I might throw up (at the thought of OLIVER STONE'S 9/11 FILM!)

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http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/wtc/medium.html

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

WAHT

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:25 (nineteen years ago)

Ohhhhh I remember this...this was the film that resulted in Maggie G's infamous "I don't give a fuck about the victims, we deserved it" or whatever it was she actually said interview that caused all that controversy.

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

oh boy

― sleep (sleep), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:30 (nineteen years ago)

It has Stephen Dorff in it, how can it be bad?

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

If I see the word "evil" used in an unironic context one more time, just one more time, I'll...

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469641/

Nicolas Cage! Mario Bello! Stephen Dorff!

― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

United 93 doesn't seem so bad now.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 18:37 (nineteen years ago)

United 93 seems positively fair-minded compared to this level of sentimentality and heavy-handed symbolism...Timed to take maximum advantage of the 5th anniversary too.

― paulhw (paulhw), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 19:16 (nineteen years ago)

I was about to ask when the movie based on the Pentagon was going to be made, but then I remembered that it was released yesterday.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 19:20 (nineteen years ago)

at the end of this film Maggie Gyllenhaal does a Martin Lawrence dance and sings "I got two million"

― and there are lot's of other sites, but all of them are fake... (sanskrit), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:00 (nineteen years ago)

Hahahhahahahaha oh man this made me laugh more than a movie trailer has in a long, long time.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:14 (nineteen years ago)

zoolander billboard!

― late to the bloom to the er (latebloomer), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:17 (nineteen years ago)

oh, for fuck's sake.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:20 (nineteen years ago)

The trailer really makes you think a punch line is coming.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:21 (nineteen years ago)

You can still see the light!/YEAH! isn't a punchline?

(while buried up to their heads like the scientists absorbed by Alien Mom in Alien: Ressurection.)

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:22 (nineteen years ago)

Stone could have at least stayed true to himself with some cracked-out Towers fall/Walls of Jericho montage overlays and Al Pacino screaming in Arabic or something.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:24 (nineteen years ago)

There was some comment NROward from one of the folks there saying that they'd spoken with the two firemen who the film is supposed to be based on, and apparently they were all happy with the way the filmmakers were handling the story. Which is kinda fearful in light of this.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:26 (nineteen years ago)

Well it turns everyone into some kind of Kabuki hero, so I'm not that surprised.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:38 (nineteen years ago)

I was about to ask when the movie based on the Pentagon was going to be made, but then I remembered that it was released yesterday.

-- Pleasant Plains /// (pleasant.plain...), May 17th, 2006. (later)

Slyest comment on the thread so far, BTW.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:40 (nineteen years ago)

they'd spoken with the two firemen who the film is supposed to be based on, and apparently they were all happy with the way the filmmakers were handling the story. Which is kinda fearful in light of this.

That's probably more indicative of the ridiculous overblown egos those guys must have than anything else.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:48 (nineteen years ago)

Given the director is Stone and all = like attracts like.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 May 2006 00:49 (nineteen years ago)

I already made that comment, Andrew and Ned!

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 May 2006 01:04 (nineteen years ago)

You were too oblique about it.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 18 May 2006 01:07 (nineteen years ago)

I think one of the fireman is local. I expect lots of coverage of this in the paper.

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Thursday, 18 May 2006 01:12 (nineteen years ago)

I don't care if this movie had been eventually made further on down the future. Hell, Oliver Stone, Brian De Palma, John Waters, I don't care who would've eventually made it. All I know is that for me personally, it's way too fucking early for me to be seeing that plane's shadow in a movie trailer.

Let's win the war first and then make the movies. And by "the war", I ain't talking about that business in Iraq either.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 18 May 2006 01:18 (nineteen years ago)

Thread title OTM, btw.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 18 May 2006 01:18 (nineteen years ago)

rosemary you mean one of the actors who plays a fireman is local or what?

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 May 2006 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

oliver stone has passed the point of self-parody and emerged into some weird straight-faced performance art shit with this crap. Only choice better to direct this would have been Mel Gibson.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 18 May 2006 02:01 (nineteen years ago)

When Cage goes "who's coming with me" and the cops step forward, you just KNOW the one who's gonna die... is the one without the copstache

― -rainbow bum- (-rainbow bum-), Thursday, 18 May 2006 02:17 (nineteen years ago)

Like they have time to sit there and do that. Jesus.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 May 2006 02:22 (nineteen years ago)

I don't care if this movie had been eventually made further on down the future. (...) John Waters

don't tempt us, that would have r00led

― and there are lot's of other sites, but all of them are fake... (sanskrit), Thursday, 18 May 2006 02:34 (nineteen years ago)

Oliver Stone doesn't seem to make OLIVER STONE movies anymore as we know and love them. Though it does seem hyperbolic as fuck. This seems more a gesture away from the crazy guy 60s throwback rep that's taken on a life of its own and more toward a Ron Howardesque warming-hearts tear-jerking Oscar-contending version of credibility.

― theodore (herbert hebert), Thursday, 18 May 2006 02:42 (nineteen years ago)

fireman? oops I meant Port Authority Policeman.

And that the man Nicholas Cage is portraying is from the town I grew up in.

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Thursday, 18 May 2006 03:06 (nineteen years ago)

Oliver "Goebbels" Stone

― Unlimited Toothpicker (eman), Thursday, 18 May 2006 03:25 (nineteen years ago)

I used to hate watching people as that green "I'm going to throw in in a couple minutes here" look spreads across their face.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:16 (nineteen years ago)

Some of those special F/X look obscenely entertaining.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:21 (nineteen years ago)

"a story of courage and survival"

this is the "schindler's list" of 9/11 movies isn't it?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:34 (nineteen years ago)

"a story of abject fear and death" didn't make it past the test audiences i guess

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:37 (nineteen years ago)

x-post: Does that make United 93 the Shoah?

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:38 (nineteen years ago)

also why does nicholas cage have lice in his chin stubble?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:38 (nineteen years ago)

also p.s. yes this movie makes me hate the world.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:40 (nineteen years ago)

i fear the soundtrack

― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:40 (nineteen years ago)

Which part of the grieving process is it that involves pointing and laughing.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:42 (nineteen years ago)

i fear the soundtrack

VANGELIS

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:43 (nineteen years ago)

YES!

― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 18 May 2006 04:52 (nineteen years ago)

I kept thinking of the Donnie Darko soundtrack :/ I spose Maggie G in it didnt help. Man, I think I got diabetes watching that trailer.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 18 May 2006 10:22 (nineteen years ago)

looks expensive, feels cheap

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 18 May 2006 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

Not laughing, stunned silence. I kept checking the URL just to make sure this was real and not a parody.

The question I have is, why? Who, especially in the US, is going to want to go and watch this film so soon after the real life events happened?

― mms (mms), Thursday, 18 May 2006 11:44 (nineteen years ago)

Huuuuge lol at the bit where Cage shouts "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" in slow motion. I've been waiting ages to see him do that, but can never be bothered to watch any of his films. Therefore this = excellent trailer.

― melton mowbray's APOCALYPTO! (adr), Thursday, 18 May 2006 12:12 (nineteen years ago)

Who, especially in the US, is going to want to go and watch this film so soon after the real life events happened?

Who would go and watch this film ever? Keeping close to the actual events with it's horrific outcome - like a documentary - doesn't seem to be this film's biggest concern. To avoid people being overwhelmed and sadden like they where overwhelmed and saddened when 9/11 actually happened, it will probably be drowned in sentimental dreck, with some by-plot 'love'-twist. What for? What does this movie 'promise', what can it 'give' to both the people and the actual tragedy that went down?

― Gerard (Gerard), Thursday, 18 May 2006 12:53 (nineteen years ago)

sounds shit

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 18 May 2006 13:01 (nineteen years ago)

actually the only thing that really concerned me was the music (but only because you don't see enough of the film in the trailer to indicate whether there's any attempt at intelligent political comments and acknowledgements at all, tho use of words like 'evil' suggests not likely :(

the bit where Cage and his colleague are buried in the debris but conveniently their heads are exposed so they can talk to each other = ultra macabre...but do people really need that kind of reminder about how it may have gone down for many of the rescue party? i couldn't actually tell if Cage and co. survive in the end - do they?

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 18 May 2006 13:03 (nineteen years ago)

This movie will be totally, totally okay with me as long as at one point they show William Shatner in a 3rd grade classroom holding a book upside down making this face
http://www.boston-legal.org/awards/2005-emmys-shatner-win-3.jpg

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 May 2006 13:11 (nineteen years ago)

EPILOGUE:
THREE YEARS LATER
http://television.westumulka.com/outerlimits/images/shatner.jpg
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 May 2006 13:13 (nineteen years ago)

hopefully when it comes time to depict the hijackers they will have made the wise and economic decision to recycle the makeup and prosthetics of the Uruk-Hai from LOTR

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 May 2006 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

"Do you ever get the feeling that there's something... powerful pressing down on you?"

― p@reene (Pareene), Thursday, 18 May 2006 13:25 (nineteen years ago)

can someone change the thread title to include the name of the film or something? otherwise we're going to have 100 threads on the same subject.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 18 May 2006 15:11 (nineteen years ago)

I've just requested it.

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Thursday, 18 May 2006 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

I might be alone here, but I don't think this film on the surface looks any more pointless than United 93.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:05 (nineteen years ago)

It stars Nicholas Cage and is directed by Oliver Stone = automatically loses like 2 pts straight out of the cage for me.

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

No more pointless perhaps, but way more manipulative and nausiating.

xpost

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:08 (nineteen years ago)

I dunno. Unfettered "realism" still seems pretty manipulative and dubious. Maybe even more nauseating. Of course, I can't continue down this road until I actually see 93.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:10 (nineteen years ago)

Like an "it's OK to reexperience some of 9/11 and go through something like catharsis so long as there's no aesthetic pull to it" sort of thing. (Not saying Stone's film looks to have any aesthetic that we haven't seen in Titanic or The Day After Tomorrow.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

deleted scene = that old pic of Jon Williams head zapping the plane with his laser eyes

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:14 (nineteen years ago)

In what way is this not just a big-budget snuff film?

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:16 (nineteen years ago)

(Besides the fact that, y'know, no one starring in the movie actually dies.)

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:18 (nineteen years ago)

see if this was old-school stone it'd be great

― late to the bloom to the er (latebloomer), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:20 (nineteen years ago)

I imagine he's abandoning his conspiracy obssession for this one.

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

"19 hijackers with four planes doin' all this, planned right down to a T? that dog don't hunt."

― gear (gear), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:28 (nineteen years ago)

"what'd they say about atta and flyin' planes? he got maggie's drawers. that mean he wasn't any good."

― gear (gear), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

i'm just happy that we'll finally have a definitive worst movie ever.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

EXACTLY

cheney and rove dressed in gold paint, kevin bacon masturbating in the corner!

― late to the bloom to the er (latebloomer), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

er, x-post

― late to the bloom to the er (latebloomer), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

OR IS IT...

...?

― Jimmy Mod is a super idol of The MARS SPIRIT (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:32 (nineteen years ago)

something makes me seriously wonder if some big GOP donor had the idea to feed greengrass and stone the necessary $$$ for these on a schedule to ride out our favorite lame duck

because that's just stupid enough of a "conspiracy", not clever at all, that I can imagine a human being having it and following through

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

"in august '99, mohammed attas started poppin up everywhere, askin how to fly planes, get box cutters through security checkpoints, how to best bring down tall buildings..."

"bout as subtle as a cockroach crawlin cross a white rug."

― gear (gear), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:34 (nineteen years ago)

im hoping this has cage in 'adaptation' fake charlie kaufman mode

― and what (ooo), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:35 (nineteen years ago)

Playing Oliver Stone agonising over how to put a sensitive treatment of 9/11 on screen, until his twin brother tells him he should just do it as a vapid action flick.

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:38 (nineteen years ago)

"Have I ever told you, that this jacket is a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom?"

― kephm (kephm), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:40 (nineteen years ago)

"the real mohammed atta woulda had as much reason for pilot lessons as a cat does pajamas!"

― late to the bloom to the er (latebloomer), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

judging from the tailer he's in generic accent from nowhere mode.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:42 (nineteen years ago)

"Did you put that fucking shit in the papers?"

"Who is this?"

"You know know exactly who the fuck this is!"

"Zacarias?"

"THat's right!"

― gear (gear), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:43 (nineteen years ago)

Everytime a movie comes out about the survivors of a horrible disaster, it just makes me think of the victims that they're not going to make any movies about because it's just so sad and depressing.

I mean, I guess you can't have your protagonist jumping out of a window halfway through your movie, right?

Even with something like Pearl Harbor. You know those bodies they found in the hub of one of the ships? There were hatch marks on the walls where the soldiers had been counting off each day. I'm sure that they held out hope until they finally perished sometime after Christmas Day, 1941. MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT THOSE GUYS.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

You fuckers are gonna make me rent JFK now. Damn you.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

Nicholas Cage looks like some washed up 80s gay porn star with that moustache.

― The Mercury Krueger (Ex Leon), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

I couldn't get the trailer to work on either firefox or ie. Probably a good thing, I'd'a just got annoyed. Stone is a fucking moron, and making an action movie about this is a terrible tasteless idea.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:48 (nineteen years ago)

"The organizing principle of any society, Mr. Garrison, is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers. Ol' FDR needed a war to kick off his third term. Get the atomic race up and running against the Soviets. He set Chamberlin up and even knew about the Japanese ambassasdors that he stood up on that Sunday mornin'. It was the next step of a New Deal. And it all that started on the 7th of December, 1941..."

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, I guess you can't have your protagonist jumping out of a window halfway through your movie, right?

How dare you bring reality into this.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

I wonder if "Bad Day" will be on the soundtrack.

― The Mercury Krueger (Ex Leon), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:52 (nineteen years ago)

If this thread has taught me anything, it's taught me that I don't know any lines of JFK dialogue by heart that weren't spoken by John Candy.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

Actually my favorite JFK moment is in the next thing Stone did, Wild Palms. There's a bit where Harry Shearer is interviewing Stone as himself on TV and Shearer says something like, "So, now that all the information has come out showing that your JFK film was all true, how do you feel about that?" Talk about wish fulfillment and bad cocaine...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 May 2006 16:54 (nineteen years ago)

I imagine he's abandoning his conspiracy obssession for this one.

it's funny, because I remember reading about Stone giving a crazy Stone-ian interview after September 11th in which he basically spouted off some the-government-was-behind-it-the-terrorists-aren't-evil-we're evil nonsense. maybe he's calmed down and imagines this movie as penance? not that that's going to make it watchable.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

There's a bit where Harry Shearer is interviewing Stone as himself on TV and Shearer says something like, "So, now that all the information has come out showing that your JFK film was all true, how do you feel about that?" Talk about wish fulfillment and bad cocaine...

I was watching Dave a couple of Sunday afternoons ago, and I still got a kick out of Stone's cameo with Larry King.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT THOSE GUYS.

The Perfect Storm was crap, though.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.sportsevents.net/events/images/jerry_seinfeld.jpg

― lf (lfam), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

oh man, watching that freaked me out so much i forgot to image link seinfeld. but wow, that looks awful. i bet it wins an oscar.

― lf (lfam), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

"I GOT IT SARGE!!!"

― JW (ex machina), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

If this thread has taught me anything, it's taught me that I don't know any lines of JFK dialogue by heart that weren't spoken by John Candy.

"Now you just up and said the first thing that popped in your cabeza, ya dig, daddy-o?"

http://www.wherehouse.com/amgcover/dvd/full/t0/54/t054094e3wr.jpg

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 18 May 2006 18:04 (nineteen years ago)

Hahaha gear don't stop with the quotes!

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 May 2006 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

oh fucking hell

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 18 May 2006 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know if this what you're talking about, but I remember reading this New Yorker thing when it came out and being completely dumbfounded:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/011022ta_talk_the_pictures

― 31g (31g), Thursday, 18 May 2006 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

yes, that's what I was thinking of! thank you; I had been wondering if I'd made it up; it was so bizarre.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 18 May 2006 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, the whole thing really reads like a fever dream.

― 31g (31g), Thursday, 18 May 2006 18:23 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah I remember that! I like how the description of Stone makes him seem like a Dalek.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 May 2006 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

y'know William Shatner really SHOULD be in this movie.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 May 2006 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

Tim Burton should just redo Mars Attacks! and call it Osama Attacks! and it would work just as well.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 May 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

I still love the "Oliver Stone Land" skit from the Ben Stiller Show.

― LOL Thomas (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 18 May 2006 23:45 (nineteen years ago)

does anyone remember the retracted news reports that day of a survivor who "surfed" down the debris?

they should makes a movie about him.
(i'm not making this up, anyone remember that?)

― and there are lot's of other sites, but all of them are fake... (sanskrit), Friday, 19 May 2006 00:32 (nineteen years ago)

How soon until someone makes a sci-fi time travel movie that uses 9/11 as a backdrop?

― LOL Thomas (Chris Barrus), Friday, 19 May 2006 00:37 (nineteen years ago)

Can you imagine Oliver Stone telling you to nervously clench a sheet?

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 19 May 2006 00:38 (nineteen years ago)

"You're worried about a mustachioed Nic Cage. You can't imagine life without him. Go for the sheet."

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 19 May 2006 00:39 (nineteen years ago)

Oliver Stone, I hate you and everything you stand for. Quite a coup getting Freddie Mercury to do a star turn, though.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 19 May 2006 01:28 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.epicharmus.com/ihateuoliverstone.jpg

There are so many things hateful and wrong with this shot it's not even funny.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 19 May 2006 01:45 (nineteen years ago)

1. Subtle and yet not subtle at all airplane shadow.
2. Reasonably certain that the base of the Westin hotel (the big angular building) wasn't near this level of completion in 9/01.
3. More architecture nerd shit: not only can you see the Loews E-Walk theater and the Reuters building but the Condé Nast building as well. Yes, yes, modern media, J'ACCUSE! 'n' shit.
4. OLLIE STONE WHY U HATE ZOOLANDER?!?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 19 May 2006 01:58 (nineteen years ago)

5. I'm also not sure there are any buildings around the Westin tall and close enough to throw shadows on it like that, even in the morning, but whatevs.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 19 May 2006 02:09 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah. That plane shadow.

ANd the Zoolander ad is cute. A movie about Zoolander digitally removed the towers from its release, and a movie about the towers digitally inserts Zoolander.

(And if you've ever watched Ben Stiller get digitally inserted, well, I tells ya...)

How soon until someone makes a sci-fi time travel movie that uses 9/11 as a backdrop?

The week after September 11, 2001, was a rough one, wasn't it? Nothing on television except for those buildings falling, time and time again. I remember that Sunday night, one of our local UHF stations finally started playing "regular" programming again. It was late at night, and an episode of "Outer Limits" was on. Now, I'm not really a science-fiction fan, but after too much reality for a week, I was watching it.

Anyway. The episode centered around this group in the future who are huddled in this underground bunker. Outside, there's a virus killing millions and billions of people. Someone's got a time machine and a mission to go back in time and find the person who started the virus.

The guy goes back in time from the future, and his past is our present. Except when he walks out of the time machine, there's a shot of the World Trade Center behind him, a visual clue to the viewer that it's the "present day". Except now (then), it was obviously the past. One of those weird flukes that some director decided upon in 1999 that would later symbolize much more.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 19 May 2006 10:58 (nineteen years ago)

THE WORLD SAW EVIL THAT DAY

TWO MEN SAW SOMETHING ELSE

http://www.onedigitallife.com/images/brokeback-mountain.jpg

― Dan (Is It Just Me?) Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 19 May 2006 11:05 (nineteen years ago)

That New Yorker Stone piece is awesome--almost makes me want to overlook the fact that he has never made a good film ever, and never will.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Friday, 19 May 2006 11:47 (nineteen years ago)

(And if you've ever watched Ben Stiller get digitally inserted, well, I tells ya...)

As I recall, wasn't Ben Stiller supposed to host the second episode of SNL after 9/11 but he cancelled out because he didn't think it was appropriate?

― LOL Thomas (Chris Barrus), Friday, 19 May 2006 13:05 (nineteen years ago)

sweet, they completely copped La Jetee..

― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 19 May 2006 13:13 (nineteen years ago)

I've been trying to google that episode of "The [New} Outer Limits", but damn. They sure do have a lot of episodes that revolve around everyone having a virus.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 19 May 2006 13:29 (nineteen years ago)

ihttp://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,1097541_4,00.jpg

when will they ever appreciate you, Oliver?

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 19 May 2006 13:33 (nineteen years ago)

"A lot of Oliver's movies are like operas," Gyllenhaal added, insisting that "Center" will aim to echo the power of his best historical dramas. "They're painting a really emotional, really committed portrait of a time. ... That's what he pushes you to — a really committed, honest opera."

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 19 May 2006 13:35 (nineteen years ago)

"They're painting a really emotional, really committed portrait of a time. ... That's what he pushes you to — a really committed, honest opera."

next up, Oliver Stone presents The Passion of the Sujfan

― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 19 May 2006 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

Is everyone really saying it's too soon for a movie about this? I don't understand this mentality. What's the right amount of time to wai, ten years? A generation? Ridiculous.

― richardk (Richard K), Friday, 19 May 2006 14:18 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know what everyone else is saying, but I'm saying it looks maudlin and hurtin'.

― dave's good arm (facsimile) (dave225.3), Friday, 19 May 2006 14:22 (nineteen years ago)

What's the right amount of time to wai

No wai.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 19 May 2006 14:27 (nineteen years ago)

Shakey Mo and I agree AGAIN!!

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 19 May 2006 14:32 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-13-Thu-2001/photos/atta.jpg

I'll tell you this, in any fight it's the guy whose willing to die whose gonna win that inch. And I know, if I'm gonna have any life any more it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that's what living is, the six inches in front of your face. Now I can't make you do it. You've got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now I think ya going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. Your gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team, because he knows when it comes down to it your gonna do the same for him. That's a team gentlemen, and either, we heal as a team, or we will die as individuals. That's football guys, that's all it is. Now what are you gonna do?

― Enrique IX: The Mediator (Enrique), Friday, 19 May 2006 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

A good antidote to all the self-regarding portentiousness (cheered me up, anyway):

http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/flushedaway/

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Friday, 19 May 2006 18:29 (nineteen years ago)

"Remember, this is most likely going to be a very emotional film made by a consummate filmmaker and artist."
- Harry Knowles

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23408

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 14:30 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

The critics rave. (Note the critic.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 20 July 2006 18:49 (nineteen years ago)

In fact, Jesus makes an appearance in Jimeno's hallucination, carrying a bottle of water to quench his thirst

― gear (gear), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:04 (nineteen years ago)

That line leapt out at me as well. A Noize Jesus would bring Sparks.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:05 (nineteen years ago)

Jesus makes an appearance in Jimeno's hallucination, carrying a bottle of water to quench his thirst).

http://members.aol.com/JesusImages/ImagesJun06/jogger.jpg

XPOST

― Machibuse '80 (ex machina), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:06 (nineteen years ago)

ewww cal thomas

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:12 (nineteen years ago)

"These are real men who love their wives and children and are not afraid to say so."

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:13 (nineteen years ago)

I am betting Armond White will love this movie.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:14 (nineteen years ago)

Harry Knowles FUCKING LOVES IT FUCKING AWESOME. No surprise there.

― chap who would dare to start Raaatpackin (chap), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:32 (nineteen years ago)

its weird to me that the TV ads don't mention this is an OLIVER STONE film (at least the ones I've seen haven't)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

I am afraid to say that I love my wife and children.

― Fluffy Bear, Perpetual 12-Year-Old (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:48 (nineteen years ago)

YOU ARE A FAKE MAN!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:48 (nineteen years ago)

its weird to me that the TV ads don't mention this is an OLIVER STONE film

It's not weird at all!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

I can't wait to see the director's cut where he completely rejiggers the entire plot and suggests that the firemen are actually bisexual. HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES, CAL?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:53 (nineteen years ago)

I wonder if this will be a better performance of Jesus than Donald Sutherland's in Johnny Got His Gun. These things are important, you realize.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

this so shoulda been a classic Stone conspiracy film. he needs to get back on the rock!

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

Harry Knowles is a fucking moron btw.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:55 (nineteen years ago)

YOU ARE A FAKE MAN!

I need to unleash the raw power of my heart.

― Fluffy Bear, Perpetual 12-Year-Old (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

Harry Knowles is a fucking moron btw.

Sea monkeys have greater critical faculties than this circus freak.

― GILLY'S BAGG'EAR VANCE OF COUPARI (Ex Leon), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

yes armond white will love this film. during the review he'll rail against hipster critics who rip stone, compare it to united 93 which he will probably rip into, name-drop spielberg and mention 'war of the worlds' as a comparably great post-9/11 film, etc etc.

― gear (gear), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

this is a very probing take on the picture:

World Trade Center: A Paramount Pictures Film by Oliver Stone

Director Oliver Stone Flirted with Controversy Past: Ground Zero's Future?
By Steve Lee

The World Trade Center, 1,368 foot-tall Twin Towers, to be brought down by America's generosity. The United States of America, the land of millions of immigrants dreams. New York City, the target of nineteen immigrants nightmare scenario.

In the harbor, on Ellis Island, Lady Liberty heard the explosions on the day the sirens wailed.

World Trade Center, a film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Nicolas Cage New York and New Jersey Port Authority Police Officer John McLoughlin and Michael Pena as fellow Police Officer Will Jimeno. Maria Bello beautifully plays Donna McLoughlin and Maggie Gyllenhal portrays Allison Jimeno as the families reactions to the events of September eleventh, 2001are narrated in this Paramount Pictures film, the first major motion picture to address the attack on the World Trade Center's Twin Towers.

The World Saw Evil That Day. Two Men Saw Something Else, New York citizens helping each other after the cataclysmic collapse of the skyscrapers.

Historical movies create problems for the writer of the initial script treatment. Events must sequenced and the time compressed so that the story moves along, after all this is a film and it must be entertaining. OfficerJohn McLoughlin wrote the original treatment, so the audience can be assured that the events that occured on September eleventh and the effects on the families will be dipicted as he remembers.

Director Oliver Stone at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2006: "It is the true story of two New York Port Authority policemen trapped in the rubble and their incredible, improbable rescue. History is shaped by collective memory, what I hope one day will be seen as truth. The truth must exist in some way to confront power and extremism. World Trade Center is the story of the humanity of 9-11, it's not about the terrorists ,it's not about the major part of the event itself. It's about the families and loved ones and what they were going through that day.

― gear (gear), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:43 (nineteen years ago)

True, reading that made me feel probed.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:44 (nineteen years ago)

he fucks you with his words, ned

― gear (gear), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:44 (nineteen years ago)

I thought I smelled something.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:45 (nineteen years ago)

i hope Stone's next movie is a biography of Lincoln or something he can go nuts on. because this...just ain't any fun

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:56 (nineteen years ago)

Boy oh boy, scan through the various postings on this film from NROville and you'd think that nothing else matters. All kinds of 'every American should see this!' reflexive idiocy that's breathtaking in its inanity (most specifically the idea that somehow we've 'forgotten' what happened). Who would have thought that the relative voice of sanity would turn out to be Podhoretz?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 21 July 2006 11:58 (nineteen years ago)

We HAVE forgotten what happened though Ned, and how it felt that day - the subsequent spinning of the event, the war-ification of it, has almost erased that feeling completely

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:09 (nineteen years ago)

(and actually I wonder if this movie, so absolutely choked with pure-grade Karo sentimentality as it so clearly is, might actually recall that feeling - i.e. peel back the calcified layers of subsequent war-mongering to let us recall the simple sadness and togetherness and awakening bitterness at the CRIMINALITY of that act that people felt that day?)

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:17 (nineteen years ago)

(although the plaudits it's getting from a dugout full of Team NeoCon would point to, uh, "as if")

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:18 (nineteen years ago)

I mandate that the remainder of the posts on this thread be comprised as follows:

11% Antinostalgia for Reagan/Weinberger times
17% Paraprosdokian gags at the expense of hacks who watch movies for a living
17% Juvenalian satire at the expense of hacks who watch movies for a living
27% Exoamerican Weltanschauung as it relates to this phenomenon
28% The Jeremiad of Tracey Hand

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:02 (nineteen years ago)

Let's make a movie out of the last one.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:13 (nineteen years ago)

my post is not meant to be as dismissive or meanspirited as it sounds, upon rereading.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

all these aging motherfuckers who still get props + production funds from the World Of Film for showing an inkling of genius 25 years ago trying to make Best Pictures over and over again is really fucking nauseating at this point and I personally feel that Earth and the Human Race would not be missing out on very much if they were all taken behind the "H" in "HOLLYWOOD" and shot. personally.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:25 (nineteen years ago)

I like how Cage's career vacillates film by film between "My god, I need to pay my mortgage" and "Another Oscar, PLLLLLLLLLLLLLEASE!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

The words "I like" and "Nicholas Cage" do not belong in a sentence together, ever.

― Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

From the serious thinkers at NRO:

John, you’re correct that Stone makes no attempt to explore the motives and psychology of the enemy. But he has made it clear that we Americans have an enemy and that he is a barbarian. He is evil. He loves death.

By contrast, we treasure life. Our enemy sees that as our weakness. We believe that in the long run it will prove to be our strength. We are, literally, betting our lives on it.

― Fluffy Bear, Perpetual 12-Year-Old (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

NATIONAL TREASURE PEOPLE

― Fluffy Bear, Perpetual 12-Year-Old (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

The words "I like" and "Nicholas Cage" do not belong in a sentence together, ever.

In retrospect it was an ill-chosen phrasing.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:40 (nineteen years ago)

National Treasure is one of the worst movies I've seen since 2001 (after everything changed), it is up there with Minority Report and that movie where Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey are dating (I haven't seen the one where Sarah Jessica and Matthew are dating, that might be pretty bad too).

― Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:42 (nineteen years ago)

(I haven't seen the one where Sarah Jessica and Matthew are dating, that might be pretty bad too).

Oh god, they were showing that on the train trip between Seattle and Portland. I resolutely enjoyed the scenery by looking out the window instead. My occasional glimpses towards the screen revealed scenes that made it seem more like an international spy caper, oddly enough -- swooping shots of yachts, tense scenes in hospitals and Matthew M. tied up and abused by the rest of the cast.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:47 (nineteen years ago)

Oh there was one I saw that was pretty bad too, it had Amy Smart and Anna Faris in it and someone who I don't know. It was about dude was fat and gross in high school and his best friend was Amy Smart and then he got skinny and wanted to do Amy Smart but had to trail around this popstar who was Anna Faris, so he ditched the pop star with his little brother (??? maybe) and I think his little brother had sex with the popstar and I seem to remember the ex-fattey got punched by Amy Smart? I watched it out of boredom on a plane. The male lead kind of looked like an even crapper Jason Lee.

― Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

Now that movie was probably worse than National Treasure but not by much.

― Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

It is one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.
-- a name means a lot just by itself (lfamula...), Today.

It is one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, anti-female, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.
-- a name means a lot just by itself (lfamula...), Today.

Yeah, I did a double-take too when I read "pro-male." Like, what?
-- Tracey Hand (tracerhan...), Today.

wow wrong thread sorry
-- a name means a lot just by itself (lfamula...), Today.

but, yeah, isn't that nuts?!
-- a name means a lot just by itself (lfamula...), Today.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 21 July 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

Ally, that film review up there is a thing of beauty. You should consider making a career of it.

"Ebert and Ally" - this could work!

xpost

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Friday, 21 July 2006 14:06 (nineteen years ago)

http://home.gwu.edu/~tombot/meat.gif

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 14:07 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060723-093638-8062r.htm

I want to believe.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 05:15 (nineteen years ago)

(Again, note the source.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 05:17 (nineteen years ago)

What makes all of this so especially welcome is how Mr. Stone tells this remarkable American story without a hint of Hollywood cynicism. For instance, when Staff Sgt. Karnes talks about how God has called him to New York, what the audience doesn't get is a character countering his faith with any of the secular liberalism currently dominating the usual Hollywood fare. The movie is, in so many ways, a return to Hollywood's halcyon past, as if the last 30 years of anti-military, anti-American movie tradition suddenly was unable to answer the question of how men become heroes and what makes America great. To his credit, Mr. Stone lets his characters answer it themselves, as they did on that day of days.

just above

http://c5.zedo.com/OzoDB/0/2/183770/V1/coulter_voteREG_300x250.gif

― kingfish cyclopean ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 05:27 (nineteen years ago)

"That day of days"? Uh that day fuckin sucked. Let's not set it on some pedestal please.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 09:10 (nineteen years ago)

too late

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 12:15 (nineteen years ago)

I mean maybe you were lucky enough to work in one of the statiscally insignificant group of offices that didn't have at least one heartland-transplant employee who loaded up a wallpaper featuring the WTC, the Pentagon, a bald eagle, a waving flag and "NEVER FORGET" in silver 3-D rendered serif face. Although apparently Oliver Stone didn't either, or he's just a fucking asshole.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

They should've made bald eagles crying a big theme in this movie, it would be the most honest.

― Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:03 (nineteen years ago)

Your search - "Jesus = Bald Eagle" - did not match any amusing documents.

― DAVE's secret to fortu-Oh look! Shiny! (dave225.3), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:06 (nineteen years ago)

They should've made bald eagles crying a big theme in this movie, it would be the most honest.

That's going to be Dreamworks' follow-up to Over the Hedge. (Voice talent by Vin Diesel, Haley Joel Osment and That One Voiceover Guy; theme song by John Mayer.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:08 (nineteen years ago)

Part of me really wants to see this movie :(

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:10 (nineteen years ago)

The part of me that giggles at the thought of being sworn at for laughing during this movie is the same part that actually wants to go see it, therefore I cannot (that is also why there are dinosaurs). :c

― Jessie the Monster (scarymonsterrr), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:11 (nineteen years ago)

Part of me really wants to see this movie :(

You might remember there was a miniFAP to see Good Ol' Mr. Stone's previous epic Alexander upon release. The problem was that while we were all appropriately semi-soused and ready for camp, the audience were mostly a bunch of stoic fans. This film will be like that but worse.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:14 (nineteen years ago)

So, will Donald Sutherland play the grim, cynical insider or a grim, cynical arsonist?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

yup, the security guy actually had this on his cube wall

http://www.subwaywebnews.com/wtc/WTC%20Jesus.jpg

― kingfish cyclopean ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

And Devendra will gather the little ones unto him.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, either that, or having Jesus preside over a mushroom cloud seems a bit off

― kingfish cyclopean ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

shouldn't those people be falling?

― oh, wrinklepaws! (Wrinklepaws), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 14:15 (nineteen years ago)

God bless Red Meat (xpost).

― Fluffy Bear, Perpetual 12-Year-Old (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 14:16 (nineteen years ago)

I don't get the firemen-baiting. I always thought
of them as basically un'f'withable. I mean, c'mon
they're firemen. Why the cynicism? They save people!
Sometimes they get burnt up instead! Why bash 'em?

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 23:00 (nineteen years ago)

Clearly I missed the fireman-bashing portion of this thread.

― Jessie the Monster (scarymonsterrr), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

i actually kinda liked this movie.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

i'll clarify that: i thought it was pretty good! it's a corny movie in a lot of ways but it is also very well-made. it uses the devices of the tearjerker/inspirational movie very skillfully i thought.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

i mean, i was sitting there thinking "i guess this is pretty sappy" but i still bought it. it was compelling.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 13:53 (nineteen years ago)

the lead-up to the collapse of the towers is shown pretty much entirely from the emergency workers' point of view (you only see the towers fall down on a playback on someone's tv screen). it's pretty rivetting.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 13:55 (nineteen years ago)

OK, Mr. Defensive.

― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes. (allyzay), Friday, 4 August 2006 13:56 (nineteen years ago)

well considering how people were pretty much drooling with hate on this thread i figured i had to come out with my guard up!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:00 (nineteen years ago)

EMO

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

Anyway, did you leave waving a flag and feeling pro-male?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:03 (nineteen years ago)

i went straight to a tattoo parlor and got a canadian flag design on the head of my penis.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:04 (nineteen years ago)

Under, over, or all around?

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

let me check

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

oh fuck

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

they fucking substituted a pot leaf for the maple leaf (it's all around btw)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

i was sitting there thinking "i guess this is pretty sappy" but i still bought it. it was compelling.

-- s1ocki (slytus...), August 4th, 2006.

Effective emotional manipulation does not equal good movie. I mean, I'll put a cute kid in danger on the screen and you'll feel something, so what?

At least Snakes on a Plane wears its crassness like an idiot badge of honor...

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

so you're saying if a movie is well-made that doesn't make it a good movie if it's also kinda sappy?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:48 (nineteen years ago)

fuck that, talk about misreading what i said.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

Crass piece of shit trumps crass piece of craftsmanship?

Hawthorne Heights to thread!

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:24 (nineteen years ago)

peter travers says, "Stephen Dorff scores as EMS officer Scott Strauss".

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

a little bit of sentimentality never hurt anyone. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, say, is sentimental as shit (in an indie kinda way) and everyone loves it!

the advance word has actually got me curious about this movie.

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

so you're saying if a movie is well-made that doesn't make it a good movie if it's also kinda sappy?

-- s1ocki (slytus...), August 4th, 2006.

I dunno, I don't mind sap per se, but this isn't Steel Magnolias we're talking about here. I think I'm still recoiling in horror from the Stone-does-9/11 concept. I can impassively discuss the emotional manipulation in a well-oiled beartrap like Kramer vs. Kramer, but for some reason I find this film repulsive.

Crass piece of shit trumps crass piece of craftsmanship?

If the piece of shit doesn't have any pretensions that it's something other than what it is, yeah, I find that less grating aesthetically. Personally I'd rather watch The Road Warrior than Saving Private Ryan.

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

there's room in this world for both

― PARTYMAN (dubplatestyle), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

edward you haven't even seen the movie

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:49 (nineteen years ago)

i said this movie succeeds despite being sappy. you said... i dunno what you said. if you really judge movies based on their trailers, well, can't help you there. enjoy snakes on a plane.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

i don't really understand where you're getting the idea that this movie is "pretentious" either... it's a pretty unpretentious movie! i mean it totally wears its heart on its sleeve.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:52 (nineteen years ago)

the tv spots for this film are more crass than i would have believed possible

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:54 (nineteen years ago)

what pisses me off is the surfeit of conservative news outlets/reviews that imply stone has reformed his evil liberal ways.

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:54 (nineteen years ago)

if you stick around till the end of the credits donald sutherland shows up & explains what really went down.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:54 (nineteen years ago)

i won't see this movie. it might be good, but i don't think it would add anything to my life except to remind me that hollywood will make sap out of anything!

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

'and in that document (flash frame) lay the second gulf war'

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

honestly, i couldn't have gone into this movie with more of a skeptical attitude but i totally liked it.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

but you've got a point slocki: there's definitely a kneejerk academic(ized) reaction to call out as 'manipulative' anything that pairs emotional content with political/historical content. granted, flicks like saving private ryan are big offenders in this arena, and deserve this accusation but re. world trade center it seems, i dunno, an easy and unproveable criticism to level.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

(i know that's not exactly what you said, but that's how i'm parsing the exchange b/w you and edward above)

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

i mean, if you wanna see a movie with zero emotional manipulation then help yourself to some late peter greenaway

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

i dunno, the idea of restaging a horror like the 9/11 attacks (in which 3,000 people died,people whose loved ones are still smarting) for the purpose of ... what? ... just bothers me, viscerally.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 4 August 2006 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

which i don't think has anything to do with "sentimentality"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

cheney: We can't let powell stick his nose in this thing! Every time he goes over to baghdad for some fact-finding mission... ...he comes back and scares the shit out of bush! Now I want condoleeza rice on him night and day... ...like a fly on shit. You control powell, you control bush.

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

and it is manipulative (most movies are)! but it works! i was manipulated! i think most people who object to this probably don't want to see a movie about 9/11. which is totally okay. but i am fine with seeing a movie about 9/11.

(also i think ppl are pre-judging this based on stone's other work which is understandable but you should put that aside when you actually watch the movie)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

amateurist do you feel the same way about hotel rwanda or welcome to sarajevo or any other movie about horrible shit that happened within recent memory?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

i'd like to see a film of 9/11 similar to stone's other work!

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, say, is sentimental as shit (in an indie kinda way) and everyone loves it!

so you've never read the thread about it then?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

i dunno, the idea of restaging a horror like the 9/11 attacks (in which 3,000 people died,people whose loved ones are still smarting) for the purpose of ... what? ... just bothers me, viscerally.

b-b-but this happens all the time! Re. Columbine, f'rinstance, Zero Day, Elephant, Home Room, Zero Day, Bowling for Columbine. Why should Stone have to prove his case? I'm sure there's a huge market for this film.

Creating art based on significant political happenings is important in allowing us to contextualize (yadda yadda yadda, we all know this argument...) and the film isn't made, marketed, or portrayed in an exploitatative and crass way. at least as far as I can tell.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

i'd like to see a film of 9/11 similar to stone's other work!

-- gear (speed.to.roa...) (webmail), Today 12:01 PM. (gear) (link)

"On nine eleven... at nine eleven... a man whose first name has nine letters and last name eleven... dialed nine one one."

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

i think the fact the film seems extremely tasteful and de-politicized is what bothers me. actually the more i think about it, i probably will see this, but on dvd.

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

no idea if this is any good, but the 'manipulative' horseshit that gets raised about any film that might possibly have try to have a heart is the dumbest trope on these boards.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:11 (nineteen years ago)

amateurist do you feel the same way about hotel rwanda or welcome to sarajevo or any other movie about horrible shit that happened within recent memory?

kind of, yeah. i also hated "elephant"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

for the same reason, amateurist? or because it wasn't a very good film?

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:15 (nineteen years ago)

i dunno am, i guess i am just not with you on that one. do you feel the same way about "open city" (made in 1945)?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

Every fucking film is manipulative. I don't like heartwarming stories of people overcoming super adversity. I don't particularly care to see a film about 9/11, especially not a heartwarming story of adversity-overcoming starring Nicholas Fucking Cage and directed by Oliver Stone (who hasn't made a good movie in god knows how long, he's become more dottery and useless than Scorcese). Was it Ned who said "Two cops who lived vs 3000 dead other ppl" vis a vis what is the real story here? That is, I guess, why I don't want to see this movie. That and Nicholas Fucking Cage's hideous dopey mug.

Just FYI.

― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes. (allyzay), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

i don't even know what to say to that 2 cops lived vs 3,000 dead thing... what exactly is the criticism there?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:22 (nineteen years ago)

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/26/wkd.kate.winslet.ap/story.titanic.jpg

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:25 (nineteen years ago)

It's not a criticism per se, it's just a statement against feel-good propaganda. This film very well might not be but I don't feel like putting myself in the position to find out.

― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes. (allyzay), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

Also Remy LEONARDO DIES OK?

― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes. (allyzay), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

God now THAT is a truly crap movie.

― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes. (allyzay), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

It sounds to me like the same crit leveled at Schindler's List -- that it chose an upbeat angle on a massive crime.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:29 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, Schindler's List was a regular little ray of sunshine.

― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes. (allyzay), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:29 (nineteen years ago)

(im just being a dick, ally, sorry)

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

No no, it was funny!

― Allyzay knows where the interfacing goes. (allyzay), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

i really do like 'schindler's list' a lot and that didn't bother me at all in that case, since it certainly didn't shy away from the horrors. i might prefer 'the pianist' more because i was more aware of the absence of what was once there, for some reason.

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

It sounds to me like the same crit leveled at Schindler's List -- that it chose an upbeat angle on a massive crime.

i'm sympathetic to that argument for sure... although i guess you could level it against grand illusion if you really wanted to

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:37 (nineteen years ago)

slocki does wtc shy away from the horrors? is it at all disturbing or intense or does it pull its punches? (it is rated pg-13 so i guess maybe a little...?)

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

if you really judge movies based on their trailers, well, can't help you there. enjoy snakes on a plane.

Haha, touche!

Yes, all films are manipulative - but some allow me to reflect on how they're manipulating me without affecting my enjoyment of them. Sounds like you had that type of reaction to World Trade Center.

But I don't usually enjoy Stone's films, not even in a take-em-or-leave-em way. Platoon infuriates me with its mawkishness and cartoon characterizations - all in the noble goal of bringing us a sensitive, transcendent commentary on the Vietnam experience™. If that's craftmanship, then give me crap! Imagining the same thing being done with 9/11 - I don't think I could stay in my seat. Perhaps World Trade Center is the great film Stone had in him that tragic events shook loose - but based on what I've seen I'm gonna go out on a limb and say not bloody likely.

Question: Does the marketing campaign provide an accurate or inaccurate sense of the film?

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 4 August 2006 18:43 (nineteen years ago)

any celebrity cameos?

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 4 August 2006 19:45 (nineteen years ago)

honestly i can't speak for the marketing, i've only seen that one trailer, which lays it on pretty thick.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

and yeah, i don't think it really shies away. you see the collapse from the inside of the towers and it's harrowing. it's fucking scary. and %40 of the movie is these guys trapped basically in hell. it's horrible.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

and maybe it's just me but despite the sappiness it's a MUCH more controlled film than anything stone has ever done.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 19:58 (nineteen years ago)

I don't want to watch a movie about Sarajevo or Rwanda or anything else that is such a fresh wound. A little time, a little perspective helps immeasurably.

Btw, Steel Magnolias is great.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

How does this improve upon the "9/11" documentary that CBS aired with the French(?) cameramen that ended up tagging along with the NYFD. That was pretty harrowing in itself and I can't see how it can be "improved" upon with a dramatic score and Oliver Stone.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:09 (nineteen years ago)

I'm kinda amused (confused?) as to why whenever anyone refers to an "Oliver Stone film" what they really mean is "JFK" (as if he never made "the Doors" or "Natural Born Killers" or whatever)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

Or Salvador!

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:23 (nineteen years ago)

i didn't see it! and you used the word "improved" first so i'm not sure why you put in quotes!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:25 (nineteen years ago)

slocki, i know you actually saw the movie and all, but we have seen the trailers and know conclusively that the movie sucks!

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

For one thing, it has Nicolas Cage in it, who has sucked for like ten years now.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

he has some diamonds in the rough

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

not in the last 10 years he doesn't

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:35 (nineteen years ago)

I liked Adaptation and The Weatherman

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:36 (nineteen years ago)

'bringing out the dead' is one of my favorite scorsese films, a very unusual, peculiar film in a good way i think.

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i know, that's crazy talk

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:40 (nineteen years ago)

He was good in Adaptation, and Bringing Out the Dead was okay. On the other hand, there were a million, awful pieces of crap.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:40 (nineteen years ago)

that movie had one good scene in it (ie, John Goodman and backwards snow). Otherwise it MADE NO SENSE AT ALL

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:40 (nineteen years ago)

seriously dudes if you perfect this pre-judging method you may never have actually see a movie again

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

sorry that's "have to"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

I ain't judgin nothin, but I can't say I have much desire to see it. It just doesn't sound interesting.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:42 (nineteen years ago)

dude bringing out the dead made perfect sense, it was just three days in the life of a batshit paramedic. nothing more, really.

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

i like it because it's one of the few more recent nicolas cage films that channels his old-school weirdness

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

Can we return to quoting JFK? We all agree it's got Stone's tastiest bon mots.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:52 (nineteen years ago)

seriously, why don't we drop this subject...it's one thing to engage in badinage with these youngsters, but this sort of thing could be so easily misunderstood.

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 22:59 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, bring those motherfuckers on with their college degrees!

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

i didn't see it!

It's worth tracking down...

I just don't see the reason why the story needs to be retold with soundtrack music and special effects.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:12 (nineteen years ago)

It's not like the attack on Pearl Harbor was any better with Ben Affleck & Michael Bay.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

Can we return to quoting JFK? We all agree it's got Stone's tastiest bon mots.

Only if I can quote from Nixon (which is just as tasty)

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:17 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.bob-hoskins.de/fotos/image/nixon_10.jpg

― gear (gear), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:20 (nineteen years ago)

There was an air of....I don't know, make-believe, in ILE.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

any celebrity cameos?
-- Zwan (anthonyisrigh...), August 4th, 2006. (miccio)

i heard there's a deleted scene where mel gibson plays a dude who notices all the jews leaving the towers 10 minutes before the first plane strikes.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Saturday, 5 August 2006 01:18 (nineteen years ago)

of course its a drunken hallucination where the jews are pointed out by a naked indian

― de latebloomer's 2015 youth crew revival (latebloomer), Saturday, 5 August 2006 01:54 (nineteen years ago)

con air dudes? c'mon.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Saturday, 5 August 2006 01:55 (nineteen years ago)

robble:

yes armond white will love this film. during the review he'll rail against hipster critics who rip stone, compare it to united 93 which he will probably rip into, name-drop spielberg and mention 'war of the worlds' as a comparably great post-9/11 film, etc etc.

-- gear (speed.to.roa...) (webmail), July 20th, 2006 2:30 PM.

THE AMERICAN CHARACTER
Instead of fueling fear, WTC inspires with personal stories

By Armond White

World Trade Center

Directed by Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone does just about everything right in his 9/11 movie World Trade Center, a dramatic recreation of what happened to two Port Authority policemen on that unforgettable day. John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Peña) were among the first-responders when the twin towers were struck. Helping to evacuate Tower One, their squad was trapped when the edifice collapsed. As McLoughlin and Jimeno lay buried in the rubble, Stone envisions the men’s desperate survival, the efforts by rescue teams determined to dig out any casualties, and the frantic anxiety of the men’s wives, Donna McLoughlin (Maria Bello) and Allison Jimeno (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

It is through Andrea Berloff’s screenplay that World Trade Center presents a well-thought-out view of the calamity. Berloff clarifies the event’s individual, social and domestic aspects. And Stone, with his practiced elucidation of Americans from various social strata caught up in political turmoil (war, big business, crime), recognizes how those different levels intertwine. This approach, rejecting United 93’s bogus docu-realism, never condescends to stroking our fears.

After 9/11, hucksters have had a huge opportunity to trick filmgoers who are unable to distinguish the solemnity of recent history from tacky Hollywood manipulation. During United 93, when I laughed at its preponderance of action-movie cliches, a middle-class woman chided me to “Be respectful!” Respectful of what? Clumsy exploitation-film mechanics! United 93 became an occasion for the nation’s media—and only a few, gullible ticket-buyers—to display self-righteous self-piety. Thankfully, Oliver Stone doesn’t go there. World Trade Center could really be about any public disaster, but Stone dignifies it by not over dramatizing its significance. He chooses to enlighten us about American character. Avoiding action-movie exploitation and specious docu-drama engenders absolute respect.

As film fiction, World Trade Center offers an interpretation of history. So it must operate just as Spielberg’s War of the Worlds did—turning real-life experience into symbol and metaphor. This is the proof of Stone’s intelligence and artistry.

The introductory sequence of different citizens preparing to work is a personalizing montage—it’s not anonymous-making like United 93, which turned characters into ciphers. (Director Paul Greengrass was clueless about the American quotidian and indifferent to his actors.) Stone gets it right that 9/11 was a blue-sky day but also a mundane, blue-collar day. His focus is on the diversity of the Port Authority’s public servants. This is not the all-white fraternity Mayor Giuliani posed with on the 9/15 episode of “Saturday Night Live”—propaganda that immediately re-wrote history in a homogeneous, jingoistic image. Stone shows one Port Authority officer receiving word of the terrorist attack from his wife who heard the news on hip-hop radio station HOT 97—a pluralizing, socially-credible correction to Giuliani’s political canard.

Stone refuses the class and race biases that pander to Patriotism. Instead, he commemorates McLoughlin and Jimeno’s unforeseeable trial as a shared social experience. Each scene in the rubble, on the streets and in the suburban homes may trigger your own, personal, isolating dread, yet Stone pushes for connection. Bypassing facile, demagogic homilies, he insists that the separate dramas compliment each other: Italian and Latino officers suffer and bond; both civilian and military volunteers join the rescue effort; and the two officers’ Catholic families, whether patriarchies or matriarchies, panic and pray in an ethnically distinct hubbub. These specifics are recognizable and necessary. Their freshness reveals how Hollywood customarily falsifies our social makeup or trivializes our common tragedies. Emboldened by the urgency of 9/11, Stone achieves a more honest sense of America’s urban mix than any from those New York-movie icons Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Spike Lee.

War of the Worlds set the high water mark for 9/11 movies through its similar depiction of community. Like Spielberg, Stone understands how catastrophe interrupts the conflicts of daily living. Separating 9/11 events from the quotidian would be misleading and a betrayal of the ultimate purpose of pop art. Stone recapitulates Spielberg’s wartime metaphor, turning World Trade Center into a hometown crusade. It’s not simply that the director of Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July prefers war narratives; Stone knows that we need the ritual of familiar myth. It reorients us to life suddenly gone beyond our ken, or turned stupefying.

Those core scenes of McLoughlin and Jimeno crushed under debris are ingenious. Recalling battle sequences in trenches or jungles, the men communicate through family stories, pop bromides and—when all else fails—sheer masculine camaraderie. (The salutation “brother” is coin of the realm.) Visually, the grim, collapsing dungeon—a pit within a pit—recalls the war tableau of Joseph Losey’s For King and Country, an exploration of the intricacies of political heroism. But here, Stone shows unexpected depth: knowing that 9/11 is not the moment to question patriotism (a pitfall for both the Right and Left), Stone turns to McLoughlin and Jimeno’s spiritual sustenance.

Both men’s marriages further reveal personality through intimacy and responsibility. These flashbacks are luminous and exacting, similar to Malick’s in The Thin Red Line, but here the women move fiercely—muses made real. In a corresponding gesture—but very bold for this politically correct era—Stone honors McLoughlin and Jimeno’s Catholic faith. He doesn’t let religion become a source of discord. In fact, there’s an extraordinary awareness of religious and political prerogative as germane to American individualism. This comes through in the subplot of Marine veteran Dave Karnes (played by Michael Shannon, his rectitude evoking Tom Berenger’s recruiting-poster GI image in Born on the Fourth of July). Karnes responds to the terrorist attack as a literal call to arms. He travels from his far-off town to the Towers site, following Semper Fi duty, to lend his hand. Like those lonely eccentrics in an Altman film, Karnes moves from narrative periphery to center and back. Solitary, and perhaps unknowable, he haunts our American pride. So Stone interweaves Karnes into Jimeno’s vision of Jesus—a salvation image that connects to McLoughlin remembering his wife. This multiplane sense of the spiritual life Americans hold in common is nearly miraculous—something only Griffith, Ford, Borzage, Clarence Brown and Spielberg would dare.

Each storyline in World Trade Center converges on the hellhole where McLoughlin and Jimeno lie imprisoned. (The wives obsess on that pit and at one audacious point, there’s even an intergalactic P.O.V.) As Stone thinks through 9/11, World Trade Center downplays tragic terrorism. Instead, he touches on existential despair, especially in a montage of empty commuter and subway trains followed by handmade posters of missing loved-ones. It’s the intellectual extension of McLoughlin and Jimeno being cast into “Hell” where one sees one’s mistakes (sins) and regrets; then longs for redemption.

Contemporary Hollywood typically uses horror scenarios that teach how to be shocked rather than to feel—stories that balk at the possibility of movies interpreting life. But World Trade Center profoundly summarizes America’s 9/11 experience—as when McLoughlin comes out of his torturous would-be grave. Faith then provides ecumenical deliverance: A symbolic congregation of hands reach down, pulling McLoughlin up, and he touches each one. That’s better than a mere memorial, better than any “official” Hollywood history editorial writers might call for. It’s an illustration of what we desperately need movies to provide.

― gear (gear), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 18:36 (nineteen years ago)

This movie wasn't that good, but maybe -- not having read any reviews, and knowing the rest of Stone's work -- I was expecting something a little broader in scope. It didn't feel like a big, definitive movie about 9/11 as much as a TV movie about guys trapped in a coal mine. I liked United 93 much better.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 21 August 2006 15:03 (nineteen years ago)

gear is "psychic"

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 21 August 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

Each storyline in World Trade Center converges on the hellhole where McLoughlin and Jimeno lie imprisoned. (The wives obsess on that pit and at one audacious point, there’s even an intergalactic P.O.V.)

wait waht?

― on in the b.g. while you're grouting (stevie), Monday, 22 February 2010 10:18 (sixteen years ago)

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