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Podcasts - Zero Dark Thirty - Audio Review

A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.

Tags: movie review, audio, spill, spill.com, jessica chastain, joel edgerton, chris pratt, zero dark thirty

90 Comments for 'Zero Dark Thirty' - Audio Review

January 27, 2013 at 9:28 PM, said ...

My Review of Zero Dark Thirty http://www.ryanhawbecker.com/2013/01/zero-dark-thirty-movie-review.html?spref=tw …
January 18, 2013 at 11:17 PM, said ...
January 11, 2013 at 10:30 PM, AB7 said ...

Is it just me, or do the Spill Crew constantly break their major rule in every review? Don't go into a movie and judge it by your own preconceived expectations. They did that with "The Dark Knight Rises," this, "The Hobbit," and so on.
Everything they complained about in this review only led to one thing: It wasn't the movie they personally wanted.
January 11, 2013 at 6:41 PM, RabidScotsman said ...

I love the Spill Crew to death but they have recently gotten on my nerves. First, it was their heavy criticism of Django Unchained, which is by no means a perfect movie. Its fine that they didn't love the film as much as 90% of other critics but when you start demonizing and even threaten to quit an organization based on their praise of a GOOD film, you start to walk a dangerous path. The movie offended them because the "n" word was used too much. However, 90% obviously didn't feel that way. They saw it, much like I do, as a neccesary device to establish the setting.

Now, with Zero Dark Thirty, the Spill Crew has posted an extremely misguided review that shocked me. They have always been my go-to critics since 2008 but their biases are starting to creep into their reviews more and more. With the enourmous praise of Zero Dark Thirty by critics everywhere, the Spill Crew have made the unfortunate decision to judge the film against the enourmous expectations of other critics and not just as a film. It seems like they didn't even understand the nature of the film. Its about HOW we found Bin Laden. Wars aren't fought with conventional weapons anyore. The real warriors are sitting in chairs analyzing data for endless hours. It seems like they wanted some gung-ho action film. Not only would a film like that be heavily-ill advised, it would also be incredibly offensive, serving as an injustice to every person who helped catch him. The fact is that Zero Dark Thirty accomplished exactly what it does with perfection. Its at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason. It has won nearly every critics award for a reason. There's a reason it was nominated for 6 Oscars. Its not like their the Oscars are nominating shit. There's no Blind Side this year. Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour got nominated for God's sake. Granted, the Academy still had some idiotic snubs like always but to say "everyone's full of shit" is fucking bullshit. To me, this review reeked of ego and "contrarian hipster". They always talk about going to see a movie with no bias and judging the film on its own merits. For Zero Dark Thirty, they failed to do so.
January 08, 2013 at 6:34 AM, LunaticLMD said ...

I agree with Co-Host, Cyrus, and Leon on the review.

This review was funny.
January 07, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Michael Kragseth said ...

Based on true events or not , is it entertaining to watch? I would problably never give a light to day with this type of movie, since I can't stand military movies , for most part anyway:P
January 07, 2013 at 7:41 PM, Kevin Ho said ...

@Lewis Nolan

Have you seen the film yet? Most of the stuff is not padding.
January 07, 2013 at 4:28 PM, said ...

@Lewis Nolan

If you wanna consider RottenTomatoes as the barometer then ZDT currently totes an average rating of 8.8/10 where ARGO has 8.4/10. A higher percentage of critics liked Argo, but the critics that liked ZDT gave it a higher rating than what they gave ARGO.
January 07, 2013 at 1:58 PM, said ...

For all of corey's talk about "the critics agree with me" he doesn't realize that the critics consider Argo to be a better film. Argo got 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and Zero Dark Thirty has 94%.

The worst part about the movie is the length, you know the padded this movie out by thirty minutes just to put it in Oscar contention, after all no movie less than two hours (other than crash) wins the Oscar for best picture.
January 07, 2013 at 10:01 AM, MYTN said ...

This was actually one of my favorite films, and I wouldn't be surprised if it makes my top ten for this decade. It seems that the two main problems the Spill Crew have with this film are that 1. It overly focused on the bureaucratic aspect of this event 2. The characters were hollow.

I however felt that these are two of the film's strengths. I appreciated its detail to the bureaucratic process of the bin Laden assassination because it keeps itself updated with the way war is fought today. No longer is war only large fire fights, hallway shootouts, or mass carpet bombings; it requires soul-sucking intelligence gathering and monotonous data analysis. Our enemies are no longer just live bodies that we confront, they have become digital projections on a satellite monitor, video files on a laptop, or code names in a report. We fight a more virtual enemy nowadays and the film takes great care to dissect the process of these new challenges.

That is why I think the hollowness of the characters elucidate how consumed they are by this mission. It drains them of leisure, of personality, of their own moral values, where they only become these emotionally hollow forces of nature. This movie, like many of Bigelow's other films (yes this includes Point Break -_-), focuses on the obsession of the protagonists, and the madness the characters bring upon themselves in order to achieve their goals.

Korey's comment that the film is "paced like a documentary" makes sense, and I believe is appropriate for the subject matter. Even the slow burn feel during the scenes involving CIA bureaucracy are nicely balanced with scenes involving major terrorist attacks so as to remind the audience of the stakes involved. By the end of the film, I was about as drained as the characters, and perhaps that is an effect of a film that some audiences may not appreciate.

Other films that those who like "Zero Dark Thirty" may want to check out (or perhaps want to see films that improve upon "Zero Dark Thirty") are "The Conversation" and "The Lives of Others", about spies who are are psychologically swallowed up by their tasks, "Army of Shadows," a film about the French resistance against the Nazis that showed how even fighting the good fight is a ruthless and thankless task, and "The Battle of Algiers", a film about the Algerian resistance against the French colonists which also presents the moral ambiguities of war.
January 07, 2013 at 5:07 AM, said ...

About the whole torture concept of the film, as it turns out from most inside information, that the whole torture process didn't work one time...Look it up lol.
January 06, 2013 at 9:55 PM, Echi "The Dance Geek" Echi said ...

i don't know what the guys was talking about because i really liked ZDThirty..there was a bit of a drag just in the middle but i thoroughly enjoyed the movie from start to finish..
January 06, 2013 at 7:35 PM, said ...

I bet that film had a dissapointing ending.

Osama Bin Laden was found near a millitary base. Wow! What a lame twist!
January 06, 2013 at 7:07 AM, said ...

first off i am not american and do not live in america, and dont have the partiot reachion/emotional blackmail that comes with wtc stuff. I just saw the film and i thought it was great, jessica Chastain was great as were all the other actors, i can see where people come from when they say the film was boring or whatever, because people said the same thing about zodiac, the david fincher film from a couple years back, and i'd say that zero dark thirty is more like zodiac than any other war film ever. But i love zodiac and seeing Jake Gyllenhal get obsessed with the mystery and trying to piece everything together, its probably my favorite fincher film. With zero dark thirty i think people came in expecting more action or something idk, but i was into the mystery straight away and it sucked me in the whole way through,i loved the grounded and "realistic" ish approach and the final raid part capped the film off perfectly.

Yes not everybody was well developed but thats not what i thought the film was about, i thought it was about the mystery and the process of putting all these clues together from the point of view of Maya. ut i guess this type of film is not for everybody, i recall a lot of people saying similar stuff bout zodiac when that came out so whatever. Thats just my 2 cents
January 06, 2013 at 7:06 AM, said ...

I love how people who haven't seen the movie have already decided that they are just giving the film a luke warm review just to be contrary, I've seen the movie and Cyrus's description of the movie is spot on. I think other critics are reviewing the theme of the movie rather than the movie its self, this movie is pretty much relying on emotional blackmail to fill in for the lack of a plot or any real structure. Just my two cents.
January 06, 2013 at 3:09 AM, said ...

'merica, FUCK YEAH!
January 06, 2013 at 2:07 AM, said ...

http://my.spill.com/forum/topics/the-recent-spill-reviews-and-discussing-how-we-deal-with-critics
January 06, 2013 at 1:28 AM, said ...

Man sometimes I hate coming to this site. I don't know what's worse the ignorant review or the ignorant comments I keep reading.
January 06, 2013 at 12:32 AM, said ...

This is the second most controversial review of 2013! Well Done.
January 05, 2013 at 8:41 PM, said ...

The response to this film by the Spill Crew struck me as having an extra dose "contrarian hipster" disdain for something that may be perceived as being celebratory of American foreign policy since 9/11. I haven't seen it yet, but the criticism of "it's dull" and "boring" and has terrible "characterization" seemed like generalized criticism. I mean it is not like this was Act of Valor or anything. If anything should be treated like a super analytical procedural, it's this. This is not an action flick, and if it had been treated like COD the movie then that would've been a war crime in itself.
January 05, 2013 at 8:29 PM, fasteddie_felson said ...

I thought this movie was a full price.This film was fascinating, it was 3/4 all about perseverance of this one woman. and 1/4 about the Navy Seals.

Jessica Chastain was fantastic. It didn't go into her personal life it went to great lengths to show how complex and difficult it was to find bin Laden. If it wasn't for these intelligence people's determination they never would have got him.
January 05, 2013 at 7:08 PM, Charlton "Normalman" said ...

Cyrus, I've respected you and the rest of the guys' opinions for the past 7 years on the site but, I loved the movie and to hear you say that "everyone's full of shit for praising this" is, wow...
January 05, 2013 at 6:59 PM, Victor D. said ...

Also, THE KINGDOM!?!? Seriously???
Alright, I've given my 2 cents.
January 05, 2013 at 6:48 PM, Victor D. said ...

All I can say is, I'm so goddamn glad that Korey was here to review this with all of you guys. I feel like lately you guys have all been criticizing any movie that is even mildly contemplative, with the exception of Hyde Park on Hudson for some weird fucking reason. I personally thought it was extremely interesting as a movie and thought the film's length was as great as it was to simply convey the idea that finding Osama Bin Laden was a long and strenuous process. Was it a little too long? Maybe, but being upset about a film that's trying to tell a story in a relatively realistic manner and frequently comparing it to a film like Argo, which was really just okay, just doesn't make much sense to me. You guys all say that ZDT lacked any sort of character development, again with the exception of Korey, yet Argo lacked character development as well! All I knew about Ben Affleck was that he had a son that he wanted to see again. WOOPDY DOO! I'm not criticizing you guys for having an opinion, but I feel like maybe you should have backed it up a little bit more. Sorry if this comment came off as mildly offensive in anyway towards you guys, still love the site.
January 05, 2013 at 5:27 PM, said ...

leon for polititian!!!

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