During my stay in Memphis, Greg suggested I visit the Malco Ridgway 4 on the east side of the city. He compared it to the old Campus West theater back in Fort Collins where we went to high school. I hardly needed the encouragement, because it was showing a movie I had been wanting to see for a while, The Hurt Locker, which a lot of people had been saying was really good.
As a story about the Iraq Ar, it reminded me of the screenplay project that Thor and I attempted back in 2005. But unlike our project, The Hurt Locker is a deep movie with a lot of narrative heft. It follows a U.S. Army bomb detonation squad around Baghdad during its tour of duty.
The concept is fresh and powerful. The narrative works very well, constricted to just a few major characters, following them in a style that blends neorealism and reality television.
I liked it a lot. It lived up to my expectations and beyond. I put it right up there next to Stop-Loss as my favorite movies about the war.
As for the theater, it lived up to my expectations too. It was out in the office park area of Memphis. The rounded brown brick exterior had a very fun and dated feel. The lobby had a huge high ceiling and the auditorium was long and thin, going down, then up again, in a way I haven't seen in a long time.
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