I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing The Hobbit, and don’t imagine an occasion where we might meet in the near future. One of the consequences of the new market movies must compete in is that the “prestige” films ( those made for award considerations) are actually longer and bigger and more full of things. Again, I think that this is to compete against the literary arc of the television season. The movie industry is doing “something” to be different than the commercial releases aimed at the teen and global market, and the TV shows, so they make long movies, trying to fill the in between space that nobody really wants to inhabit.

…maybe there’s some counter-intuitive principle at work here. If the script can fit on a cocktail napkin, it has to be a 9-hour triptych minimum, otherwise cut cut cut.

I straight up loved The Hurt Locker, Bigelow’s last film, and after that ran about shouting that only women should make action movies. Honestly, I thought she had a lyrical, sincerely emotional eye she brought to bear on the picture that made it the exceptional film it was, but I just didn’t see it in Zero Dark Thirty. As I said, I didn’t particularly care about anyone it, but you are right, it did have cool explosions and shit, and the scope of the film was vast. It pushed a lot of the right buttons, but it just didn’t seem to have the soul I’d been expecting from her.