I just read Roger Ebert’s review of “United 93.” He’s given it four stars. “This is a masterful and heartbreaking film, and it does honor to the memory of the victims,” he says. It sounds as though it’s an incredible work. There’s no formula movie-making. We don’t get to “know” a few key characters and follow them through. No fakey showdowns. We live it as they lived it. “The movie is deeply disturbing, and some people may have to leave the theater,” says Roger.
I admit, I got a little upset just reading the review. I don’t know how I’d handle the picture. The events are still so vivid. We each have our own 9/11 story: where we were that day, what happened, how we reacted to the unfolding events. I don’t know if I could put myself into that plane. Yet I want to.
I play on the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a game based on the opening weekend box office estimates. Right now, Flgith 93 stock is at 48.00 a share…which means that the movie is expected to do about 16 million this weekend. I think it will at least double that if not more.
I think many many people are in the sam boat as Ellen…and they will eventually find themselves buying a ticket.
I won’t bother. Yes, it’s supposed to be good. Yes, the families of the victims were closely involved in production and approve of the film. Yadda yadda yadda. I just have no desire to see it.
I’ll go see it if a group of friends want to go see it, but I go to the movies to become part of the story. I want to be in the movie. And the reason I don’t go see horror movies is the same reason I won’t go see this movie without a group of other people wanting to - I don’t want to be on flight 93.
I bit of both I guess, leaning toward disinterest. For me, it’s like hearing that someone got murdered, going to see a movie about it, and saying afterwards, “Yep, she got murdered.” I’m not learning anything or gaining anything from the experience, so it just doesn’t interest me. For the record I don’t bother with TV movies based on real life events either. Flight 93 strikes me as just an expensive TV movie of the week.
The positive reviews and the praise for Paul Greengrass on this board have made me think twice about it, but I haven’t really considered the reality of sitting there for two hours and watching a movie about this. So I might see it.
I’d definitely like to see it if it comes to this area. Here is another review (from Rolling Stone). The comments in this review for those who are saying “it’s too soon” are interesting.
My take (and the “you” in this is noone in particular):
If you’re at all a movie fan, you gotta go see this. At the theater.
It just has that feeling that it’s going to be an important movie. I got choked up watching a trailer for it. When’s the last time you really had a emotional experience at the movie theater? Is that what they’re there for?
Every now and then a movie comes along that I think 30 years from now, you’re going to wish you could say, “I saw that at the theater”. If you were alive back when, and had the chance to see “Godfather”, “Jaws”, “Casablanca”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, etc. in a theater, with hundreds of other people, wouldn’t you have done it? If not, then you’re just not a movie fan.
My take on it may be completely wrong, but this looks the kind of movie that you don’t want to take the chance that you missed it.
Most movies, you need to find a reason to go. This looks like a movie where you need a reason to stay away. And, I mean a better reason than, “it’s 9 dollars, and the floors are sticky, and there are too many cell phones”.
I won’t see it this weekend, but I’m very excited to see it.
I’m really torn. I want to see it – I really do. From all accounts, the filmmakers did as good as job as could be done with such a sensitive subject. They’re currently pulling 94% on the Tomatometer, and it looks like it should be a powerful, moving film. I just don’t think I’m ready to be moved that way yet.
Thinking about that day for too long just depresses me. Seeing pictures still causes me to well up, and video footage still causes me to break down and cry. I figure that I’ll wait for the DVD – at least that way I’ll be able to stop the film for awhile if I need to.
I rarely watch movies about “real” things anyway. Movies to me are some of the lightest form of entertainment. I’d read books about it but not movies.
And as I said, it’s much too early. It feels like they’re whoring it out yet again, and we’ve become saturated by it. Plus, I saw it. I mean, I saw the Towers come down on TV, I heard about Flight 93, read the stories. I don’t see the point of making something so important and with so much emotional impact into a 2-hour movie. It’s reducing it and cheapening it.
Anaamika, you’re making a lot of proclamations about the movie that a lot of people who have actually SEEN the movie have addressed, and, in large part, disagree with you about.