Oliver Stone Does 9/11
May 19, 2006 6:42 AM   Subscribe

Oliver Stone's World Trade Center movie trailer is released. Some say it's too intense. Previously discussed here. (various QT video formats)
posted by fourcheesemac (154 comments total)
 
It's about time this movie was made, I mean it's been like years since it happened.. people might forget.
posted by econous at 6:48 AM on May 19, 2006


I hate when I go to a movie and instead of just trailers for other movies they show commercials for products like cars or blue soda.
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:51 AM on May 19, 2006


the crispy new police uniforms bothered me. Ill be interested to see how well this is recieved in NY.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 6:53 AM on May 19, 2006


the trailer doesnt work.
posted by sgt.serenity at 6:54 AM on May 19, 2006


I wouldn't have known it was a true story unless I was told so at the end of the trailer.
So does Stone know 'whodunnit' and is he keeping it a secret until opening day?
posted by Gungho at 6:58 AM on May 19, 2006


The plane was flying back and to the left.
posted by Zozo at 7:03 AM on May 19, 2006 [1 favorite]


I, for one, will be avoiding the first five minutes of every movie I go to see just to avoid this trailer.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:05 AM on May 19, 2006


I think Oliver Stone orchestrated the attacks -- and JFK's assassination. He'd be a nobody without conspiracies to make movies about.
posted by pmbuko at 7:05 AM on May 19, 2006


That was kind of creepy and jarring. I actually looked if I could see myself in the background (I was on the street below the towers after the first plane hit -- kind of where it looked like the firemen were standing). *shivers*
posted by papercake at 7:08 AM on May 19, 2006


I was really hoping that someone would have put out 'World Trade Center: The musical' by now, but I guess we'll have to wait.
posted by mountainmambo at 7:09 AM on May 19, 2006


Wow I forgot this happened. Thank you for making a shitty movie about it.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 7:10 AM on May 19, 2006


I don't think I'm alone in saying that I will never see that movie. OR that trailer.

I'm not morally opposed to making 'art' from massive tragedies, but it does strike me as a little vulturish.
posted by geekhorde at 7:10 AM on May 19, 2006


I found the other 9/11 movie trailer to be more upsetting than this one. Not sure why.
posted by grubi at 7:11 AM on May 19, 2006


Isn't there some kind of talisman or magic spell that can make Nicholas Cage go away? Somehow, his utter lack of presence or acting skill doesn't doesn't seem to affect his popularity. He's like some weird alchemy of rust, flavorless gelatin, and box-office gold. Is there nothing that can be done about him?
posted by Pecinpah at 7:12 AM on May 19, 2006 [1 favorite]


Oliver Stone's last good movie was in the 1980's.
posted by caddis at 7:13 AM on May 19, 2006


Too much. Too soon.
posted by ruwan at 7:13 AM on May 19, 2006


At least Nic Cage doesn't have a real shitty fake accent. That would be distracting.
posted by captainscared at 7:15 AM on May 19, 2006


Isn't there some kind of talisman or magic spell that can make Nicholas Cage go away?

How about a spell that preserves him as Johnny Camareri in Moonstruck and HI McDonough in Raising Arizona?
posted by mountainmambo at 7:15 AM on May 19, 2006


Is this another gay film?
posted by Joeforking at 7:15 AM on May 19, 2006


Are we supposed to prefer a quiet, calming, wistfully non-"intense" movie trailer about 9/11?

That press release reminds me of a B-movie director who used to park ambulances outside theaters showing his films and have nurses in the lobby in case of heart attack.

Not that Stone is a B-movie director. Born on the Fourth of July was brilliant. Platoon was OK. The Doors, notsomuch. I haven't even seen JFK or Nixon, though I'm sure I'm supposedly in Stone's core demographic.

I might see this, depending on the word-of-mouth. The trailer looked pretty schlocky.
posted by digaman at 7:16 AM on May 19, 2006


I found the other 9/11 movie trailer to be more upsetting than this one. Not sure why.

In my case, it's because this one looks like a typical crummy disaster movie. Which just happens to be real.
posted by smackfu at 7:17 AM on May 19, 2006


Too much. Too soon.

So this guy and his family walk into a talent agents' office.....
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:20 AM on May 19, 2006


I don't really buy that "too soon" argument, though I should recuse myself because I didn't have a relative die in the towers. But let's face it: Just like the Holocaust, Vietnam, Pearl Harbor, and every other significant historical tragedy, movies will be made about this. Who decides when it's at-long-last not too soon? If this year is "too soon," will 2007 be "just in time"?

Schlocky crap movies are bad. Great movies help humanity understand the dimensions of tragedy. There's nothing special about 9/11 that places it outside of the domain of profound human tragedy, untouchable by art. Is this film art or crap? The trailer doesn't look particularly promising, but I'll wait until it comes out before I decide anything.

Has anyone seen United 93? I haven't yet, but the reviews have certainly been good. I've been thinking about going.
posted by digaman at 7:22 AM on May 19, 2006 [1 favorite]


It is the worst, most exploitative insanity. It's not being done with reverence or as some form of memorial, as Anne Nelson's The Guys was done. (I wasn't happy with that film, either, but at least it tried to be respectful.) It's about taking a national tragedy and scripting it as an action film. This was an event partially inspired by action films, which takes everything that action films stand for to task for their horrible, gory fantasies.

As a nation, it's clear that we're not yet distanced from what happened that day. Most Americans still believe that Iraq, the country with which we are currently at war, had something to do with the attacks. Our emotions and experiences are still raw enough to provoke real political action: to turn them into entertainment is to abuse those possibilities in the name of profit.

Filmmakers should know the difference between their art and what journalists and documentarians do. They aren't here to write the first or even the second drafts of history; at their best, they can take all those drafts and create lyrical restatements. Film has too much power to shape the public's imagination of a true event to apply that power to something like this, so soon. When it does, our already fragile sense of the difference between the real world and the one on-screen becomes frayed, both on the edges and at the rough spots like that day.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:23 AM on May 19, 2006 [1 favorite]


Huh. I usually get choked up again when The Footage shows up somewhere, but this... nothing. It just looks like a crappy movie. Whatever it is they did to this trailer to drain any sort of relevance or emotion out of it, nice work.

And another thing: those are some sweet mustaches.
posted by rusty at 7:25 AM on May 19, 2006


I don't know everything that happened, but what I saw was cops standing across the street, and firemen going in the building. I saw someone carrying a seriously hurt person out of the towers and wanting to place them in a police car. The cop, across the street, said "bring her over here." He wasn't even willing to cross the street. It was like there was a line that only firemen would cross.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:25 AM on May 19, 2006


Some say meh!

Not enough, not soon enough.

Snakes in a Tower?
posted by blue_beetle at 7:26 AM on May 19, 2006


I'm with Jen Chung at Gothamist on this: "It sucks."
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:28 AM on May 19, 2006


People forget the one thing that drives Hollywood film making: will this make money?

This is decided by the studio and only then does the director get involved and has the chance to make something good out of it. But ultimately the only real reason this film is being made (at least with this budget/cast/marketing) is because people will go see it and there is money to be made.

Never forget that.

That being said, it looks like Poseidon 2: The Twin Towers. Or a remake of the Towering Inferno: Now Based on True Events.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:32 AM on May 19, 2006


Oh, jeez. A big plate of jingoistic treacle just in time for the midterm elections. Thanks for supporting the incumbents, Ollie.
posted by squirrel at 7:33 AM on May 19, 2006


god, enough about 11/9 already. who cares..
posted by canned polar bear at 7:36 AM on May 19, 2006


StickyCarpet: I've lived in New York City for over 20 years and that is completely in line with my experience with police officers.

My girlfriend and I were in a much smaller disaster about 15 years ago -- a steam pipe exploded at Gramercy Park, killing three people, and my girlfriend and I were the closest to survive.

We were covered in warm mud and it turned out my girlfriend had a small first degree burn. Talk about lucky -- but we were obviously victims and we didn't know we were OK so we were sent to the hospital by the police (a block away, conveniently). When we got there there were police blocking the entrance... I walked up to the first police officer and he refused us entry. "No one's allowed to go in." "But we were caught in the explosion! My friend's hurt! They told us to come here!" Nothing.

So we walked down one cop, not 10 feet away, and asked him, and he immediately let us past. He'd been watching the whole thing -- he hadn't interfered -- yet when we asked him, he sent it to the correct door and all, so he clearly knew what was going on.

Perhaps a dozen cops had seen this. Not one of them interfered. Their desire to preserve unity was clearly more important to them than our need for medical attention.

I've never forgotten this. I have some decently experiences with NYC police officers too -- and I know that the world would be a miserable place without the police -- but my general experience of the police here has not been good.

(Not that the firefighters are without sin. I know they take bribes from club-owners, eg...)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:36 AM on May 19, 2006


As a nation, it's clear that we're not yet distanced from what happened that day. Most Americans still believe that Iraq, the country with which we are currently at war, had something to do with the attacks.

Yeah, and they were wrong then and they're wrong now and if we as a country had been able to compartmentalize our national mental meltdown over 9/11 we might have been able to formulate a rational response, instead of the mess we now find ourselves in.

Enough of the sanctimony. I'm not into this "That day was too traumatic, Americans aren't prepared to confront it again" bullshit. Confront it. This is the reason more than 2400 US soldiers have died in Iraq; this event set us upon a trajectory that, boys and girls, will dwarf the number of 9/11 dead before it's all done.
posted by kgasmart at 7:38 AM on May 19, 2006


Meh. The 2004 Republican National Convention pretty much desensitized me to the horrors of 9/11. It might as well be another movie about fast-moving zombies.
posted by gigawhat? at 7:38 AM on May 19, 2006


Man, this movie looks horrible. I'm sorry, but if you take away the whole "day the nation stood as one" aspect, this would be what, Backdraft 2?
posted by graventy at 7:38 AM on May 19, 2006


Much like the other Oliver Stone movies I have never seen, this movie is terrible and because of that I will never see it.
posted by basicchannel at 7:39 AM on May 19, 2006


You know, the Flight 93 movie trailer actually affected me and felt like "too soon" and that it could be exploitative, but this is like a million times worse. It looks and feels entirely fake, just done to make some studio money.

Also, what the fuck is up with every fireman and cop being male and all the grieving wives?! I know that's a popular story and it happened mostly that way, but not a single woman went into the towers to save people and died?
posted by mathowie at 7:42 AM on May 19, 2006


If it weren't propaganda for cops and firemen the mainstream media would've condemned it for the low-down money grabbing crap that it is.
posted by zekinskia at 7:42 AM on May 19, 2006


Looks awful. I was okay with Flight 93, but this is wretched.
posted by empath at 7:47 AM on May 19, 2006


"but not a single woman went into the towers to save people and died?"

They haven't made that movie yet because Angelina Jolie is kind of busy right now.
posted by drstein at 7:48 AM on May 19, 2006


No one knows if this movie is "jingoistic" yet, anotherpanacea -- unless you've seen an advance screening? Portraying the first-responders in a positive or empathetic light is not equivalent to jingoism.

It's about taking a national tragedy and scripting it as an action film.

OK, I'll say it: 9/11 is the greatest premise for an action film of all time. Thousands of people trapped in burning towers in the heart of New York City, hundreds of passengers trapped in jumbo jets used as weapons? Come on. I'm sure every action-movie director in the world wishes he'd thought of it before Osama did. Was Vietnam not a national tragedy or something?

That said, yes, it would be a terrible thing if this national tragedy was turned into crap sentimentalism -- as this administration does every time it invokes 9/11 to justify the war in Iraq, another national tragedy.
posted by digaman at 7:50 AM on May 19, 2006


I just hope the moustache heroes make it out okay.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:52 AM on May 19, 2006


Enough of the sanctimony. I'm not into this "That day was too traumatic, Americans aren't prepared to confront it again" bullshit. Confront it. This is the reason more than 2400 US soldiers have died in Iraq; this event set us upon a trajectory that, boys and girls, will dwarf the number of 9/11 dead before it's all done.

First, this is pro-war propaganda, no matter what Stone thinks he can do to tilt the spin. This is going to add resolve and an extra digit to the death toll.

Second, maybe most Americans are prepared to handle the film. I'm not. I worked on Rector Street.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:53 AM on May 19, 2006


this event set us upon a trajectory that, boys and girls, will dwarf the number of 9/11 dead before it's all done

That happened a couple of years ago, boys and girls.
posted by digaman at 7:54 AM on May 19, 2006


That happened a couple of years ago, boys and girls.

Indeed it did. But you know as well as I do that your favorite local winger doesn't count non-American fatalities.
posted by kgasmart at 8:02 AM on May 19, 2006


this is pro-war propaganda, no matter what Stone thinks he can do to tilt the spin

anotherpanacea, frankly, you're talking out of your hat until more is known about this film. Surely 9/11 can be addressed and represented in art without playing into the administration's tireless efforts to conflate 9/11 and Iraq. Is this film art or crap? The trailer does not seem promising.

I'm sad for you that you worked on Rector Street. I had a very close friend working in the towers on one of the impact floors, who I had to assume was dead for days until he called me and told me he was out of work that day. Thank God. But when a great movie comes out about 9/11 -- which some say has already happened with United 93 -- forgive me when I say that, if seeing it is too painful for you, don't see it. But insisting that your own personal trauma on that day is grounds for declaring that 9/11 should be off limits as subject matter for filmmakers is too much. My problem with this trailer is that the movie doesn't look much like art.
posted by digaman at 8:05 AM on May 19, 2006


Who cares if these 9/11 movies get "good reviews"? Here's the better question: what reviewer is going to give a 9/11 movie a shitty ranking and explain why it's pathetic, degenerate and a crass exploitation of our cultural dependency on destruction as entertainment? Nobody who wants to keep their shitty movie review career, that's for sure.

Even if it's not definable as "too soon", it's always going to be outlandish due to the nature of the circumstances surrounding the events of that day. Profiting off of this national tragedy seems to be par for the course though, so maybe this Oliver Stone asshole is just taking a page from the majors. I have honestly not been more infuriated since Bush "won" in 2004 than I have been seeing United 93 this movie unleashed upon the public. Fucking disgusting.

There will never be a great movie about 9/11. Such a thing is impossible, and if you'd like to see it - fuck you.
posted by prostyle at 8:08 AM on May 19, 2006


digaman:

Flight 93 was incredible. I didn't want to see it and placated myself by looking forward to yet another Hollywood trainwreck-I was ready to get riled up about how the film has capitalized on a human tragedy to line its producer's pockets and how stupid blow-hard actors trump themselves up as heroes and how anyone related to Islam is evil and...

Well.

I was shocked. It was a truly inspired picture. Very visceral. For the level of drama & horror it was actually subdued in a weird way. Sort of like in Goodfellas when things go quiet as they get most intense... I don't know. As LeVar Burton would say: don't take my word for it. But if you do: I was pleasantly surprised.

The best parts: 1. The absolute humanity of the "terrorists". 2. Realizing as the credits rolled that I didn't know the name of anyone. The passenger manifest was listed on one side with the corresponding actor on the other and there was no way to know who was who. I can't think of another movie where a story was told so effortlessly and without the oh-so-painful introduction & backstory of every character, ensuring name recognition & association throughout the remainder of the flic.
posted by narwhal at 8:15 AM on May 19, 2006


Can we discuss the distinct possibility that the Jews did plot 9/11 - just so they could make movies about it?
posted by b_thinky at 8:17 AM on May 19, 2006


Isn't there some kind of talisman or magic spell that can make Nicholas Cage go away?

Since his real name is Coppolla, it will have to be a pretty potent spell.
posted by wfc123 at 8:20 AM on May 19, 2006


Yeah, that's what I've heard, narwhal. I'll probably see it this week.

There will never be a great movie about 9/11. Such a thing is impossible, and if you'd like to see it - fuck you.

Uh huh. Well, I lost a lot of relatives in the Holocaust, and there have been quite a few great movies about that, as well as dozens of shitty ones. One might have thought that the deaths of millions of people in gas chambers and the attempted genocide of an entire culture was too big and terrible a subject for art too -- but it wasn't.

You want grotesque, shameless, perverse, heartlessly commercial 9/11 exploitation any day of the week? Switch on FOX News.
posted by digaman at 8:22 AM on May 19, 2006


I can't believe anyone is getting choked up about this schlocky trailer. It looks like something from South Park. Maybe it only works on people who don't watch a lot of movies?
posted by Kirklander at 8:24 AM on May 19, 2006


I'm curious to know how United 93, a film which described the "first counterattack of World War 3" succeeded in avoiding the administration's jingoistic rhetoric. How human can the terrorists be if they're still terrorists? It's an honest question: I haven't seen it. However, not many people have. As of Wednesday, it had grossed $26.5 million. Most people have seen the trailer, which was pretty disturbing and jingoistic. That's the thing about these trailers: everyone sees them, even if they miss the movies. They're on television, and at the beginning of every other movie for a month beforehand. So the story that gets told, the message that is sent, is sent by the trailer, not the movie itself.

I agree that Stone's movie -might- be pretty good. (Signs point to "No," but there's always hope.) But whatever he does, he's doing it at a moment when -most- people are going to pick out the propaganda, the action-film elelements. The broad strokes. I -like- Greengrass, and I don't hate Stone; however, they've both made asses out of themselves this year with these choices, and I think we can acknowledge that without sanctimony.

We waited 10 years to do a film about Rwanda, and even then it was in hope of getting help in Sudan. Nothing we do now is going to help in Iraq, but maybe in five more years.... Couldn't we have waited until 2011 to do a major studio release about 9/11?
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:24 AM on May 19, 2006


b_thinky, as usual, the actual facts elude your penetrating insight.

While Oliver Stone's father was Jewish, his mother was Catholic. Judaism-by-birth is matrilineal. But really: what-ever.
posted by digaman at 8:26 AM on May 19, 2006


prostyle: I disagree. Even if I didn't think Flight 93 was great, to claim that a great movie can't be made about a tragic event runs counter to the fact that so many great movies have been based on tragic events.

If 9/11 is too recent or if it hits too close to home for you to appreciate a movie it's inspired, that's fair-you're welcome to never like any movie remotely related to those events. Similarly, I heard many WWII vets got up and left the theatre during Saving Private Ryan. This didn't make it a bad film. Their proximity to those events didn't deny the film greatness for everyone. A movie's value is not diminished by a few's inability to appreciate it.

Mostly, I'm just trying to defend people who may be able to find good in a film about that morning who've suffered your "fuck you."
posted by narwhal at 8:26 AM on May 19, 2006


It's about taking a national tragedy and scripting it as an action film.

Doesn't pretty much any war movie do that? Or do we only get pissed off when we exploit our own tragedies?
posted by psmealey at 8:27 AM on May 19, 2006


So how soon after 9/11 do you think they REALLY wanted to make this movie? My guess would be that script hiring was happening that same day.
posted by slatternus at 8:31 AM on May 19, 2006


The United 93 trailer was not "jingoistic," dude. As someone who couldn't be more angry at this administration and more skeptical of bullshit "patriotism" exploited in the service of warmongering, I was on the edge of my seat through the U93 trailer, waiting for something I could hate about it. That moment never came. Even the infamous "Let's roll" line is underplayed in the film I'm told (which turned out to be not only artistically but historically wise, since Todd Beamer may have said something like, "Let's roll this drink cart through the cockpit doors," rather than, "Let's roll into Baghdad pronto and mop up some raghead ass with the mighty wind of Donald Rumsfeld blowing at our backs.")
posted by digaman at 8:34 AM on May 19, 2006


anotherpanacea: Don't get me started on movie trailers. I think what you've described is an unfair effect of the relentless marketing of movies by producers at the expense of the art itself. I tend to avoid the full-length, weeks before release, spoil-the-entire-movie-and-give-away-the-entire-plot-and-yet-somehow-get-it-all-wrong trailers and limit myself to teasers and still-frames. The only trailer for Flight 93 that I saw (thankfully) was the one with blips on a radar screen and the hushed dialogue of the passengers. If there were jingoistic portrayals of the terrorists, it's unfortunate. The movie itself handled them very delicately. To be honest, they were represented more reasonably than any media outlet or spin job our administration has seen fit to attempt. While so many people were buying the rhetoric that the attacks were inspired by the terrorists general hatred of our freedom and un-veiled women, the movie does an amazing job of casting those claims in the farcical light they deserve. People don't hijack planes on a suicide mission because they think some other country celebrates pornography a little too much. It's my hope (haha, silly me) the "why" behind those attacks becomes a popular question once again, and that instead of accepting canned answers and symptom-alleviating solutions we demand thorough introspection and a real effort to establish a cure.

And that's how a movie based on a tragedy can be great...
posted by narwhal at 8:41 AM on May 19, 2006


digaman: "Even the infamous "Let's roll" line is underplayed in the film I'm told (which turned out to be not only artistically but historically wise, since Todd Beamer may have said something like, "Let's roll this drink cart through the cockpit doors," rather than, "Let's roll into Baghdad pronto and mop up some raghead ass with the mighty wind of Donald Rumsfeld blowing at our backs.")"

It was good enough for the 2002 SOTU, and good enough to be plastered on Military Aircraft. Why do you have to question its accuracy and role in the vernacular?

For too long our culture has said, "If it feels good, do it." Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: "Let's roll."

narwhal: "Mostly, I'm just trying to defend people who may be able to find good in a film about that morning myself who suffered your "fuck you.""

Not much of a conversation to have here. Take stock in your ability to enjoy such a film, but don't approach me for my attitudes as being devoid of merit and artistic appretiation. This film is for tools.
posted by prostyle at 8:46 AM on May 19, 2006


prostyle: I could care less what you think about me. But a hail mary "fuck you" to anyone who might take an interest in movies you've decided can never be good should be contested. That's what I've done.

And I never said your attitude was without merit or artistic appreciation. What I said was that if you're too close to the issue at hand to appreciate it, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that your opinions must be exported to the populace at large at the expense of a "fuck you" for disagreeing.

Whether or not this particular film is any good is completely moot. You said "There will never be a great movie about 9/11. Such a thing is impossible, and if you'd like to see it - fuck you." That's what I'm disputing.
posted by narwhal at 8:56 AM on May 19, 2006


Outrageous.

Make a film about it, fine, but a Titanic style 'weepy' where the focus is just as much on a relationship as the event itself?

That trailer is so sickening it blows my mind. Pretty much the sort of shallow tastelessness Sayyid Qutb saw coming from America that inspired him to form the basis of the very movement that orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.

Ironic really how these things come full circle.
posted by chrissyboy at 9:00 AM on May 19, 2006


I think the world is not ready to revisit the horror of the village people.
posted by sgt.serenity at 9:02 AM on May 19, 2006


As for jingoism:

We don't want to fight
But, by Jingo, if we do,
We've got the ships,
We've got the men,
We've got the money, too.

I think that applies aptly to the trailer. But now we're in the realm of aesthetics, and I would suggest that if you are not part of the community that experiences jingoistic impules, then you wouldn't see those buttons being pushed.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:04 AM on May 19, 2006


Pretty much the sort of shallow tastelessness Sayyid Qutb saw coming from America that inspired him to form the basis of the very movement that orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.

I hear you. Pretty true, actually, unless the movie is much more subtle than the trailer makes it seem.

Of course, the other thing that inspired Sayyid Qutb to launch the radical Islamist movement was state-sponsored torture. And the Bush administration is doing real good in that department. Expect another generation of Qutbs to be born from our "Global War on Terror."
posted by digaman at 9:06 AM on May 19, 2006


I would suggest that if you are not part of the community that experiences jingoistic impules, then you wouldn't see those buttons being pushed.

I would suggest that you're projecting a little too much.
posted by digaman at 9:09 AM on May 19, 2006


Hah!

From the wiki article: "by Jingo" is a euphemism for "by Jesus"!

So Jingoism is Jesusism! Man... that is so apt for this administration.

Thanks, anotherpanacea!
posted by narwhal at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2006


I would suggest that you're projecting a little too much.

Perhaps. I'm certainly commenting too much. :-) I'll distance myself now from the "fuck you" set. Pencil me in as disappointed in Hollywood. Thanks all.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:14 AM on May 19, 2006


Watch the clip closely. Stone makes it stunningly clear that the attacks were obviously in retaliation for the release of Zoolander.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2006


Out there is a filmmaker who could make a 9/11 movie that would knock our collective socks off. It would be a Syriana-like ride weaving a large story using interesting characters. It could have been released 9/12/2001 and we still would have loved it.

I was still sitting in front of the TV crying that day, but I see your point. And yes, Syriana was great.

Hell, Bob Dylan released one of the great post-9/11/post-Katrina songs -- "High Water Everywhere" -- the morning of 9/11, on his album Love and Theft.
posted by digaman at 9:25 AM on May 19, 2006


anotherpanacea: I'm sorry to see you go. I will insist, though, that if you'd like to be reminded that occasionally Hollywood can get something close to right, see Flight 93. And if you disagree, let me know. =) Regarding your specific question as to how a terrorist can be portrayed as human, I think Flight 93 pulled it off by casting them as .. martyrs? I can't find the right word-but essentially, they're shown to be common people, who believe in something so strongly that they're willing to do something bad to hopefully achieve something good.

Sort of like a question I love to bandy about: If you were (inexplicably) placed in a situation where you could commit a 9/11-scale atrocity to prevent (and this isn't a "might" prevent, this is a "will" prevent) a global cataclysm (nuclear holocaust, whatever), I imagine most people would eventually come down on the "good of many outweigh the good of a few" side of the argument, etc. Now imagine that though your actions saved the world, no one will ever know. You will be tried and convicted- loathed by everyone you saved, and you can never redeem yourself in mankind's eyes. You can't even explain why you did it (it's one of the inane conditions of the salvation you've provided).

Anywho... imagine the gravity, your countenance before you commited "the act." You don't want to do it, but you know you have to do it.

That's how they portrayed the "terrorists."

I think it's the only fair way...
posted by narwhal at 9:29 AM on May 19, 2006


From the IMDB page:

Plot Summary for World Trade Center (2006)
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, hope is still alive. Refusing to bow down to terrorism, rescuers and family of the victims press forward. Their mission of rescue and recovery is driven by the faith that under each piece of rubble, a co-worker, a friend a family member may be found. This is the true story of John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, the last two survivors extracted from Ground Zero and the rescuers who never gave up. It's a story of the true heroes of that fateful time in the history of the United States when buildings would fall and heroes would rise, literally from the ashes to inspire the entire human race.

Summary written by JJ Brent
Sounds pretty reverential to me. But I think we can have a movie that celebrates the heroism of the cops and firefighters at Ground Zero, if that is what this is, and that does not wave the bullshit Bush battle flag at the same time. My guess is that's the needle Stone is trying to thread. He's not a needle-threader, though.
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:32 AM on May 19, 2006


skallas, I think your completely right. With the younger crowd its all about presentation. And the angry reaction to this trailer is because its cliche emotional, clearly trying to tie our heartstrings, which is not what Stone does, but he usually tries to be sensational. With tragedy of this magnitude a straight up presentation is enough in itself, and more compelling out of sincerity as flight 93 shows (albeit I haven't seen it). And I would disagree with many by saying WTC movie's saving grace will be getting Nicholas Cage, as he epitomizes sincerity.
posted by uni verse at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2006


I'm of the opinion that Alexander was too much, too soon.
posted by mazola at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2006


What's with the bit where Cage asks for volunteers, three young guys step up, but then Cage says "follow me guys" and all the old guys who didn't step up nod grimly in agreement?

Also, it's that terrible music. You can feel yourself being manipulated. But this could be something of a fake.
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:35 AM on May 19, 2006


The film is called United 93, narwhal.

If you were (inexplicably) placed in a situation where you could commit a 9/11-scale atrocity to prevent (and this isn't a "might" prevent, this is a "will" prevent) a global cataclysm (nuclear holocaust, whatever), I imagine most people would eventually come down on the "good of many outweigh the good of a few" side of the argument, etc. Now imagine that though your actions saved the world, no one will ever know. You will be tried and convicted- loathed by everyone you saved, and you can never redeem yourself in mankind's eyes.

And by the way, to further stir the pot: I think George Bush thinks of himself in much this same way. That was Seymour Hersh's point in "The Iran Plans":


A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”


God and Allah save us from people who believe that doing great evil in the name of great good is God or Allah's plan.
posted by digaman at 9:37 AM on May 19, 2006


Oliver Stone on the movie's point, From the BBC:
"I feel someone had to tell the story of the people who were in the Trade Center before and after it collapsed," said Sgt McLoughlin.

"It needs to be told how this horrific tragedy brought Americans and the world together to help those in need."
Stone on Bush and 9/11:
"There was an over-reaction after 9/11. Bush was given enormous powers and misused them. He created a war in Iraq that has further helped bust the economy, and has led to civil war there.

"He was the wrong leader at the wrong time. I always felt that. I wish I was wrong."
A movie that comes close to reconciling these two sentiments while also drawing a mass audience could be a real intervention. I have no idea if this is that movie, and the trailer is disappointing. But maybe . . .
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:41 AM on May 19, 2006


Mazola, yes, and Troy was too much, too soon also. :P
posted by uni verse at 9:41 AM on May 19, 2006


I'm actually an Oliver Stone fan, but I can't say I want to see this film. Yes, sap that I am, I had to dab the tears away from my eyes. Knowing Stone, there's an angle to this film that wasn't presented in the trailer - maybe.

Maybe this will bring up some of the many questions that the 9/11 families raised, and the Bush administration ignored or suppressed.

And I like Nick Cage - but that surfer boy accent in a hard-nosed NYC police chief just doesn't cut it.
'
posted by rougy at 9:50 AM on May 19, 2006


Just for the sake of discussion, does anyone know when the first Holocaust movie was released? I have a hunch that it was more than four years after the fact, but I could be wrong.

I watched the trailer and feel no need to see this movie - not necessarily because it's a movie about 9/11, but because it looks like a bad movie staring Nicolas Cage and I have a very very VERY low Nicolas Cage tolerance.

On the other hand, my mother loves Nicolas Cage (she's got some weird crush on him that I will never understand), but she won't go see it because she doesn't like weepy-tragedy movies.

Two strikes there. I guess somewhere there is a Nicolas Cage-disaster loving demographic that Stone has targeted, but they're not anyone I know.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:53 AM on May 19, 2006


I have a hunch that it was more than four years after the fact

The media world moves much faster now. It's just true, for better and worse.
posted by digaman at 9:57 AM on May 19, 2006


You know, I thought that maybe the 9/11 movie stuff was crass, but if you go into IMDB and search for Pearl Harbor movies, the first one was released about six months after the attacks.

Apparently they just used a generic script that had been shot into several films, cast people and shot it a couple months after the event so they could proudly proclaim it as the first (a bunch came out in the year or two following).
posted by mathowie at 10:07 AM on May 19, 2006


Nicolas Cage (she's got some weird crush on him that I will never understand)

I'll bet money it was from his role in Valley Girl. His dreamy eyes, his perky pecs. My cousins still swoon.
posted by rougy at 10:07 AM on May 19, 2006


Great movies help humanity understand the dimensions of tragedy.

A movie that comes close to reconciling these two sentiments while also drawing a mass audience could be a real intervention.

Maybe this will bring up some of the many questions that the 9/11 families raised, and the Bush administration ignored or suppressed.

Were these things said with a straight face? I find it hard to believe.
posted by prostyle at 10:10 AM on May 19, 2006


Umm, millions died in the holocaust. Fewer than 3000 on 9/11. Not to minimize it, but that's a real difference. 3000 people die a month in automobile accidents in the US. Almost that many US soldiers and marines have died in Iraq. 9/11 was awful, but it wasn't the worst thing that ever happened in the world, even that year. Part of our problem is that we have had so little recent experience of domestic terrorism (other than the Oklahoma City bombing) and the 9/11 attacks were so symbolically effective in their targeting, that we can't see them in perspective on the scale of human tragedy and evil, in which our nation (for those who are American) has committed acts of equal or greater horror too. That doesn't excuse the attackers. It just helps us see the truth -- a lot of the world now thinks we are a bunch of hysterical crybabies, and cynical imperialists. Not that they didn't before, but we *could* have responded to 9/11 in ways that would have sought common cause with the millions of other victims of senseless terrorist violence around the world. Instead, we became enraged, and very gullible.

There are still people who won't look at holocaust images or read the Diary of Anne Frank because it makes them too upset. Then there are others who want to know what happened, and who want to use art to think about what happened.

What creeps me out is how Stone does capture the beautiful day the 9/11/01 was before about 10 AM for most of us in the Northeast.
posted by fourcheesemac at 10:11 AM on May 19, 2006


Cynical Knight has it.

And this is going to be profoundly lame. Nicholas Cage? Me? I'da gone with Steven Seagal.
posted by kosem at 10:11 AM on May 19, 2006


Were these things said with a straight face? I find it hard to believe.

Yes.
posted by fourcheesemac at 10:13 AM on May 19, 2006


If you were not outraged at the pornographic exploitation of 9/11 at the 2004 Republican convention then you have absolutely no business being outraged at anyone else's attempts to exploit the event. I've been plenty disgusted in my life but never moreso than watching Giuliani, Pataki and the rest of the con artists masturbate to 9/11 for days on end successfully filling middle America with the fear of God.

It always strikes me as somewhat ironic when people get all outraged about people expoiting 9/11 to make a buck. The whole reason for the attack was meant to curtail our out of control rampant global consumerism that found it 's origin in the United States. If people in this country were more concerned about America's amoral pursuit of global productivity before 9/11 there's a good chance that those attacks never happen in the first place.
posted by any major dude at 10:17 AM on May 19, 2006


b_thinky, as usual, the actual facts elude your penetrating insight.

While Oliver Stone's father was Jewish, his mother was Catholic. Judaism-by-birth is matrilineal. But really: what-ever.
posted by digaman at 8:26 AM PST on May 19 [+fave] [!]


Dude. It was a joke.
posted by b_thinky at 10:17 AM on May 19, 2006


"Were these things said with a straight face? I find it hard to believe."

Big surprise, Mr. "if you'd like to see it - fuck you."
posted by rougy at 10:21 AM on May 19, 2006


Here's the better question: what reviewer is going to give a 9/11 movie a shitty ranking and explain why it's pathetic, degenerate and a crass exploitation of our cultural dependency on destruction as entertainment? Nobody who wants to keep their shitty movie review career, that's for sure.

Bullshit. Ebert hasn't kept his hatred of bush secret. He won't pull punches (if the movie is bad) and there isn't a chance in hell he'd lose his job.

On topic, there's a flight 93 thread somewhere on mefi where it's completely panned from top to bottom simply from viewing the trailer. The movie comes out and is shockingly good. Metafilter does many things well. Reviewing movies is not one of them.
posted by justgary at 10:22 AM on May 19, 2006


I hear ya, b_thinky. Sorry I missed the humor.
posted by digaman at 10:26 AM on May 19, 2006


The whole reason for the attack was meant to curtail our out of control rampant global consumerism that found it 's origin in the United States.

Really?
posted by kosem at 10:35 AM on May 19, 2006


I wonder how many of the righteously indignant in this thread will remember their prinicples when the tsunami movie plays.
posted by soiled cowboy at 10:56 AM on May 19, 2006


The whole reason for the attack was meant to curtail our out of control rampant global consumerism that found its origin in the United States.

Ironic, because I believe the attacks were "helped along" by the U.S. so as to (eventually) ENABLE global consumerism in untapped Mideast markets like Iraq and Iran.
posted by wfc123 at 11:01 AM on May 19, 2006


"Shock and Awe: The Movie"

That's the one I really want to see...from an Iraqi point of view.
posted by rougy at 11:01 AM on May 19, 2006


Horrendous. It's like the way Family Guy would spoof a film about 9/11.
posted by oxala at 11:01 AM on May 19, 2006


rougy: "That's the one I really want to see...from an Iraqi point of view."
posted by prostyle at 11:09 AM on May 19, 2006


Horrendous. It's like the way Family Guy would spoof a film about 9/11.

Best comment in this thread. And also bang on the money.
posted by chrissyboy at 11:09 AM on May 19, 2006


I found the other 9/11 movie trailer to be more upsetting than this one. Not sure why.

Because Flight 93 was fictional & therefore in-your-face exploitation?

Stone's movie seems way more legitimate to me because it's based on people who survived the event, who have a factual story to tell. In comparison how can Flight 93 be anything but a crock of shit when no one survived & no one really knows what happened on that plane?

Oh, jeez. A big plate of jingoistic treacle just in time for the midterm elections. Thanks for supporting the incumbents, Ollie.

That's the only thing that puts me in the "too soon" camp.
posted by zarah at 11:13 AM on May 19, 2006


The whole reason for the attack was meant to curtail our out of control rampant global consumerism that found it 's origin in the United States.

What possible justification can you provide for this?
posted by me & my monkey at 11:18 AM on May 19, 2006


"In comparison how can Flight 93 be anything but a crock of shit when no one survived & no one really knows what happened on that plane?"


Amen to that.
posted by stenseng at 11:26 AM on May 19, 2006


"God and Allah save us from people who believe that doing great evil in the name of great good is God or Allah's plan."
-digaman


For real. That's the crucial difference between my scenario and the way these things play in real life. In my scenario, I (as dungeon master) can deal with absolutes. The real world will never play so nicely. While I respect the faith of zealots and martyrs, they play a dangerous game. Sure Joan of Arc thought she was doing god's will and for her people maybe she did the right thing, but so thought David Berkowitz. God is kind of like "base" in a game of tag. You're untouchable when you claim s/he's you're inspiration. Who knows what you might do.

Aside: In my estimation, doing god's work leads to a mother Theresa style of influence vs. that of the crusader or the "terrorist".

Aside #2: I really hate the term "terrorist". It ought to be "tantrumist" as in: these are people who feel so powerless and neglected by the big players of the world, that like a child when faced with parents who don't listen, care, or consider his/her condition/predicament with understanding and patience will throw a tantrum, bringing attention to his/her issue in the only manner that seems to work (even if it is a negative sort).


Still, United 93 (thanks for the correction. =)) managed to walk the tightrope of portraying good people doing bad things in the name of a good god in whom they place a faith inconceivable to most Americans. I don't know many christians who would willingly die for their beliefs.
posted by narwhal at 11:34 AM on May 19, 2006


"In comparison how can Flight 93 be anything but a crock of shit when no one survived & no one really knows what happened on that plane?"


Amen to that.


Boy, you guys must throw out a whole lot of history books as crocks of shit. I assume first-person contemporaneous accounts are the only history you trust? Good luck!
posted by digaman at 11:40 AM on May 19, 2006


zarah & stensing: re: "crock of shit"

I'd say 75% of the movie takes place on the ground in control towers, radar rooms, FAA headquarters, & military sites. Since 25% of the cast were played by their real-life counterparts, I believe they probably got that part right. The 25% of the movie that takes place in the plane is a collection of glimpses. You never hear an outright conversation. It's like someone walked a microphone up and down the aisle capturing ambient noise and the fading of one bit of conversation on one row into the next. The bits of dialogue toward the planning of the attack on the terrorists was a collage of information being "telephoned" (figuratively) from passenger to passenger based on information "telephoned" (literally) from family/friends on the ground via airfone. Since most of this dialogue was along the lines of "a plane has hit the towers", "two planes have hit the towers", "maybe this plane is on a similar course", "we're going to have to do something", etc. and since these conversations can be verified by the people on the other ends of the phone (who are still alive and who consented to this movie being made and who lent assistance during its research), I'm willing to wager the "made up" part was close enough to tell the story well.
posted by narwhal at 11:45 AM on May 19, 2006


Outrageous.

Make a film about it, fine, but a Titanic style 'weepy' where the focus is just as much on a relationship as the event itself?

That trailer is so sickening it blows my mind. Pretty much the sort of shallow tastelessness Sayyid Qutb saw coming from America that inspired him to form the basis of the very movement that orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.

Ironic really how these things come full circle.
posted by chrissyboy at 12:00 PM EST on May 19




Holy shit, the WTC was attacked because of the shallow narratives emanating from Hollywood?

You are fucking insane.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 11:49 AM on May 19, 2006


Actually Digaman - I do throw out a whole lot of history books, as they're usually rife with historical inacuracy, and latent biases of various sorts - compare say the average public school US History text with Zinn's People's History of the United States.

As for flight 93, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we didn't shoot that one down, and if so, that's good. That's what should have happened in such an instance.

Regardless, the "Let's Roll" rah rah heroic narrative strikes me as reeking of the old fertilizer, personally.

Then again, the whole 9/11 narrative stinks to high heaven.
posted by stenseng at 12:01 PM on May 19, 2006


The trailer makes it seem like just a saving-the-kid-in-the-well movie with a syrupy soundtrack, plus terror.

I could do without the heavy-handed taglines, too. "The world saw evil that day" is too Bushy and simple-minded. "Two men saw something else." The light they keep talking about? Could that maybe symbolize something?

Metafilter does many things well. Reviewing movies is not one of them.

Maybe we don't preview movies well, but our reviewing is usually pretty good.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:01 PM on May 19, 2006


cashin' in
posted by Fupped Duck at 12:07 PM on May 19, 2006


As these were the last two survivors, does this mean the film will have a happy ending?

Cage : Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Am I the only one who laughed?
posted by fullerine at 12:10 PM on May 19, 2006


Can I just say fuck this movie and its maudlin soundtrack?
posted by papakwanz at 12:15 PM on May 19, 2006


the presence of a "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" in a movie automatically invalidates its existence, similar to the proverbial Godwin's on the internets.
posted by uni verse at 12:21 PM on May 19, 2006


Boy, you guys must throw out a whole lot of history books as crocks of shit.

Absolutely I do. History books are always written with bias & bigotry, to greater and lesser degrees.
posted by zarah at 12:25 PM on May 19, 2006


Stenseng, as I mentioned earlier, the "'let's roll' rah rah heroic narrative" thing is very played down in United 93, not played up. So you're... you know, talking about something other than the film we were talking about. Which is fine.

Mr. Mean Bucket, your synopsis of Chrissyboy's point about Sayyid Qutb is very wide of the mark. Have you read much about Qutb? Start here:

Few men past the age of forty can ever have felt their immortal souls to be in such danger at a church hop as Qutb did when he attended one in Greeley, Colorado. The pastor, doubling as disk jockey, lowered the lights to impart "a romantic, dreamy effect," and put on a record of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (presumably the Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban version, from the soundtrack of the 1949 hit movie "Neptune's Daughter"). "The dancing intensified. . . . The hall swarmed with legs. . . . Arms circled arms, lips met lips, chests met chests, and the atmosphere was full of love." We're in the psychodrama of temptation here—the language tumescent with arousal, even as it affects a tone of detachment and disdain.

In his Koranic commentary, "In the Shade of the Qur'an," Qutb suggested that the believer's brief sojourn on earth should be spent "purifying the filthy marsh of this world." Rich, sexy, Truman-era America gave him a taste of this world at its filthiest and marshiest. His American letters show him wading fastidiously, a lone pilgrim, through "the life of jahiliyyah, hollow and full of contradictions, defects and evils." American jazz, football, wrestling, movies (though he confessed to enjoying "Gone with the Wind" and "Wuthering Heights"), the talk of cars and money supplied Qutb with ammunition for his great theological assault on "this rubbish heap of the West"; and so did the dedication of his Greeley neighbors to weekend lawn maintenance. America, with its natural disposition to clamor and excess, has always been a happy hunting ground for puritans of every denomination; Qutb scored a notable first when he hit on lawn mowing as a target for a spiritual critique of the West. But sex, not lawns—shameless, American, jahili sex—was clearly uppermost on the mind of this lifelong bachelor. The word "desire" ripples through "Milestones," and always, it seems, meaning the same thing—the drunken temptress on the ship, a tattooed boy in a Washington, D.C., coffee shop, the terrible peril of the church hop.


So in fact, yes, Hollywood treacle played a role in angering and alienating the founder of Radical Islam, who seemed particularly ripe for anger and alienation. Then years of torture brought him to a boil, and everyone's been suffering since.

It was a valid point.
posted by digaman at 12:39 PM on May 19, 2006


stenseng writes "As for flight 93, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we didn't shoot that one down, and if so, that's good. That's what should have happened in such an instance.

"Regardless, the 'Let's Roll' rah rah heroic narrative strikes me as reeking of the old fertilizer, personally."


Have you actually seen the movie, or are you just sniping at it from a position of ignorance?
posted by mr_roboto at 12:46 PM on May 19, 2006


"as I mentioned earlier, the "'let's roll' rah rah heroic narrative" thing is very played down in United 93, not played up. So you're... you know, talking about something other than the film we were talking about. Which is fine."

Um, as I understand it, the film Flight 93 portrays (however subdued and tastefully) the passengers of the flight battling it out with the hijackers, and forcing the plane down in a last desperate act of patriotic selflessness, yes?

If so, then my point is perfectly valid, as we really have no definitive knowledge that this is what took place whatsoever.
posted by stenseng at 12:47 PM on May 19, 2006


it does look very lame, like Stanley Kramer on steroids. I may go catch it in the theatre though, I still think Stone is one of America's most important directors, but he's been losing it since, well, almost a decade now. we'll (I'll) see.

I assume first-person contemporaneous accounts are the only history you trust?

I loved Dennis Rodman's autobiography, and his ex wife's book, too.
posted by matteo at 12:57 PM on May 19, 2006


History books are always written with bias and bigotry.
The MSM has a liberal bias.
Science is biased and inconclusive -- evolution is just a theory.

Welcome to the post-expertise world:
Karl Rove's world.
posted by digaman at 1:03 PM on May 19, 2006


to greater and lesser degrees.

And that makes all the difference.
posted by digaman at 1:06 PM on May 19, 2006


Oh please. Reaching a bit, aren't we?

Or do you still believe that Columbus was a swell guy, and discovered America and all that yak?

Further, what the hell is your point?


We have absolutely NO definitive evidence as to what took place on flight 93, save for the "Let's Roll" pablum Bush and friends have crammed down our collective throats the last five years. And we know they never play fast and loose with the facts, right?

So I say, any damned movie that tells us that the people on flight 93 died valiantly sacrificing their lives to save their fellow Americans, yada yada yada, no matter how tastefully, is still bullshit, is still a manipulation, and is still probably about as factual as the story of Jessica Lynch's rescue, or our awesomely accomplished mission in Iraq, or the "spontaneous" crowd that pulled Saddam's statue down, or the "riot" of republican operatives that helped shut down the recount in 2000.

You've got your head up your ass if you're buying into this shit, so don't tell me I'm somehow playing into Rovian politics, pal.
posted by stenseng at 1:11 PM on May 19, 2006


As a postscript, let's not turn Karl Rove into the new godwin, and try to shut down arguments by saying "OMG THATS JUST WHAT KARL ROVE WOULD WANT YOU TO SAY..."
posted by stenseng at 1:13 PM on May 19, 2006


Well, it's nice to see that Oliver Stone is trying to go for the 'Independence Day' dollar. Now they just need Will Smith and a few good product placements.
posted by cellphone at 1:19 PM on May 19, 2006


I think it's awesome! Can't wait to see the Bollywood-style dance sequences, personally.
posted by fungible at 1:37 PM on May 19, 2006


What stenseng said. There's nothing like muddying the waters with agenda-driven fiction to help permanently confound our understanding of what happened; it's just finishing the job that refusing to conduct any meaningful investigation started. Only five years on and our historical narrative of these events is already taking on something of the rigor and clarity of Young George Washington and the Cherry Tree.
posted by George_Spiggott at 2:25 PM on May 19, 2006


stenseng, sorry, I was being overly glib. I was reacting mainly to the idea that good history of an event can't be written without being a first-person account. One of the best books I've ever read was Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire -- the painstaking reconstruction of events that had taken place over the course of several minutes in a catastrophic forest fire in a remote location 30 years before the book was written. Do we know that Maclean was correct? Of course not. But it's a heroic effort to gather scraps of evidence and make a very informed guess as to what transpired.

I'm totally with you on doubting the official narrative of United flight 93, but that doesn't mean that any attempt to recreate what occurs during an event in which everyone dies is a hopeless task. Making very informed guesses is what historians, journalists, and scientists do, but that doesn't mean that history, journalism, and science are bunk -- as the Bush administration has tried so hard to assert over the past few years, while skating along on the most outrageous public lies.
posted by digaman at 2:26 PM on May 19, 2006


We have absolutely NO definitive evidence as to what took place on flight 93, save for the "Let's Roll" pablum Bush and friends have crammed down our collective throats the last five years. And we know they never play fast and loose with the facts, right?
What about the transcripts from the voice recorders?
posted by PenDevil at 2:29 PM on May 19, 2006


Ew. Ick. Whatta load of treacle.
I had no idea that New Yorkers moved so slowly. People: things look good in slo-mo, but give it up when you're running away from danger.
Also..... I thought policemen had to pass literacy tests? If I had a pen and paper and I was probably going to snuff it, I'd be writing a hell of a lot more than "I ♥ U"..... but then I don't star in big-budget movies like Nick 'Bobo'* Cage, so there ya go.

* "Dance, Bobo, dance!" "Ooook!"
posted by Zack_Replica at 2:33 PM on May 19, 2006


I still think Stone is one of America's most important directors

I think you mean "self-important." And that's all he is - he's the one who brought us a movie with lots of sexed-up violence to tell us that the media is responsible for violence; he's the one who brought Jim Garrison's wacky fantasies into the mainstream. Yecch.

So I say, any damned movie that tells us that the people on flight 93 died valiantly sacrificing their lives to save their fellow Americans, yada yada yada ...

My impression of the movie - I haven't seen it, and I don't plan to - was that it didn't say that, but rather that the passengers fought for control of the plane. Crashing into the ground was presumably an unintended consequence.

I was reacting mainly to the idea that good history of an event can't be written without being a first-person account.

That's certainly true, but good history doesn't often fit into the narrative arc required by a two-hour movie.
posted by me & my monkey at 2:38 PM on May 19, 2006


It would have been better if it was a movie so there could be a wacky black guy "oh shit, them buildings are comin down! Run fo yo life!"
posted by puke & cry at 2:40 PM on May 19, 2006 [1 favorite]


oh shit I left the most important word out of that post.

It would have been better if it was a bruckheimer movie so there could be a wacky black guy "oh shit, them buildings are comin down! Run fo yo life!"
posted by puke & cry at 2:42 PM on May 19, 2006 [1 favorite]


We have absolutely NO definitive evidence as to what took place on flight 93

There is some evidence.
posted by Cyrano at 2:42 PM on May 19, 2006


I guess I can look forward to lots of great shots of everyday Americans reacting to everything as it happens on TV, a la "The Truman Show" et al. Which is a very realistic depiction of our reaction to national crises everyday life.
posted by hermitosis at 3:07 PM on May 19, 2006


we live in a world where our memories get drowned out by pop culture's take on...our memories.

i watched the towers come down from my fire escape in lower manhattan; now i can go to a theatre, where for $10.75 i can see it all again, with well-defined dialog, artful shots, clever editing.

in 20 years, what will i remember, the event, or the film of the?

just an observation...
posted by fisherKing at 3:07 PM on May 19, 2006


Was that Ish from Pimp my Ride playing the other police agent?
posted by Zombie Dreams at 3:18 PM on May 19, 2006



Todd Beamer, a passenger on the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, attempted to phone his wife from an in-plane phone, but was connected instead to Lisa D. Jefferson, a GTE Airfone operator located in the GTE service center in Oak Brook, Illinois. Through that phone call and other phone contacts with the ground, the passengers learned that two other hijacked planes had been crashed into the World Trade Center. As a result, some of the passengers apparently decided to storm the cockpit. Beamer spoke his last known words to the group, overheard via the phone connection. The 9/11 commission determined that his final recorded words were actually "roll it" (in reference to a steward's trolley the passengers were using as a battering ram), not to be confused with "let's roll," which Todd said during his phone conversation with operator Lisa D. Jefferson.


I myself wonder if Ms. Jefferson didn't hear Todd say, "Let's roll it" -- i.e., that his allegedly two statements were the same statement. But who knows.
posted by digaman at 3:51 PM on May 19, 2006


And no one seems to realize that, as a lifelong marijuana user, Mr. Beamer was simply deciding to indulge in his favorite pastime before his life ended in that plane. Let's roll, indeed.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:07 PM on May 19, 2006


Tasteless, I know. But I'm so sick of the sanctimony too.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:07 PM on May 19, 2006


but good history doesn't often fit into the narrative arc required by a two-hour movie.

I assume you're talking about the movie that's the subject of this post? My understanding (haven't seen it, but will rent it) is that in "United 93," once the doors close on the plane, the movie unfolds pretty close to real time.

Also, what justgary said.

You don't want to see the movie? Fine. But preemptively reviewing the movie based on its trailer (or your politics) makes you no better than the Catholics who got their collars in a knot over "The Davinci Code" trailers.
posted by Cyrano at 5:32 PM on May 19, 2006


...preemptively reviewing the movie based on its trailer (or your politics) makes you no better than the Catholics who got their collars in a knot over "The Davinci Code" trailers.

I had no idea subjective theories of a higher power that were recorded over various times and places in ancient texts are directly analagous to a major recent event that has changed the course of a nation and impacted its citizens (not to mention those in a few countries halfway across the world) in a very real way. Thanks for the insight.
posted by prostyle at 6:26 PM on May 19, 2006


Look, I don't care how well made it is, or how moving, or whatever. It's flat fucking fiction, and it's lending credence to a narrative of the event concocted by a bunch of monsters, and I'm not interested. You want to make a movie about Flight 93? Fine. Make this movie:

Time (EDT) Transcript

09:31:57


Ladies and Gentlemen: Here the captain, please sit down keep remaining seating. We have a bomb on board. So sit.

09:32:09


Er, uh . . . Calling Cleveland Center . . . You 're unreadable. Say again slowly.

09:32:10


Don't move. Shut up.

09:32:13


Come on, come.

09:32:16


Shut up.

09:32:17


Don't move.

09:32:18


Slop.

09:32:34


Sit, sit, sit down.

09:32:39


Sit down.

09:32:41


unintelligible...the brother.

09:32:54


Stop.

09:33:09


No more. Sit down.

09:33:10


That's it, that's it, that's it, down, down.

09:33:14


Shut up.

09:33:20


unintelligible

09:33:20


We just, we didn 't get it clear. . . Is that United Ninety Three calling?

09:33:30


Jassim.

09:33:34


In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

09:33:41


unintelligible

09:33:43


Finish, no more. No more.

09:33:49


No. No, no, no, no.

09:33:53


No, no, no, no.

09:34:00


Go ahead, lie down. Lie down. Down, down, down.

09:34:06


There is someone... Huh?

09:34:12


Down, down, down. Sit down. Come on, sit down. No, no, no, no, no. No.

09:34:16


Down, down, down.

09:34:21


Down.

09:34:25


No more.

09:34:26


No more. Down.

09:34:27


Please, please, please . . .

09:34:28


Down.

09:34:29


Please, please, don't hurt me . . .

09:34:30


Down. No more.

09:34:31


Oh God.

09:34:32


Down, down, down.

09:34:33


Sit down.

09:34:34


Shut up.

09:34:42


No more.

09:34:46


This?

09:34:47


Yes.

09:34:47


unintelligible

09:34:57


One moment, one moment.

09:34:59


unintelligible

09:35:03


No more.

09:35:06


Down, down, down, down.

09:35:09


No, no, no, no, no, no . . .

09:35:10


unintelligible

09:35:15


Sit down, sit down, sit down.

09:35:17


Down.

09:35:18


What's this?

09:35:19


Sit down. Sit down. You know, sit down.

09:35:24


No, no, no.

09:35:30


Down, down, down, down.

09:35:32


Are you talking to me?

09:35:33


No, no, no. unintelligible

09:35:35


Down in the airport.

09:35:39


Down, down.

09:35:40


I don 't want to die.

09:35:41


No, no. Down, down.

09:35:42


I don't want to die. I don't want to die.

09:35:44


No, no. Down, down, down, down, down, down.

09:35:47


No, no, please.

09:35:57


No.

09:37:06


That's it. go back.

09:37:06


That's it. Sit down.

09:37:36


Everything is fine. I finished.

09:38:36


Yes.

09:39:11


Ah. Here's the captain; I would like to tell you all to remain seated. We have a bomb aboard, and we are going back to the airport, and we have our demands. So, please remain quiet.

09:39:21


Okay. That's ninety three calling?

09:39:24


One moment.

09:39:34


United ninety three. I understand you have a bomb on board. Go ahead.

09:39:42


And center exec jet nine fifty six. That was the transmission.

09:39:47


Okay. Ah. Who called Cleveland?

09:39:52


Executive jet nine fifty six, did you understand that transmission?

09:39:56


Affirmative. He said that there was a bomb on board.

09:39:58


That was all that you got out of it also?

09:40:01


Affirmative.

09:40:03


Roger.

09:40:03


United ninety three. Go ahead.

09:40:14


United ninety three. Go ahead.

09:40:17


Ahhh.

09:40:52


This green knob?

09:40:54


Yes, that's the one.

09:41:05


United ninety three, do you hear the Cleveland center?

09:41:14


One moment. One moment.

09:41:15


unintelligible

09:41:56


Oh man.

09:44:18


This does not work now.

09:45:13


Turn it off.

09:45:16


...seven thousand...

09:45:19


How about we let them in? We let the guys in now.

09:45:23


Okay.

09:45:24


Should we let the guys in?

09:45:25


Inform them, and tell him to talk to the pilot. Bring the pilot back.

09:45:57


In the name of Allah. In the name of Allah. I bear witness that there is no other God, but Allah.

09:47:31


unintelligible

09:47:40


Allah knows.

09:48:15


unintelligible

09:48:38


Set course.

09:49:37


unintelligible

09:51:27


unintelligible

09:51:35


unintelligible

09:52.02


unintelligible

09:52:31


unintelligible

09:53:20


The best thing: The guys will go in, lift up the...unintelligible...and they put the axe into it. So, everyone will be scared.

09:53:27


Yes.

09:53:28


The axe.

09:53:28


unintelligible

09:53:29


No, not the

09:53:35


Let him look through the window. Let him look through the window.

09:53.52


unintelligible

09:54:09


Open.

09:54:11


unintelligible

09:55:06


You are...one...

09:56:15


unintelligible

09:57:55


Is there something?

09:57:57


A fight?

09:57:59


Yeah?

09:58:33


unintelligible Let's go guys. Allah is Greatest. Allah is Greatest. Oh guys. Allah is Greatest.

09:58:41


Ugh.

09:58:43


Ugh.

09:58:44


Oh Allah. Oh Allah. Oh the most Gracious.

09:58:47


Ugh. Ugh.

09:58:52


Stay back.

09:58:55


In the cockpit.

09:58:57


In the cockpit.

09:58:57


They want to get in there. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold.

09:59:04


Hold the door.

09:59:09


Stop him.

09:59:11


Sit down.

09:59:13


Sit down.

09:59:15


Sit down.

09:59:16


unintelligible

09:59:17


What?

09:59:18


There are some guys. All those guys.

09:59:20


Let's get them.

09:59:25


Sit down.

09:59:29


What?

09:59:30


What

09:59:31


What?

09:59:36


unintelligible

09:59:37


What?

09:59:39


unintelligible

09:59:41


unintelligible

09:59:42


Trust in Allah, and in him.

09:59:45


Sit down.

09:59:47


unintelligible

09:59:53


Ahh.

09:59:55


unintelligible

09:59:58


Ahh.

10:00:06


There is nothing.

10:00:07


Is that it? Shall we finish it off?

10:00:08


No. Not yet.

10:00:09


When they all come, we finish it off.

10:00:11


There is nothing.

10:00:13


unintelligible

10:00:14


Ahh.

10:00:15


I'm injured.

10:00:16


unintelligible

10:00:21


Ahh.

10:00:22


Oh Allah. Oh Allah. Oh Gracious.

10:00:25


In the cockpit. If we don't, we'll die.

10:00:29


Up, down. Up, down, in the cockpit.

10:00:33


The cockpit.

10:00:37


Up, down. Saeed, up, down.

10:00:42


Roll it.

10:00:55


unintelligible

10:00:59


Allah is Greatest. Allah is Greatest.

10:01:01


unintelligible

10:01:08


Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?

10:01:09


Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.

10:01:10


unintelligible

10:01:11


Saeed.

10:01:12


...engine...

10:01:13


unintelligible

10:01:16


Cut off the oxygen.

10:01:18


Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen.

10:01:34


unintelligible

10:01:37


unintelligible

10:01:41


Up, down. Up, down.

10:01:41


What?

10:01:42


Up, down.

10:01:42


Ahh.

10:01:53


Ahh.

10:01:54


unintelligible

10:01:55


Ahh.

10:01:59


Shut them off.

10:02:03


Shut them off.

10:02:14


Go.

10:02:14


Go.

10:02:15


Move.

10:02:16


Move.

10:02:17


Turn it up.

10:02:18


Down, down.

10:02:23


Pull it down. Pull it down.

10:02:25


Down. Push, push, push, push, push.

10:02:33


Hey. Hey. Give it to me. Give it to me.

10:02:35


Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me.

10:02:37


Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me.

10:02:40


unintelligible

10:03:02


Allah is Greatest.

10:03:03


Allah is Greatest.

10:03:04


Allah is Greatest.

10:03:06


Allah is Greatest.

10:03:06


Allah is Greatest.

10:03:07


No.

10:03:09


Allah is Greatest. Allah is Greatest.

10:03:09


Allah is Greatest. Allah is Greatest.
posted by stenseng at 6:34 PM on May 19, 2006


I assume you're talking about the movie that's the subject of this post? My understanding (haven't seen it, but will rent it) is that in "United 93," once the doors close on the plane, the movie unfolds pretty close to real time.

I wasn't really talking about either movie discussed here; just about movies in general. It's really hard to provide enough context about any significant historical event in a two-hour movie. And it's the context that matters. The context explains why - the movie doesn't have time for why, only for what, who, when. There's no context in "real time."

But preemptively reviewing the movie based on its trailer (or your politics) makes you no better than the Catholics who got their collars in a knot over "The Davinci Code" trailers.

I'm not reviewing anything here. But if I can't use the trailer to determine whether I should spend my two hours and my money on it, what good is it? I'm not saying that you shouldn't watch it, but as a reflection of history I simply don't expect much from it.

Oh, and stensing, you might want to read up on hyperlinks, ok?
posted by me & my monkey at 8:36 PM on May 19, 2006


NEVAR FORGET
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 8:54 PM on May 19, 2006


I had no idea subjective theories of a higher power that were recorded over various times and places in ancient texts are directly analogous to a major recent event that has changed the course of a nation and impacted its citizens (not to mention those in a few countries halfway across the world) in a very real way. Thanks for the insight.

Thanks for being deliberately dense. I was referring to making judgements about a movie you've only seen a trailer for but somehow feel compelled to condemn because it troubles your world view a bit. I wasn't trying to equate the kids of Jesus to 9/11 or Iraq (and I totally agree with you on the various times, various authors thing RE: The Bible,) nor do I think a "Rah-Rah!, here's why we're killing the ragheads!" movie is a good thing either. But I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how it will play out.

And neither do you. But "Triumph of the Will" I'm guessing this one ain't. If I turn out to be wrong, bookmark this comment and I'll cop to it later.

It's flat fucking fiction,

So's "The Longest Day," in the sense that there's no actual film of the invasion in it, but that doesn't mean there's not at least some historical accuracy to it.

and it's lending credence to a narrative of the event concocted by a bunch of monsters.


The monsters who planned the whole thing and whose followers hijacked the planes, or the monsters who exploited the event to get their Iraq wank on? I'm not a fan of either group.

But I know you're referring to the latter. And your view is comfortably waddled in the fact that there will never be a first person, "I'm uploading these pics of the terraizts to my Myspace page!!!" account of what actually happened on that plane.

But you've got the flight recorder. You've got people on the ground who talked to the people on the plane. Even just those two primary sources would make most historians cum in their Dockers.

History isn't about knowing every word that was said. Most of the time, history is based on knowing the gist of it.
posted by Cyrano at 9:02 PM on May 19, 2006


Stenseng: Longest. Post. Ever.
posted by papakwanz at 9:10 PM on May 19, 2006


Any damned movie that tells us that the people on flight 93 died valiantly sacrificing their lives to save their fellow Americans, yada yada yada ...
Did you actually see United 93? If so, then I must have seen a different movie. I felt that it showed the passengers on the plane doing what anyone else would have done; they were not made out to be heroes. There is explicit discussion (in the film) of trying to land the plane. They seemed to be acting out of fear and self-preservation as much as anything else.

A good friend of mine had a brother die in the towers. I was reluctant to mention having seen the movie, but when it came up in conversation with him, he sounded as if he was interested and planned on seeing it. I don't know what his opinion on this new Oliver Stone movie is, but I also don't know if I am going to ask.

I'm just not quite sure I understand the righteous indignation with regard to 9/11 movies. I was far more disgusted reading reviews of Jay McInerney's "9/11 novel," which uses the event's aftermath as the catalyst for an extramarital affair.
posted by anjamu at 12:23 AM on May 20, 2006


stenseng, the less you seem to know what you're talking about, the louder you talk. That post wasn't information or opinion, it was just junking up a conversation you've decided you don't like. Rude and juvenile.
posted by digaman at 8:05 AM on May 20, 2006


stenseng, there were (1) cellphone calls made from the plane to the people on the groud and (2) a lengthy phone call between one of the passengers and the airphone operator. Thus your assertion that the cockpit transcript is the only surviving evidence of what happened on flight 93 is total BS. I oppose this war and this administration as much as you do, but don't make me look bad with your ignorance.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 9:18 AM on May 20, 2006


Stone is nothing. It's Paramount's movie and obviously propaganda designed to pump up public sentiment and fear. Clearly, its release is timed to benefit Conservatives using terror as political currency. It plays right into our glorified self-centeredness and feeds our national excuse justifying the immoral war we are inflicting on millions of innocents. It's sickening! Instead of indulging ourselves further, isn't it time we look beyond our cozy kitchens and face the sadly overlooked story of the Iraqi people's "courage and survival" during their extended time "shock and awe and incredible suffering"?
posted by chance at 10:20 AM on May 20, 2006


The world saw evil that day. And a Paramount film, Zoolander. So which one's the evil here? hmmm. makes ya think, don't it...
posted by Zack_Replica at 8:54 PM on May 20, 2006


Oh, that's right skallas, I remember you from that thread as well, you're the arrogant and obnoxious professional skeptic who believes that there are absolutely no unanswered questions regarding 9/11. In fact you're so convinced of the rightness of your position that you've taken it upon yourself to shit a trail of snark in any subsequent related thread.

Well done.
posted by stenseng at 11:38 PM on May 20, 2006


WAIT!

No one mentioned that Maggie's in this movie!

Of course it'll be good!

You crazy kids!

For real, though. I just (finally) saw the trailer for the movie that's actually being discussed in this thread and... it appears to be more about the reactions and efforts of those on the ground than hyping & wanking the BS reasons the administration has seized to justify their war. Obviously, the movie may end up doing just that, but the trailer doesn't display any such sentiment. Anyone ripping this trailer (and the movie it represents) is basing their attacks on a predisposed opinion.

Shame on you.

Predisposed opinions lead to all sorts of terrible behaviors like the -isms of prejudice or cherry-picking evidence to drum up a war you've already decided to wage.

If you want to split hairs over who's doing more to support the "terrar" and jingoism and everything else, I'd say it's not the people willing to brave a movie that may or may not be completely over-hyped and commercial and cashing in on a tragedy but instead the people who insist it will be completely over-hyped and commercial and cashing in on a tragedy because that's what their gut tells them.

posted by narwhal at 1:01 AM on May 21, 2006


I think 9-11's as legitimate a subject for artistic treatment as any other. United 93 was a pretty decent movie, too. This, though, if the trailer's any indication, looks like a real snoozer.
posted by EarBucket at 8:28 AM on May 21, 2006


Metafilter: "Well, I don't know anything about X, but let me tell you about Y."
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:24 AM on May 21, 2006 [1 favorite]




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