THE HURT LOCKER Wins Best Picture Oscar

The film THE HURT LOCKER won best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best sound editing, best sound mixing, and best film editing.

For those of you who regularly read this blog, you know that I have been praising this film since I viewed a screener at the end of August 2009. You can imagine my thrill when THE HURT LOCKER won best picture even though very few people outside Hollywood have seen the film.

Yet for me the win by Kathryn Bigelow for best director (against James Cameron for AVATAR) was equally important. As a long-time feminist I was thrilled that a woman (only the fourth Oscar directing nominee ever) won for a film that no one could say "She made a women's film." Kathryn Bigelow demonstrated that women are just as good as men at making movies where things blow up.

And on top of this she directed a film that thanks to a great script by Mark Boal -- who was up-close-and-personal embedded with a bomb defusing squad in Baghdad in 2004 -- was an incredible portrayal of the service of our troops.

Here's a video of her best director acceptance speech.

Of course the actors were amazing and everyone's contribution made this the compelling film it is.

Let's hope that the film will now get wider circulation and more people will view this story that provides such a compelling look at our armed forces.

See a brief video of the film and read my review from August.

And here's a video of the acceptance speeches for the best picture win.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. Her newest project is www.FilmsThatSupportOurTroops.com.

Phyllis' company MillerMosaicLLC.com does power marketing that combines traditional marketing principles and Internet marketing strategies to put power in your hands.

THE HURT LOCKER Is a Compelling New Movie About a Bomb Defusing Squad in Iraq

Kathryn Bigelow directed the 2002 movie K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER, which was a heartbreaking story of a Russian nuclear sub whose sailors don't have the proper protective gear to deal with the sub's nuclear malfunction.

In her new movie THE HURT LOCKER, the U.S. bomb squad unit in Iraq has the proper protective gear, but that doesn't necessarily mean these men will survive their bomb-defusing missions.

Written by Mark Boal, the film is as compelling as a documentary, and I wish all Americans could see this movie in order to understand what American troops are up against in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.

Check out the website now of THE HURT LOCKER -- and then see the film at your local movie theater.

P.S. If anyone from this film's marketing team reads this blog post, please take my advice: Lose all the Flash that takes so long to load that I almost didn't stick around to enter the website. The film is so compelling that the site doesn't need the slow-loading Flash.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also writes articles as a National Internet Business Examiner and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life.

Phyllis' company has launched the monthly program WeTeachWebMarketing.com to help people promote their brand, book or business online. Her company also does Twitter tutoring -- see TeachMetoTweetNow.com