The New Classics - The Hurt Locker

Michael Cusumano here to look back on one of the few classics about the Iraq War on the 10th anniversary of its release. 

Scene: The Daisy Chain Bomb
When Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker hit theaters in the Summer of 2009 it was sold as an all-thrills, zero-politics experience. Here, the ads promised, was a film that wasn’t going to go all Valley of Elah on you with ponderous anti-war messages. The trio of soldiers that make up the film’s central bomb disposal unit never discuss politics. They defuse the bombs, they don’t get to hung up on why they are there in the first place. At no point do any of them sigh during a low moment and wonder, “Man, I don’t even know what we’re doing here...”

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Beauty Break: Connor Jessup Comes Out

by Nathaniel R

A special Gay Pride edition of our random "Beauty Break" series. Today we celebrate the very talented actor Connor Jessup who just turned 25 this week. We hope you know him from his incredible work in the second season of American Crime or the queer Canadian indie Closet Monster. Next up for Jessup is the British mystery/ thriller Strange But True (which just premiered at the Edinburgh Festival and will be released by CBS films in the US) and the Netflix adaptation of the family fantasy series Locke & Key (due later this year).

We've been enjoying Jessup on Instagram since his cinephilia is readily apparent. While he's been playing gay characters for some time now, he's officially come out himself, having felt guilty about never stating it publicly, and speaking of his characters from a "neutral" distance. Here's what he has to say after the jump, along with photos for your gayzing pleasure...

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Watch at home: Aftermath, Dumbo, and Juliet Naked

Nathaniel R giving you the heads up on what's available to you now to screen at home. 

New on DVD/Blu-Ray/Rental
• Aftermath Keira Knightley falls for the ever possibly evil and problematic Alexander Skarsgård (it happens to all of us) in this WWII infidelity drama
• Dumbo -not one of Tim Burton's finest but at least the production design is top notch, giving us plenty to look at. Thank you Rick Heinrichs, you're ever dependable. 
• The Russian Five - Our documentary guru Glenn highly recommends this sports doc about Russian hockey players

Also out today: Jesse Eisenberg in The Hummingbird Project, the Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif movie The Tamarind Seed. and a Vietnamese action film called Furie. itunes deals and new to streaming after the jump... 

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What does this tagline even mean?

While searching for showbiz anniversaries on this day, I came across the Tony Randall / Janet Leigh movie Hello, Down There which was released 50 years ago on this very day. But the tagline threw off the rest of my research so it's the only "today in showbiz history" factoid you get this morning. 

A combo of scuba dupes rock up a storm in a mad pad under the surf!

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Is it in English? I recognize the individual words but can't comprehend their meaning as a sentence. Was it a mad-libs of  common late '60s vernacular?

If you've seen this movie or even if you haven't and would like to try, please decipher for us. 

Big Little Lies MVPs: Episode 2.3 – “The End of the World”

Previously: Episode 1 (Nathaniel) Episode 2 (Spencer)

by Lynn Lee

As someone who loved the first season of Big Little Lies, I have to admit I haven’t been enjoying the show’s sophomore outing as much, in large part because the tone has been so much more subdued, almost dirge-like.  It feels like the fire’s gone out of many of the key characters: Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz), of course, but even more so, Reese Witherspoon’s Madeline.  (Not Renata, bless her – yet even her manic aggressiveness seems driven by a desperation that wasn’t there before.)  This isn’t a choice I quarrel with, exactly: it feels like a necessary reckoning as the inexorable aftermath of a violent death, and the cast is beautifully illustrating the strain the “Monterey Five”’s silence is exercising on each of their lives and relationships. 

That said, the moments of humor – mostly courtesy of Laura Dern as Renata, of course – came as an especially welcome break, and figure heavily in this week’s MVPs...

Top Ten MVPs of Big Little Lies, Episode 2.3: “The End of the World”

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