Hollywood Archives
"Hurt Locker" takes "Best Picture." Here's my essay
By Michael Fumento
One word kept appearing in reviews of The Hurt Locker: realism. In fact, as I observed in a Philadelphia Inquirer piece from last August, the incidents in the film are grossly unrealistic - as I know from having been a combat engineer myself and having embedded with a Navy-Marine EOD near Fallujah.  | | Marines and Sailors of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Camp Fallujah, with their bomb-blowing robots. |
The most obvious explanation for what the reviewers perceived as realism is that they know no more about war, Iraq, or EOD than EOD technicians know about reviewing movies.
Nevertheless, if the shoot-'em-up; blow 'em up depictions were typically Hollywood, the movie did convey a sense of realism in its approach to the antagonists and in putting you into the movie. Clearly, it's the best film made about the Iraq war.
March 8, 2010 08:09 AM · Permalink
"The Wolfman" makes a subtle political statement about "enhanced interrogation"
By Michael Fumento
I found the new movie "The Wolfman" quite enjoyable. It certainly doesn't do justice to the adage, "Once bitten, twice shy!"  | | "I hate this five o'clock shadow!" |
Ah, but then there was what appears to be a little dig at what's euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation." I blatantly call it "torture" and say it is justified when, and only when: it's minimally used, minimally applied, causes no lasting physical harm, and has the potential to save innocent lives.
I'm not giving away any of the plot to reveal that our protagonist, Lawrence Talbot, is sent to a London lunatic asylum. There he is subjected to "treatment" by a sadistic doctor and stereotypical "Igor" henchman. And the treatment? Well, it was a very extreme form of it, but it was what audiences would consider to be . . . waterboarding!
February 13, 2010 05:59 PM · Permalink
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