Zero Dark Thirty

          I just saw this Kathryn Bigelow-directed film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist group, al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the terrorist attacks against America on September 11th, 2001. It was astonishing. Nominated for five Academy Awards this year (Best Picture, Jessica Chastain for Lead Actress, Original Screenplay, Editing, and Sound Editing), it deserves every one. I really hope Chastain takes home the Oscar for Best Actress in a Lead Role. Her character was very much like Clarice Starling, and hopefully she will follow in Jodie Foster's footsteps at the Oscars this year because she was fantastic and set the tone for the whole project. Mark Boal did a great job gathering all the overwhelming information needed in order to write the screenplay. As I mentioned in my review of Gangster Squad, editing an action-packed movie can be very challenging, and here the two editors did a nice job. The actors could be heard and the sound effects were effective, so the sound editor did a good job, too. Now for Best Picture: I think it should win. I know that I still have three more nominees to see, and I will update you readers about my decision as we go on, but I thought this was a really great account of what happened with the bin Laden manhunt. If anyone walked into the theater knowing absolutely nothing of current events, then I think they would have still enjoyed the movie while also learning a bit along the way. I thought the cinematography was appropriate, using long shots and medium shots when necessary. I am a little disappointed that Bigelow was not nominated for Best Director, but certainly not as outraged as the critics were about Affleck at the Critics Choice Movie Awards (did you see that? That was insane!). :) Anyway, the film had immense suspense throughout, with a good accompanying score by Alexandre Desplat (who did King's Speech and Moonrise Kingdom, among numerous other great films), which is especially notable since I obviously knew bin Laden's fate. Personally, my heart rate was up during the entire length of the movie, but it grew rapidly just before the men actually went to kill bin Laden. Go see this in the theater at least twice; it's that good.