Random Hurt Locker Thoughts

• The Hurt Locker was nominated for 9 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.
• It was filmed in Jordan, which bears a striking resemblance to nearby Iraq and carried quite a bit of risk.
• The director, Kathryn Bigelow, is the ex-wife of James Cameron. Both are nominated for best-director this year.
• I really enjoyed that Hurt Locker was not overly political. Bigelow never mentions George Bush and doesn't dwell on why the soldiers are there. They just are there, dealing with it, sometimes poorly. Knowing several Iraq veterans, this seems a lot more authentic in contrast to the "Oliver Stone" version of history where naive patriots are dragged down into barbarism, dehumanized by the conspiratorial powers-that-be. Stone sees history through his own political agenda and the enormous chip on his shoulder (Stone is a Vietnam vet). The Hurt Locker is neither sanitized nor agenda-driven.
  
• Some of the Iraqis in the film (the suicide bomber, for one) were actual Iraqis living as refugees in Jordan.