Equipoise, you need to ratchet it back a bit. There are no personal insults outside of the BBQ Pit, which you know since you’ve been told this on at least two other occasions. If you wanna Pit someone, do it; or just don’t insult them here.
I’ll watch it. If anything, this film came too late; what we need today more than ever is a reminder of the evil we’re fighting in the world. For all the outpouring of (in a few cases canned) emotion whenever 9/11 is mentioned, it seems that too many have already forgotten t he crushing horror of those events.
I guess I didn’t realize that calling someone a coward for being too wussy to see a movie that family members of the people actually murdered approved was a Pitworthy offence. My bad.
Oh god, that came out not only grammatically incorrect, it sounded snide toward a mod. I didn’t mean it that way. A touch snippy maybe, and I apologise.
After seeing the trailer, I think the movie will be a good thing, and I want to see it at some point. It looks like it’ll get away from all the propaganda and politics that have come to surround the event, and stick to the events of the day, and the emotions surrounding it in the immediate aftermath. It looks like an emotional film, that doesn’t focus on anything but the tragedy of that day, and the actions of the people involved. Remember when 9/11 happened, the out-pouring of emotion and support for a few days, before everything became so highly politicized? I think this film will take us back to that.
(There was one line in the teaser trailer that really got me–it was mainly just snippets of cell conversations, and one of them is of a girl saying “I have to go Mom, they’re getting ready to storm the cockpit. I love you.”)
I don’t see what it has to do with anything related to cowardice, or bravery. Since when has attending a show made one brave? In my estimation, the the film isn’t adding anything of grave topical interest. The events of that day have already been recounted in as much detail as is humanly possible to ascertain from the available evidence, with which we are now all well familiar if we haven’t been living under a rock for the past four years or so. The approval of disapproval of the families is irrelevant to the films’ intrinsic value as an informed historical account. For instance, do all of the families of victims of the hijackings approve of the film? If not, does their disapproval matter more or less than the families who the filmmakers chose to feature in their trailer, in terms of the film’s “value”?
If, in a sphere already quite saturated with verifiable information about the 9/11 hijackings, one doesn’t find much entertainment value in a dramatization, I rather object to the notion that lack of interest in the film on those grounds indicates cowardice, or even apathy. For myself, I’m satisfied with what I currently know, feel sufficiently edified by the facts, and will seek entertainment elsewhere.
This is actually why I think this movie is a bad idea. If I don’t want to see it, I’m a coward. On a previous thread on this subject, it was suggested that some people who don’t like this movie have a problem with heroism. I suppose if I did see it and didn’t like it, I’m unpatriotic. I shudder to think what this year’s Oscars will be like, especially if this or World Trade Center get snubbed.
I’m just sick of the subject. As a country, we’ve let 9/11 permeate our culture far outside of it’s actual importance. Can’t we just not fixate on it for a little while?
I don’t know if it’s too soon or not, but it sounds like yet another maudlin attempt to exploit 9-11. I’m so sick of the whole thing.
That takes me aback a bit, because god knows I was sick of being called “unpatriotic” because I didn’t support the Idiot-In-Chief’s stupid war. I would never think anyone’s unpatriotic because they didn’t want to see the movie or saw it and didn’t like it. I can’t really put my feelings into the correct words. It was all the “it’s too soooon” whining that got me, but I don’t have the vocabulary
or thought processes to explain exactly why I think people are…what I said.
See, that bothers me too. It makes me angry that someone could be so unfeeling about it. And I’m just about as left-wing as they come. Maybe it’s because I think we had a lot to do with it happening (at least, not preventing it) in the first place, something that was ignored by everybody once Bush II took office and ever since then.
It shouldn’t be ignored, not only because of the lives that were lost, but because the fuckups of this administration (and Clinton’s) will go under that rug along with all the people killed when it’s just swept away like old cobwebs. We should never forget, but more importantly, history must know that we never forgot.
We’ve become sick of hearing about 9/11 because the administration and minions brought it up every single time they wanted to manipulate people into fear and loathing. Those are the wrong reasons to remember 9/11. Now, when the families want to tell the story of what happened to the best of our knowledge, for history’s sake, it’s too soon, we don’t want to hear about it, we’re all 9/11nd-out. Ah to hell with that. I’d rather remember the facts (as best as we can know them) than see it all swept under a rug. And I’d rather honor the victims by honoring the families’ wishes by going to see the movie, than taking the easy way out and spouting “too soon, it’ll make me uncomfortable.”
I’m not very coherent or articulate when it comes to such thoughts (which is why you never see me in Great Debates), but they still bother me.
In any case, the important thing about the movie isn’t politics or partisanship or who’s to blame before and after, the important thing is the events and people on that plane. What happened, to the best of our ability to know, and who those people were, as human beings. I don’t think the words “Hijack/Let’s roll/CRASH” should be the only things people know or remember about that flight.
On preview:
Jesus fucking Christ, have you not read a single word anyone has said about Paul Greengrass and the involvement of the families?? Willful ignorance is not pretty.
I think I’m going to throw up.
Sigh. I even previewed. I’m outta here. I hate interacting with people, really, and that’s not good when trying to talk or argue or discuss.
I HAVE read the thread, and I KNOW the families are involved. That still doesn’t preclude exploitation, nor does it mean that I want to see the movie.
It’s a shame that Equipoise chose to ignore your post, as it was a well-written response to his cry of “cowardice.” Thanks for putting into words what I was thinking, and much better than I could.
Why should we resort to fictionalizations when the non-fiction version is so recent and easily accessed? I really don’t want to see a fictionalized version of these events. I don’t see how that makes a person cowardly. So the family endorsed it-- does that mean it’s mandatory to see it? I certainly hope not.
It is perhaps unfortunate that everyone from the Bush administration to my local network affiliates have been beating the 9/11 drum so hard that more even-handed treatment of the event can’t get a fair shot. But it’s true.
I’m burnt out on the thing. I’m open to new documentary approaches, and I agree that it’s important to continue to examine how this was allowed to happen. If this was an insightful documentary, I’d be all over it. But no work of drama, no matter how accurate or fair, can contribute to the question of what we’re supposed to do to prevent it from happening again.
And I really resent having my motives for skipping it called into question. It’s not (only) that it’s too soon to make or watch this flick, it’s that it’s too soon to criticize this film.
Well, since you’ve seen the movie, maybe you could go into more detail about what you thought it was lacking.
For myself, I haven’t seen it, but as I’ve said in other threads, the fact that Paul Greengrass is involved is enough to catch my interest. Bloody Sunday, which has been mentioned here, and Omagh, which I’ve referenced in at least one other thread, are both Greengrass projects (he wrote and directed the former, and co-wrote and produced the latter) which demonstrate that he can go well beyond the dry history of a real-life incident and illuminate the humanity of the participants and their circumstances without stepping over the line into maudlin manipulation or sentimental invention. I for one would welcome the rescuing of this incident from its emotional and political hijackers, and Paul Greengrass is the one filmmaker I would trust to perform that service.
Speaking as a poster: It is possible for someone to not want to see a movie without being a coward. My wife doesn’t see Holocaust movies; it touches too raw an emotional nerve and she’s depressed for days after. It’s not like she’s closed her eyes to the reality, it’s just that she doesn’t want to subject herself to it any more. I don’t like horror slasher films, and I don’t care who thinks they’re wonderful. Movies, more than most other art forms, get the audience very emotionally involved. It is not cowardice to want to avoid certain emotions that cause distress. It’s rationality.
The other side of the coin of people avoiding certain emotions is people who wallow in them without making emotional forward progress, being stuck at one emotional point. There’s a time to move on.
Speaking as Moderator: Equipoise, you really, REALLY, need to back off. You were warned once, and you don’t seem to be listening.
Cafe Society rules: you can insult the filmmaker all you want, you can insult the backers of the film all you want (even if those backers are the families of the victims). You can accuse the filmmakers or backers or actors of any sort of motives that you want.
But you can NOT insult other posters, and you cannot ascribe motives to them for holding their opinions.
When Guinistasia says she thinks the movie is “yet another maudlin attempt to exploit 9-11,” that’s a legitimate opinion. Whether the movie is backed or supported by family members of victims doesn’t, ipso facto, mean it’s not maudlin or exploitive. Your accusation of “willful ignorance” is misplaced and inappropriate.
Now, go take a nice cold shower and come back when you’re not so wound.
Well said. As someone who was in the WTC on 9/11, I heartily agree.
Guess you didn’t read my post, did you.
I’m not particulary interested in seeing this movie. I know enough about what happened and don’t really want to spend two hours and 9 bucks to see it on the big scrteen.