The Hurt Locker: Front Runner in the Oscars

"On director Kathryn Bigelow's success (achieved in part by getting funding outside of Hollywood, detailed in Dargis's June profile of her): Something like a woman winning best director for directing an action movie and not a romantic comedy is symbolically important. Whether it then leads to a lot of women doing things outside of the pathetic comfort zone of romantic comedy – and I say that as someone who loves romantic comedy – we'll see. We know that because women are allowed to make romantic comedies that they can make romantic comedies. That's in everyone's comfort zone. The idea that a woman can be a great action director is not is everyone's comfort zone. That's [Bigelow's] exceptionalism". Source: jezebel.com


The Hurt Locker, winner of the 2008 Venice Film Festival SIGNIS Grand Prize, is a riveting, suspenseful portrait of the courage under fire of the militarys unrecognized heroes: the technicians of a bomb squad who volunteer to challenge the odds and save lives in one of the worlds most dangerous places. Three members of the Armys elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad battle insurgents and each other as they search for and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad—in order to try and make the city a safer place for Iraqis and Americans alike. Their mission is clear—protect and save—but its anything but easy, as the margin of error when defusing a war-zone bomb is zero. This thrilling and heart-pounding look at the effects of combat and danger on the human psyche is based on the first-hand observations of journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal, who was embedded with a special bomb unit in Iraq. These men spoke of explosions as putting you in the hurt locker. Three members of the Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad battle insurgents and each other as they seek out and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad.