Review: The Hurt Locker [2009] - dir. Kathryn Bigelow

It's been too many years since we last saw the words "Directed by Kathryn Bigelow", and I'm ecstatic to say they make a more than desirable homecoming with The Hurt Locker. Based on a script by Mark Boal, a former journalist who was assigned to a bomb squad in postwar Iraq, the consequent tale revolves around Jeremy Renner as Will James, a cavalier bomb disposal technician who seems to have an indubitable rogue streak fused to a terminal death wish, much to the consternation of his time weary comrades Sandborne (Anthony Mackie) and Eldritch (Brian Geraghty).

Review: Patton [1970] - dir. Franklin J. Schaffner

As General George S. Patton, George C. Scott is an actor playing another consumate actor. The television age birthed a new kind of media-savvy soldier, one who becomes, by appearing as a character on the six o'clock news, emblematic of freedom (Colin Powell or Norman Schwarzkopf are more recent examples). In WWII, few commanders were willing to put on a show like Patton; he was, in this regard, either ahead of his time or a throwback to the flamboyant rabble-rousers of bygone eras.

Patton the movie establishes Patton the serviceman's Hollywood tendencies in a show-stopping prologue. Dwarfed by a stars-and-stripes backdrop, Patton stands on a stage and motivates an audience of troops with a charged and entertaining sermon.