Qt3 Movie Podcast: Zero Dark Thirty

Posted by on December 24, 2012 in Movie Podcasts

Zero Dark Thirty isn’t just a sharply observed procedural about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It’s a chronicle of one of this country’s most important decades. Kathryn Bigelow has achieved one of those rare movies that is instead an experience. If you haven’t seen it yet, skip forward to this week’s 3×3 for lighter fare. At the 59-minute mark, we consider our favorite stammers in movies.

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  • Broooski

    Instead of seeing movies like this that drag America down, you should see movies like Argo, that build America up! Well, and Canada.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tomaso-Monteverdi/100000507367510 Tomaso Monteverdi

    I thought dingus was doing Michael Caine.

  • http://twitter.com/PrinceJvstin Paul Weimer

    I was *certain* one of you would go for A Fish Called Wanda.

    I do think stuttering is a subcategory of stammering…

  • CB

    Wait… Chuck Norris walk on in Expendables 2?!?! SPOILER ALERT! Hello!

  • Bernie Dy

    Tom, that was an awful broad brush you used to paint us red state dwellers with. While I do live in a red state and am generally conservative and can certainly appreciate having sympathy for victims of crimes, I am not so stupid that I can’t tell a dreadful Tom Cruise flick from a decent one.

    Anyway, the movie…I am stupid enough to not heed your warning about not listening to the podcast before watching the film. But I found it so interesting I couldn’t resist. And I had read No Easy Days, supposedly by one of the Seals involved in the mission. Thought you might find it interesting that the book in several places mentions a female CIA analyst that spent many years on the case and was also emotional at the conclusion. Seems everyone involved did their homework well or at least all agreed to tell the same story.

  • tomchick

    Hey Bernie! No offense intended. I’m a former red stater myself. :) But Jack Reacher is definitely an action movie with a particular philosophical underpinning. There’s probably a less provocative way to characterize it, but I don’t know what that is. :)

    No Easy Days is the “Matt Owen” book, right? The one that the writer, a SEAL who retired shortly after the raid, was reprimanded for writing? I haven’t read it, but I do know that a couple of the accounts of the raid have taken issue with the official story, usually in terms of details like the wounded wife, or how bin Laden’s body was treated on the ride back. I think one account claims that one of the SEALs actually sat on bin Laden’s chest during the helicopter ride back.

    Let us know what you think of the movie when you see it!

  • Bernie Dy

    Haha, well, I’m a former blue stater and now I’m living in a red state but kind of embarrassed by the way the extremes of both colors are handling themselves…or maybe I should say mis-handling.

    Yes, Mark Owen wrote No Easy Days and there was some controversy over it at the time of release. When I read through it I didn’t find anything that seemed terribly secret and Owen does write in the book that he was trying to be careful about classified information but apparently his superiors disagreed with the final product. The one thing I found new was the pictures in the book of Owen’s gear. They show night vision goggles that use four lens tubes instead of two that widen the vision (actually that was kind of interesting, I’m sure we’ll see these show up in a game soon enough).
    As for the mission itself, Owen debunks the initial reports that bin Laden used one of his wives as a shield. He also notes that one of the wives was hit by perhaps a deflected bullet or shrapnel. And yes, his account is that a SEAL sat on the body in the helicopter.
    Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) recently released a book called The Finish, about the investigation and the mission. Early copies of that book come with a card inside from Bowden. Bowden references Owen’s book (though not by name) and identifies that Owen’s account of bin Laden’s shooting differs from his. Bowden assumes Owen’s account is more accurate and a future edition of The Finish will be more in line with Owen’s telling.
    It’s interesting how the information age and the speed of information has changed reporting. Decades ago, you would probably not see multiple books and a movie come out so fast after an incident like this.

  • Bernie Dy

    Whoops, screwed up, the book is “No Easy Day”, not Days.

  • Christien Murawski
  • Antinonymous

    Damn it, I so sick of that stupid Britney Spears 1, 2 ,3 bit, fucking want to punch something every time that comes up suddenly, I just end up screaming ” shut the fuck up, fuck!”. Stop using that stupid clip!

  • Antinonymous

    Also, movie was boring and dont even know or care which guy or who they talking about half the time in their investigations. Only the raid part was good and the movie would have been better if it focused on those soldiers training for some unknown mission until they finally head out rather than the bore-fest of an office and torture drama.