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  1. #1
    Council Member bourbon's Avatar
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    Default Zero Dark Thirty

    Trailer for Kathryn Bigelow's hunt-for-OBL / Neptune Spear film:

    http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/s...erodarkthirty/

    In theaters next month.
    “[S]omething in his tone now reminded her of his explanations of asymmetric warfare, a topic in which he had a keen and abiding interest. She remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries…” - Zero History, William Gibson

  2. #2
    Council Member bourbon's Avatar
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    Default A Review

    ZD30 is nothing short of the cinematic equivalent of what I imagine a methamphetamine rush is like; I spent 157 minutes twisting & shredding napkins, grinding my teeth, and shaking my leg. Kathyrn Bigelow and Mark Boal have created a masterpiece – easily one of the best films I have ever seen.

    Is ZD30 a completely accurate representation of what really happened in the hunt from Osama bin Laden? Of course not, nor should it.

    Like with any intelligence or counterterrorism operation in history you are going to have sources and methods that will need to be guarded with layer-upon-layer of lies, misdirection, and total bull#### for decades to come.
    I don’t think this is paranoia, I think this is the nature of the beast.

    In fact, if I were running things at CIA I would co-opt the movie writers into knowingly or unknowingly aiding in laying down this bodyguard of BS, and stirring-up controversy on both sides of the political aisle to misdirect the public discourse.

    Now that would be masterpiece theatre to rival Zero Dark Thirty!
    “[S]omething in his tone now reminded her of his explanations of asymmetric warfare, a topic in which he had a keen and abiding interest. She remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries…” - Zero History, William Gibson

  3. #3
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Two other reviews

    The film is yet to reach here and I've only seen a Tweet lauding Mark Bowden's review and denial that torture is approved by the film. Here is a taster:
    Zero Dark Thirty, by director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, is an extraordinarily impressive dramatization of the 10-year-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, one that I wrote about in far more detail in my book The Finish. Warmly praised by many film critics (The Atlantic's Chris Orr named it the best film of 2012) and so far a box office hit (it goes into wide release on January 11), it is sure to be in the running for major recognition during the coming awards season. But it has also been attacked by some viewers as a false version of the story that effectively advocates for the use of torture. Those viewers argue that the film, while brilliant, shows torture to have played an important role in finding bin Laden, which they say is not true. It is reminiscent of the late movie critic Pauline Kael's memorable putdown of director Sam Peckinpah as a virtuoso of "fascist" art.
    Link:http://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...orture/266759/

    The Atlantic's main film review ends with:
    With Zero Dark Thirty, Bigelow and Boal have produced a powerful, morally complicated work on an urgent subject. It is a film that deserves—that almost demands—to be seen and argued over.
    Link:http://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...e-year/266446/
    davidbfpo

  4. #4
    Council Member bourbon's Avatar
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    Default

    David,

    I agree with Bowden that is hard to consider the movie as pro-torture. The film makes no explicit point about torture either way - which I think is critics biggest issue with the film.

    The opening scene is intense: dog collars, waterboarding, sexual humiliation, some gimp box thing - it's like John Yoo's wetdream. But the story shows that the torture does not yield information to stop an attack - in this case the 2004 Khobar massacre.

    The story also shows how smarter interrogation tactics prove more successful, and how the detainee program ultimately becomes radioactive.
    “[S]omething in his tone now reminded her of his explanations of asymmetric warfare, a topic in which he had a keen and abiding interest. She remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries…” - Zero History, William Gibson

  5. #5
    Council Member ganulv's Avatar
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    Default

    I would rather have seen the shelved movie about Tora Bora. The subject matter of ZDT obviously has more mass appeal, though, so I can see why it ended up being made instead.
    If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)

  6. #6
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default ‘Disturbing’ & ‘Misleading’

    A review by Steve Coll:http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...gination=false

    Yes his focus is on torture:
    Zero Dark Thirty was constructed to bring viewers to the edges of their seats, and judging by its critical reception, for many viewers it has succeeded in that respect. Its faults as journalism matter because they may well affect the unresolved public debate about torture, to which the film makes a distorted contribution......public support for torture has risen significantly during the last several years, a change that the Stanford University intelligence scholar Amy Zegart has attributed in part to the influence of “spy-themed entertainment.”
    davidbfpo

  7. #7
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default As a movie, I enjoyed it. As history, it’s bunk.

    A NYT article by Ali Soufan:
    The film opens with the words “Based on Firsthand Accounts of Actual Events.” But the filmmakers immediately pass fiction off as history, when a character named Ammar is tortured and afterward, it’s implied, gives up information that leads to Osama bin Laden.

    Ammar is a composite character who bears a strong resemblance to a real-life terrorist, Ammar al-Baluchi. In both the film and real life he was a relative of Bin Laden’s lieutenant, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But the C.I.A. has repeatedly said that only three detainees were ever waterboarded. The real Mr. Baluchi was not among them, and he didn’t give up information that led to Bin Laden.

    In fact, torture led us away from Bin Laden. After Mr. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, he actually played down the importance of the courier who ultimately led us to Bin Laden.
    Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/op...hollywood.html
    davidbfpo

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    Default

    Just arrived in NYC after living in the ME for the past couple of years, and got a very negative perspective from most of my friends here(yes, very lefty people).
    I support our troops!

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