Not to give you a hard time here, but a trailer is a commercial. It’s almost never created by the filmmakers, and can be edited to indicate whatever qualities the distributors think will sell the most tickets. For most action films, that means marketing more to young men and making it look like a fun thrill ride (not an unnerving, morally complicated, deeply intelligent and sad film about sensitive men).

This might speak volumes about the ad industry, and even about the ticket-buying audience. But I don’t see how it’s much different from any other kind of advertisement – whether it’s for shampoo, sausage, or cinema, the idea is usually to sell you the product, not to educate you in depth about its content.

So if you haven’t actually watched the film – why not do that, and then share your insights? Unlike some of the things that get discussed here, it is well worth the time!

However, it’s certainly interesting that a woman had to break into the locker room, so to speak, to be honored on this level. This particular film wouldn’t have been improved by more female characters or themes, but it’s hard to imagine so much industry attention going to any of the great filmmakers who do (or did) bring a uniquely female perspective to their work – like Agnes Varda, Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel, Kelly Reichardt, Sofia Coppolla, Lina Wertmuller, Chantal Akerman, Jane Campion, Catherine Breillat, or Sally Potter. Each has created some extraordinarily wonderful and critically praised works that, perhaps due to having complex and non-histrionic females at their core, never really shook off the “specialty film” label that keeps budgets and audience exposure pretty low even with big stars on board.

That said, I found “Hurt Locker” far less “macho” than it could have been. I mean, aside from a pathological adrenaline junkie – who’s rather cuddly too – all the male characters spend the film scared shitless and horrifically close to a complete emotional breakdown. Seemed to me like Bigelow was ripping all the macho action-hero cliches to shreds, even while blowing stuff up.

So yeah, there are a ton of women editors, but it seems to have had almost zero effect on the amount of women directors, cinematographers, camera operators, grips, etc.

true story.