Katheryn Bigelow's Good, Bad, and Ugly!

[Steve T Power]

Every week we each pick a good (All around GREAT flick), a Bad (Not really aspiring to greatness but still fun or endearing) and an ugly (trainwreck of a movie).

This is where we want to see your picks... Give us your Good, Bad, and Ugly for femme fatale, Katheryn Bigelow!

Also - there is only one right answer for good... Strange Days!

[cdouglas]

Good: Strange Days. Love The Hurt Locker as much as the next man, but this one is her richest, most ambitious work.

Bad: Blue Steel - It actually starts out quite well and Curtis is solid throughout, but the movie turns into a pretty routine thriller at a certain point. Certainly a minor entry on Bigelow's resume, but I still enjoy it.

Ugly: The Weight of Water - I wouldn't actually classify any of Bigelow's movies as "ugly" (they all have some merit), but this one comes closest. A messy, poorly-structured mishandling of a potentially compelling story.

[Gabriel Girard]

Good: Strange Days. Love The Hurt Locker as much as the next man, but this one is her richest, most ambitious work.

Bad: Blue Steel - It actually starts out quite well and Curtis is solid throughout, but the movie turns into a pretty routine thriller at a certain point. Certainly a minor entry on Bigelow's resume, but I still enjoy it.

Ugly: The Weight of Water - I wouldn't actually classify any of Bigelow's movies as "ugly" (they all have some merit), but this one comes closest. A messy, poorly-structured mishandling of a potentially compelling story.

Wow we have the exact same picks!

[Attrage]

GOOD: Strange Days - like Steve said, there is no other choice. Hurt Locker a distant second.

BAD: Point Break - although for me, its so ad, it's good

UGLY: Blue Steel. *shudder*

[mavrach]

I've only seen three of Bigelow's movies, and I think they'd all sorta fall into the Bad category by our definition.

Point Break & Near Dark - I like both simply as fun action flicks despite them being flawed and unrealistic These sort of movies seem to be subjective, one person would find them stupid while someone else would have a blast, all for the same movie. It's the same reason I liked The Warriors.

I only saw Near Dark last year for the first time. I loved the Aliens reunion villain casting, and I can watch Lance Henriksen in just about anything. Most vampire movies pick & choose which mythology rules they want to follow, and this one tries (and fails) to inject its own flavor with the blood transfusion thing.

I walked into The Hurt Locker expecting a more serious movie trying to make some sort of a statement. I got a serious movie but it was closer to an action movie. Needs some more viewings to digest.


I'm about to remedy my having never seen Strange Days. After a unanimous vote, how could I not?

[Mach6]

Good: Strange Days. No brainer here. The scene where Lenny watches the replay of the attempted rape of Faith is still one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen. This is still after I knew the twist to it.

Bad: Hurt Locker. Jeremy Renner had a breakout performance. I agree with Steve that The Hurt Locker is a very good intense part-realistic & part-action movie but is not in Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down’s class of war movie. It just isn’t a classic. In my view, Inglorious Basterds should’ve won the best movie Oscar for ’09.

Ugly: Point Break. I really don’t hate Point Break it’s just that I only seen 3 of Bigelow’s movies & Point Break was the least of them. Heck, Point Break was responsible for one of the funniest gags in Hot Fuzz.

It was suggested in the podcast that one of the reasons Bigelow won the Oscar was because she was a woman. I even have a more cynical reason. During the 2nd Iraq War, Hollywood was mostly churning out movies that had negative portrayals of the soldiers (Redacted) or of the policies being used at that time (Rendition & Stop Loss). I’m a right-winger, but I wished Bush never got us into a war that cost us so many lives & has put the USA in debt forever. So, I understand if somebody wanted to make a movie against the war in Iraq. It was just getting so ridiculously one sided that even critics like Richard Roeper were mentioning why aren’t there any Iraq War movies that show the good things the troops are doing over there. Most of Hollywood claims to be tolerant, but to me they don’t seem to tolerate any opinions that even slightly disagree with them. The Hurt Locker stood out more because it left the politics out of it & just focuses on the soliders & all the fatigue & situations they have to put up with. (Without making them look like vicious thugs like in Redacted.) So Hollywood got to congratulate itself for being “so progressive” by having an Oscar winning female director & showing that they can support a positive Iraq War movie.

Oh well, the one main reason I’m glad Bigelow & Hurt Locker both won so that I didn’t have to see James Cameron’s ego get any bigger from accepting any more accolades for Avatar.

[Steve T Power]

Good: Strange Days. No brainer here. The scene where Lenny watches the replay of the attempted rape of Faith is still one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen. This is still after I knew the twist to it.

Bad: Hurt Locker. Jeremy Renner had a breakout performance. I agree with Steve that The Hurt Locker is a very good intense part-realistic & part-action movie but is not in Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down’s class of war movie. It just isn’t a classic. In my view, Inglorious Basterds should’ve won the best movie Oscar for ’09.

Ugly: Point Break. I really don’t hate Point Break it’s just that I only seen 3 of Bigelow’s movies & Point Break was the least of them. Heck, Point Break was responsible for one of the funniest gags in Hot Fuzz.

It was suggested in the podcast that one of the reasons Bigelow won the Oscar was because she was a woman. I even have a more cynical reason. During the 2nd Iraq War, Hollywood was mostly churning out movies that had negative portrayals of the soldiers (Redacted) or of the policies being used at that time (Rendition & Stop Loss). I’m a right-winger, but I wished Bush never got us into a war that cost us so many lives & has put the USA in debt forever. So, I understand if somebody wanted to make a movie against the war in Iraq. It was just getting so ridiculously one sided that even critics like Richard Roeper were mentioning why aren’t there any Iraq War movies that show the good things the troops are doing over there. Most of Hollywood claims to be tolerant, but to me they don’t seem to tolerate any opinions that even slightly disagree with them. The Hurt Locker stood out more because it left the politics out of it & just focuses on the soliders & all the fatigue & situations they have to put up with. (Without making them look like vicious thugs like in Redacted.) So Hollywood got to congratulate itself for being “so progressive” by having an Oscar winning female director & showing that they can support a positive Iraq War movie.

Oh well, the one main reason I’m glad Bigelow & Hurt Locker both won so that I didn’t have to see James Cameron’s ego get any bigger from accepting any more accolades for Avatar.

The funniest thing about The Hurt Locker for me was how the damn flick was finished in 2008 and struggled like hell to find any studio willing to release it, and when someone finally did it took best picture... ha!

[J.M. Vargas]

Just heard the podcast. Just curious if any of the participants would change any of their picks for good/bad/ugly to include "Zero Dark Thirty" or whether your picks would remain the same as in the podcast. And kudos to Jon Mercer for having the balls to make "Point Break" his "ugly" Bigelow pick; if Judge Patrick Bromley hears about this we're both in his s*** list.

[Gabriel Girard]

Just heard the podcast. Just curious if any of the participants would change any of their picks for good/bad/ugly to include "Zero Dark Thirty" or whether your picks would remain the same as in the podcast. And kudos to Jon Mercer for having the balls to make "Point Break" his "ugly" Bigelow pick; if Judge Patrick Bromley hears about this we're both in his s*** list.

I can't answer for the others but my GBU would stay the sme since I still haven't seen ''Zero DarK Thirty''. Also for me ''Point Break'' is more of a bad, and I think Mercer had pretty solid reasons for choosing it as his ugly. Thanks for listening!

[mavrach]

Good: Strange Days. Love The Hurt Locker as much as the next man, but this one is her richest, most ambitious work.

Bad: Blue Steel - It actually starts out quite well and Curtis is solid throughout, but the movie turns into a pretty routine thriller at a certain point. Certainly a minor entry on Bigelow's resume, but I still enjoy it.

Ugly: The Weight of Water - I wouldn't actually classify any of Bigelow's movies as "ugly" (they all have some merit), but this one comes closest. A messy, poorly-structured mishandling of a potentially compelling story.

Wow we have the exact same picks!

Now that I've seen all of Bigelow's movies, I'm going to "third" this exact same list as Clark & Gabriel.

Strange Days is everything I could ask of a scifi movie.

Blue Steel was an awesomely filmed action film. However every scene involving Ron Silver was painful to watch due to his overacting and the unbeleivability of his actions.

The Weight of Water - Not even Liz Hurley's boobs could keep me from quitting on this one 25 minutes in.

Well I haven't seen ZDT yet but I have the feeling the list will remain the same.

[Steve T Power]

Zero Dark Thirty is dangerously close to good... but it's no Strange Days.

I did enjoy it more than The Hurt Locker though.