United 93 -- post here if you watched it

Cafe Society
1

Saw United 93 today. Very, very compelling movie.

It is pure cinema verite – no sentimentality, no flag-waving, not even character backstories. It is exactly what happened between 8:02 a.m. and 10:06 a.m. on 9/11, and nothing more.

Most of the movie is not about Flight 93 at all, but how the air traffic controllers, the FAA and NORAD slowly became aware of the events, and how they dealt with it. Many of the ground-based people are played by the actual people who were there on 9/11.

The terrorists are potrayed not as stereotypical monsters, but as human beings who are, sometimes, just as frightened and confused as the passengers.

The movie does NOT shirk on violence, terror, or death. In fact, it is far more intense than I expected. The final 15 minutes are absolutely terrifying.

When the movie ended, the woman behind me kept saying, over and over, “Wow. Heavy. That was heavy. But it was real.” That’s an accurate description.

Was this movie made too soon? No, I don’t think so. However, it is probably too soon to watch it, for most people. I see the film as something aimed at future generations, years from now when the emotions are not nearly so fresh. It is NOT a movie for young children.

2

I just got back from the theater… my heart is still pounding. It’s been a long time since any movie has had such a profound effect on me.

Paul Greengrass did a fantastic job capturing the raw emotions of everyone involved. And I am SO glad that he chose not to use any big names. This was a movie about regular people dealing with a terrifying situation, and he couldn’t have done a better job conveying that.

I have so many more thoughts floating through my head, but I think I’m still a little too stunned to get them out coherently; I’ll just finish off by saying that I would recommend this movie to anyone who is ready to watch it.

3

Did they use any music?

4

I got upset just listening to a reviewer on the radio talk about it. I suppose it’s like Schindler’s List, in that it’s not a movie to watch because it’s a rainy Saturday and there’s nothing else to do, but you have to watch it every once in awhile.

I don’t think I’m ready to watch it yet. Ivylad says it will just piss him off, so I don’t know when we’re going to see it.

I’m grateful to how sensitive the director was to the victim’s families, and how he used actual dialogue and unknown actors. This was a very hard subject, but it sounds like he handled it perfectly.

I’m just not ready.

5

Very little. The only music cues are very low, dark and somber, used to create a feeling of suspense. And they’re used very sparingly.

6

I fell a little tentative saying this – but I am going to. I saw it and I didn’t like it. This will undoubtedly mean it will be hailed as a classic and will be loved by all. I will be a guy like posting the day after Schindler’s List or Citizen Kane came out and calling it “utter crap“. I wouldn’t go that far with Flight 93 - but other than the subject matter I am not sure I got my money’s worth.

Really to me it didn’t work as a film. Partially this is because ultimately wasn’t about Flight 93 really – it was about the Civilian and Military Air Traffic Controllers. About 25% of the movie took place on-board flight 93 and while this was often compelling – it wasn’t the focus of the movie.

It was not exploitative, nor did I feel it was “too soon” for this story. However I did not find the movie particularly well done. For example, the last few minutes in the Cockpit were OK - But at that point they made the odd choice

to stop subtitling the Terrorists, thereby losing the emotional impact of showing them as terrorized or stalwartor prayerful – I found myself in the middle of what should be the most gripping part of the film trying to recall the 9/11 report to understand what they were saying .

I am going to say a movie that might have been made for the Hallmark Channel or Lifetime but was actually made by the Discovery Channel
Flight 93: The Flight That Fought Back works much better as a film and is a much more interesting movie. Added bonus – it is actually *about * Flight 93 and not mainly about the Air Traffic-Military response.

YMMV and I realize that saying this is like saying Passion Of the Christ was sloppy movioe making – misses the point entirely on many levels – but I wanted to say it.

7

Wow, just…wow…

It’s going to take me some time to collect my thoughts on this one, as has been stated in previous posts, it was filmed very well, with obvious respect for the subject matter and the events of that horrible, fateful Autummn day, this was not exploitive or done to cash in on the events of 9/11/01

I really only had one problem with the characterizations of the terrorists…

they tried to Humanize the one with the picture of Washington in his control yoke clipboard, it seems to me he was having second thoughts about the hijacking from the start, yes there are speculative parts in the film, and this was clearly one of them, but no matter how they tried to humanize that carbon-based lifeform, it didn’t work on me

Seeing the film in the theater was an experience in itself, as the audience filed in, it was silent, eerily silent, no pre-movie chatter, food noises were kept to a minimum, the audience clearly understood this movie was different

Throughout the movie, not a sound from the audience, our attention was thouroughly captured by the onscreen events, it felt like you were there with the doomed passengers of United 93, in the ATC rooms, in the FAA breifing room, in the millitary HQ’s, the audience became a part of the film

Even little scenes like the stewardess closing the door on the side of UA93 as they taxi out onto the runway, the simple clunk of the door latch sent a chill through the audience, as did the shots of UA93 taking off and the landing gear retracting…

I felt (and still do now) at the end of the film the way I did on the actual day it happened, a dead, quiet feeling in the pit of my stomach, a sense of “this can’t be happening, this *CAN’T be real…”

At the end of the film, the silence continued, I heard a few sniffling sounds behind me, the woman next to me was wiping tears from her eyes, the audience stood and exited the theater in silence, it was unnerving seeing a film that had commanded such respect and awe

I was extremely cynical when I heard there was going to be a movie about UA93, I thought it was too soon, it was in poor taste, that the events of 9/11/01 were being exploited for monetary gain…

I was wrong…

This is an important film, it needs to be seen, but only when you’re ready, it’ll dig up some unpleasant memories, but it still needs to be seen

8

I got the same feeling from my theater…not many tears, but lots of silence and very little chatter.

Here’s something I forgot to ask. Were there any previews? In my theater, there were NO previews at all (aside from the standard “Turn Off Cell Phones/Please Visit Our Snack Bar” ads + the slide show that always preceeds the film’s start time) – it went directly into the film itself. I wonder if that was done nationwide?

9

I watched it. Frightening stuff.

9/10 (-1 only for the hand held camera effect, argg)

-LC

10

I saw it this afternoon. I thought it was well made but ultimately pointless and mercenary. I won’t say it’s exploitive, exactly, but it’s commercial and I don’t think it’s really that “important.”

It’s still a good movie, though. The stuff on the ground was fairly interesting, especially all the stuff about how much trouble they had getting any sort of leadership from the White House, and I thought the events on the plane were effectively choreographed and acted. The final shot of the ground turning crazily and getting closer and closer was as terrifying a shot as I’ve ever seen. I also liked that they portrayed the hijackers as human beings rather than cartoons. It made me think about how much manipulation and exploitation goes into recruiting patsies for suicide missions. I also had never really thought about how much balls it would take to really force yourself get up in the aisle and physically take over an airplane with some box cutters. Dismissing them as “crazy” or “non-human” is too simplistic and lazy and I’m glad the film didn’t do that.

My favorite character was the ATF guy who somehow mamaged to keep his head and stay focused no matter how crazy things got. I have no idea how he did it. The movie actually showed a lot of people doing their jobs amazingly well under conditions of incredible stress and confusion. It was fascinating to watch their slowly growing bewilderment and anxiety culminating in collective, speechless shock when the 2nd plane hit towers.

I was thoroughly engrossed during the movie but ultimately I couldn’t really see any reason for it except to make money. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I guess.

11

There were no previews in my theater either. Not much talking either.

12

We had previews. Of bad horror movies. Bleh.

I thought it was very well done, and not exploitative–very respectful and real. It took me right back to that day, and how we all felt. Gave me a lot to think about. And the technical stuff was interesting. I did sort of wonder if all the passengers were really so polite and cheerful in real life; there wasn’t one rude or curt person on the plane–but you could hardly do that, I guess, since they were real people with relatives who were watching.

I was certainly involved and terrified. I don’t normally get that deep into a film.

Our theater was also silent–except for the one guy near me who had to say something to his wife at the final moment. She shushed him, at least.

13

We had previews, and I thought they were in pretty poor taste. The only ones I can remember were for some fluff thing with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston and some Robert Altman thing about the Prairie Home Companion.

14

I watched it yesterday.

It felt authentic and had a really powerful ending. I’m not sure why they stopped subbing the terrorists. I had to translate a few lines to my friend.

I didn’t really enjoy the movie though. It kind of felt more like a documentary than a movie. Maybe another part of it was that you know the ending. But the same could be said for Titanic so that doesn’t really hold.

Someone mentionned Schindler’s list. Now that was definitely a movie and I definitely enjoyed it despite the depressing content.

United 93 is a documentary first, movie second. I understand why they did it that way and I’m sure some people will find it refreshing but i wager many people will agree with me. Still, I’d recommend you watch it if only for the ending.

15

It’s too soon for me. As said above, it would totally piss me off that I couldn’t do anything to prevent the disaster. Piss me off and depress me to no end.
Maybe next year.

16

I went earlier today.

It’s an admirable achievement and a powerful experience and I’m glad I saw it. It’s not particularly enjoyable, though, and I probably won’t see it again. Not anytime soon, at least.

Still, Paul Greengrass is to be commended for basically pulling off something insanely difficult. And if nothing else, I’ll bet that by making the definitive adaptation of a significant chapter in a critically important event, he’s made it pretty much impossible for anybody else to come along later and make their own version of the story, for which I think we should all be grateful.

The movie isn’t above criticism, but Greengrass avoided every one of the most obvious traps (hagiography, sentimentalism, jingoism, etc), and created something worth seeing and worth thinking about.

I’ll be very curious to see how it does at the box office, and how people respond to the film. It’s an extremely ambiguous piece of work, and Americans have not demonstrated a great deal of fondness for ambiguity in their mythology. The next few weeks will be interesting.

(BTW, IIRC, we had three previews at my screening: the Aniston/Vaughn date comedy The Break-Up, Brad Pitt in the Jesse James movie, and I don’t remember the other one. No “obey your thirst” type commercials, though.)

17

I saw it with Cervaise. (And I’m pretty sure there were 4 previews, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what the other two were.)

As I said to him at the time, I was impressed at how existential the movie is. Everyone in it is defined by what they do and what they say. There’s no effort to get inside anyone’s head and find out what makes them tick. Almost no one introduces themselves by name, or talks about what they do or what they want or what they’re scared of. Why does the lead hijacker wait so long? Who knows? We know his companions are frustrated, we know he claims to have wanted “the right moment,” but was he scared? Nervous? Ready to back out? Dunno.

The movie does point up the limits of dramatizing what went on on flight 93 itself – there’s no way a two-hour film as accurate as this is could be made without leaving the plane, unless you wanted to see a Warhol version of an action film. And, frankly, until the final 30 minutes or so, the scenes on the ground were more compelling than the scenes in the plane.

I don’t know that it’s an important film, or one that needs to be seen. It’s respectful, and I think it could offer catharsis for some. One thing that occurred to me: at first, when people are leaving messages for loved ones, I thought that’s the worst thing I could imagine. Then I realized that if I were leaving them a message, that’d mean they weren’t on the plane with me – which would, no question, be worse.

18

If I were to judge this film by the same criteria I use for other movies, I’d have to say it’s not a particularly good piece of work. I can’t imagine anyone watching it in forty years, and finding it interesting. There’s simply not enough material to work with, as far as creating dramatic build up. That results in quite a bit of scenes showing air traffic control and NORAD and their frenzied attempts to first understand and then try to deal with what is happening. Some of those scenes felt like time fillers to me and much of the technical side of the conversations went over my head at times.

All that being said, the reason that it is so compelling is the simple fact that those events touched all of us; the pain and shock is still relatively new. We’ve all seen thousands of images from that day,almost to the point where we’re numb to it, but somehow, viewing it in context with the moments that came before it, makes is a thousand times more powerful. The vision of the second plane striking, as seen from the control tower absolutely sucked the air out of me. The last moments as the plane hurtles to the earth are absolutely stunning. I was actually “white knuckling” my arm rest.

I would definitely recommend it, with the caveat that while it’s not an example of movie making at it’s best, it will definitely touch you.

Something that I found interesting is the assignment of each actor to a specific passenger / crew member. Aside from Todd Beamer, I at least didn’t know any of the victim’s names, nor are we ever told any of their names in the course of the story. I thought it was a nice touch to list the the names in that way as opposed to a generic “Passengers” heading and then just listing the actors names. I found myself trying to read each name in order to aknowledge the indivual, if only for a fraction of a second.

Oh, and my theater did show previews; The Breakup, Jesse James and a Sean Penn flick (can’t remember the name).

19

Today’s random brain flash: they were for All the King’s Men and the remake of The Omen.

20

I saw it Tuesday 5/2.

I skimmed, and agree that it was incredibly well done. I too thought that it was too early, and wouldnt be done “right”.

I think, if it was done wrong, and it most certainly was not, it would not have the same effect.

Its amazing, how when we already knew the ending, that (I at least felt) so much tension build. Incredibly well done.

The Action builds and Builds, and perhaps, while leaving you hanging, it ends PERFECTLY, in terms of a conscious choice by director.

And also, Some might the following part of the movie offensive. I offer a reponse as well

The use of the word “God” for Allah.

I was taken back momentarilly by that. However, I soon gathered, and then respected, that so much Emotion and ‘drive’ (even if “”“wrong”"") can be tied up with names.

The so called Economy of screen ((What is purposefully shown, and not shown on camera)) and Amazing build up of tension excells this movie.

I am still reminded, that no family of the victims Objected to the film. Yet, having seen the Film, I understand why no one objected.

If this film could have been done any better, I would like to see how.