Hollywood flicks

This week's new releases kick off with George Clooney carrying the load in The American, a quiet thriller in which he plays a man who knows his way around guns. But there's nothing quiet about the other news releases: Machete & Going the Distance.

"The Militarization of Hollywood": Unlocking "The Hurt Locker"

War Propaganda wins the Academy Award

1. The film did not even hint that the three-man Army elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad operating in Baghdad a year after in the U.S. invasion was engaged in an unjust, illegal war, and thus were participants in what international law defines as a war crime.

Unmentioned is the fact that the war destroyed perhaps a million Iraqi lives, and created over four million refugees. Or that it took Washington's divide-and-conquer policy of exacerbating sectarian religious and ethnic rivalries to produce a stalemate instead of a humiliating defeat for the Pentagon at the hands of up to 25,000 poorly armed, irregular and part-time guerrillas.




The film's odd title, according to the producers, "is soldier vernacular for explosions that send you to the 'hurt locker.'" But in the "collateral damage" of this unnecessary war — the civilian dead and wounded and millions of wrecked lives — has no place in "The Hurt Locker." Only American pain is stored there, not Iraqi.

Actress Milla Jovovich returns as the zombie-fighting heroine Alice. Ali Larter reprises her role as Claire Redfield from “Resident Evil: Extinction.” Spencer Locke, who played K-Mart in “Extinction,” is also set to return. New to the film franchise is leading man Wentworth Miller, who has signed on as Chris Redfield – Claire’s brother and a popular character from the game series. Shawn Roberts will take over the role of Alice’s nemesis Wesker. Boris Kodjoe and Kim Coates have also been cast.