Why "Gears of War" and not "Super Mario Brothers"?

This reader mail from rogerebert.com:

"From Nathan Donarum:


Something has been bothering me recently. On my second viewing of "The Hurt Locker," I noticed a curious detail. There is a scene in which Eldridge plays a video game. The video game is "Gears of War," a hyper-masculine, adrenaline-pumped game about...well, war. 


The main gameplay deals with firefights, and hiding behind different objects to avoid getting shot, and to avoid dying. It has a real focus on survival, and a real focus on the thrill of the fight. I recently wrote a small article touching on some of the points I think this means on the overall film, but after posing my ideas on some forums, I've come under some huge criticism. One of the main points people have criticized is my point is that I believe Bigelow purposefully intended to make a statement with the game. My favorite comment against me was, "And to even think that this was something so deliberate is almost laughable." She could have chosen any game other than "Gears of War." If she didn't intend for it to carry meaning, why not just make Eldridge play Super Mario? Why a game titled "Gears of War" and not another war game, such as "Call of Duty"? I have consolidated my argument into three questions.
1. Why is Eldridge playing a video game at all?
2. Why is he playing "Gears of War," and not something else?
3. If the video game isn't important, then why have a second of focus on the screen, to depict the game Eldridge is playing?


If the game is of little or no consequence as some people have suggested, why include it at all? Furthermore, there seems to be an opposition to my analyzing the choice of "Gears of War" with regards to the other themes explored in the film. After this long-winded rant, my question is this: do you believe the choice of including "Gears of War" was intentional on Kathryn Bigelow's part? Secondly, do you think that it's at least worth looking at with regards to its implications on the themes and messages explored in the rest of the movie?"

An interesting, and astute, point. I think the issue that Nathan raises is a significant, contentious one. Just how much significance can we attach to minute details like this one? It's generally accepted now that directors are almost total auteurs (in the case of someone like Robert Rodriguez, who writes, shoots, edits and develops his own films, quite literally). As such, is every single detail a deliberate choice designed to support the artistic perspectives or statements of its maker?

It's kind of sad that this even needs to be addressed. In the good old days of classical cinema, particularly in Italian cinema, everything was significant. Film-makers are responsible for absolutely everything that goes into their frame, or at least they should be. That culture seems to be dying. There are more and more disposable, escapist movies being made these days. I don't intend to stand here, turn my nose up, and declare that cinema is dead simply because its function has changed. It's all about entertainment now. Sure, there are mini-movements like the Mexican New Wave (film-makers like Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu and Guillermo del Toro) that I believe are significant landmarks in modern cinema as an aesthetic art form. But it's a fact -- more people will see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen than will see Children of Men. The industry is skewed towards big-budget entertainments, and as a result the idea that everything in a frame is trying to convey something to the audience is dying a slow death. I say long live the directors like Kathyryn Bigelow and the others I've mentioned in this article who still care about every last inch of their movie.

What do you think? Should we take everything in a movie as an expression of the director's vision, no matter how seemingly minute the detail? Or is the paradigm of auteurship changing once more?