Perhaps the best-reviewed film released in 2009, The Hurt Locker is the story of an addicted-to-danger bomb-defusing expert (a star-making performance by Jeremy Renner) in the current Iraq war. By bringing an unusual amount of suspense to this well-acted story of men in action, the award-winning film not only revitalizes the war movie genre, it also serves to re-introduce audiences to the considerable storytelling skills of critically acclaimed director Kathryn Bigelow. The Hurt Locker will screen twice on January 1 and 3, and on the last three consecutive Sundays in January, we’ll present three more of Bigelow’s features in excellent archival prints that were personally deposited in George Eastman House’s vaults by the filmmaker after her visit in 2003. The Weight of Water (January 17) is Bigelow’s dramatic tale of murder and deception, told on two temporal planes, starring Sean Penn and Elizabeth Hurley; K-19: The Widowmaker (January 24) is a Cold War tale of men (including Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson) under pressure during a crisis in a nuclear-powered submarine; and Bigelow’s cult classic, Point Break (January 31), is another study of adrenaline junkies, this time personified by a group of surfers/bank robbers led by the late Patrick Swayze, in one of his quintessential performances.