leterrier what was wrong? It doesn't take a genius to see that this movie was badly made. I'm fine with badly made low-budget films but I always feel disappointed when I see a badly made big-budget movie that had so much potential to be developed into a great film.

The Hurt Locker - Best Picture Oscar win

The Hurt Locker, which churned out only $20 million in worldwide box office snagged the Best Picture Oscar award at the 82nd Academy Awards, along with 5 other awards. The win came as a surprise to me and to many others as Avatar was favoured to win. It was the lowest-grossing best picture winner of all time. Hurt Locker cost a mere $11 million to make compared with the more than $230 million cost of Avatar.

How did this low budget and low revenue movie (which was going to bypass the Australia cinemas and straight into the dvd stores) win so many awards?

This film centres on a three-man U.S. Army bomb squad stationed in Baghdad. The team leader, William James goes around Baghdad city examining and defusing IEDs (homemade bombs). The two other men provide rifle cover while he does his job.

This Iraq war film is very much unlike most Iraq war films I've seen. Although it's not a typical Hollywood combat film, the focus is very much on the emotional and psychological side of the war. That being said, this film is still very much suitable for men to watch. The movie left me hanging off the edge of my seat throughout the entire duration. Unlike a typical movie where there's a built up of the storyline, climax and then conclusion, this show seems to be at a climax throughout the entire duration. Sometimes the stretching of anxiety makes it unbearably painful to watch. It makes me want to scream, "where's the downtime/comic relief where the men go back to their bunks, play cards, talk about women and ogle at their pictures like in all typical Hollywood war films?"

The thrill and beauty of this film lies in the stripped-down simplicity of the movie. All you feel is the rustling wind. All you hear is the occasional buzzing of the flies swarming in the sweltering dessert heat. All you see is the enemy. All the enemy sees is you. All that lies between you and the eye of the enemy are your guns. And the only thing that determines life or death is the trigger. You wonder whether you are going to die the next minute. And then you wait…for the right time. Because precision and timing determine everything. Wrong move, you die. Right move, he dies.

And while James does his job defusing IEDs, locals stand on their balconies, peep out windows and stare at them. You wonder who are the mere civilians and who are your enemies? How do you tell? The team’s lives are possibly in danger yet they wouldn’t want to go on a shooting rampage, taking away innocent lives. Can you imagine being in that scenario for an entire year of your life? Unsure whether you are allowing your enemy to take away your life simply because you mistook him/her for an innocent bystander. The tension! I guess it came to the point where they countdown and look forward to the end of each day not because tomorrow is going to be different but because they were one day closer to leaving Iraq.

Also, this film sinks in a slight feeling of futility. In some ways, it seems like the war is pointless. You detonate a bomb, another one is planted tomorrow. You kill an enemy, a replacement comes in tomorrow. What is the point of war then? The war seemed to screw some people up – like James who is a very brave soldier and is darn good at his job. But he didn’t seem to care whether he lived or die. Denoting bombs to him seem more like a challenging piece of art rather than a mission done for a greater cause. He was in Iraq to escape the confines of the usual domestic life – like the message shown at the start of the movie stating, 'the rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”

To conclude, this movie is really good but I’m not sure whether it’s deserving of its Best Picture award. Maybe because I’m bias. I love Avatar. It’s the only movie I voluntarily watch in the cinema twice (oops, I lied. I watched Slumdog twice as well).

I have many other things to say about this movie, like my slight discontentment with certain parts of the movie. For example, the ending left me wondering whether the film was pro-war or against the war? There was no real stand, which made the movie slightly unfocused. For me, being able to nail themes of a movie is very important. But in this case, I found the movie slightly unfocused…a little to much of it was left to the interpretation of the audience. But then again, it classified itself as an arthouse film.

Other points:
The film set was also in Jordan, some parts of it lies only a few miles away from the border of Iraq, increasing the authenticity of the film.

In addition, the movie was mostly filmed from a hand-held camera giving it the feeling that you are THERE, standing a few meters away.