The Hurt Locker ceremony, it won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Bigelow (the first woman to win this award), and Best Original Screenplay for Boal. "The Hurt Locker" is based on accounts of Mark Boal, a freelance journalist who was embedded with an American bomb squad in the war in Iraq for two weeks in 2004. The director Kathryn Bigelow was familiar with Boal's work before his experiences, having adapted one of his "Playboy" articles as the short-lived television series "The Inside" in 2002. When Boal was embedded with the squad, he accompanied its members 10 to 15 times a
This Is the Life (2008 film) ""This is the Life" vaults into the upper echelons of must-see hip-hop documentaries. It's smart, informative, and hugely important historically". "Variety" wrote, "The docu is clearly the product of real love, bubbling over with enthusiastic performances and an indelible sense of place". The "Los Angeles Times" called the film, "A rich narrative of praise, clarification, brother-and-sisterhood and the birth of cool". Director Ava DuVernay self-distributed "This is the Life" through her Forward Movement banner. The film opened theatrically in Los Angeles on March 10, 2009, and premiered on Showtime in May 2009. This Is the Life (2008 film) This is