United 93 -- one person's opinion

[lagilman]

Apparently, they're running previews of this movie in theaters, without any warning, attached to major films.

I have no objection to the movie itself being made; it's history, it's fair game. I have no objection to them advertising it -- you have to market the damn thing, after all. Business is business.

I do object to being subjected to it, without warning, without the opportunity to leave, or otherwise prepare myself. Especially here in NYC.


(some chains have pulled the preview, in response to consumer complaints)


Will I go see this movie? No. Not now, anyway. Just seeing the preview was enough to scrape at the scar tissue; I have no desire at all to pull the damn thing off. I know my limits. But I am interested in reading the reviews, to see if they managed to walk the delicate line between resepct and drama...

Comments

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Grrreeeaaaat. I have been having a hard enough time with the release of the tapes. This is stirring up all kinds of feelings that I thought I had dealt with and seeing a preview for it is not going to help right now. I agree about the scar tissue.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I couldn't bear to listen to the tapes, even with the caller voices bleeped out. I shut off NPR immediately. I do NOT want to see a dramatization, and I agree with you that the preview should have been very carefully made.

[girasole.livejournal.com]

I cannot do this. Can't watch the preview, can't see the movie, had to turn off the radio and turn the page in the NYTimes when the 911 calls were published.

I have managed to review a couple of books for young people about 9/11, but I cannot read the report. I did read, every day, the obits the NYTimes carried. I read some each day until I started to cry.

I have not been to Ground Zero.

This is my city, and it is all too present to go through this again.

[eeknight.livejournal.com]

Meh. Too soon. During the Second World War, Pearl Harbor was mostly depicted in films as a radio broadcast, set of newspaper headlines, or solemn commanding officer type announcement -- and hardly anyone even saw December 7 live. John Wayne's They Were Expendable (1945) is typical of the low-key, yet shocking, wartime presentation they used. Pearl didn't really get shown until From Here to Eternity twelve years later, and even that was mostly melodrama about the soldiers and their gals before the attack, which was used mostly to sort out who-will-live/who-will-die resolutions. In Harms Way showed it in a little more detail in the mid sixties (though it was marred by stupid antics like the Japanese fighters breaking formation on the way to the harbor to strafe a friggin' Chevy).

You didn't have a serious dramatic documentary about Pearl Harbor until twenty-nine years later with Tora! Tora! Tora! (IMO one of the best historiographies ever made) as a US/Japanese co-production.

Anyway, bad taste, bad timing. My two cents.

[thecityofdis.livejournal.com]

I agree.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

hardly anyone even saw December 7 live. John Wayne's They Were Expendable (1945) is typical of the low-key, yet shocking, wartime presentation they used. Pearl didn't really get shown until From Here to Eternity twelve years later, and even that was mostly melodrama about the soldiers and their gals before the attack, which was used mostly to sort out who-will-live/who-will-die resolutions. In Harms Way showed it in a little more detail in the mid sixties (though it was marred by stupid antics like the Japanese fighters breaking formation on the way to the harbor to strafe a friggin' Chevy).

"Anybody [who survived the attack] who says they weren't scared and they didn't jump [off a ship] is a damned liar." -- Enlisted Pearl Harbor attack survivor's words to my mother, who was stationed at Pearl Harbor after that attack had happened.

The technology of the time doesn't have as high graphic and color fidelity as contemporary visual recording--most WWII real footage is in black and white, which subjectively has a different feel that color.

You didn't have a serious dramatic documentary about Pearl Harbor until twenty-nine years later with Tora! Tora! Tora! (IMO one of the best historiographies ever made) as a US/Japanese co-production.

Anyway, bad taste, bad timing. My two cents.

I think it is in extremely bad taste, and I wonder if someone is going to sue the film industry for it for pain and suffering. It would be majorly deserved.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I got blindsided with not just the trailer but a mini-documentary on it when I went to see a sneak preview of "Take the Lead." Go to see Antonio Banderas shake his ass; get to see a bunch of talking heads talk about how it's respectful to make money off of make this movie in the pre-preview advertising.

DC was hit too, and I also object to having been subjected with that without warning or the chance to opt out. This isn't fuckin' entertainment, where you buy popcorn and cheer at the explosions like Independence Day. This is real and it still hurts.

[lagilman]

And how was Antonio's ass?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Quite nice, although the story couldn't be more cliched if it tried.

[greeneyedkzin.livejournal.com]

No. No way. I just can't bear it. I left roses once at Ground Zero, and I haven't been back. It hurts every time I see the skyline and the times in between.

New Laurie R. King

[girasole.livejournal.com]

On a completely different subject, soon cometh a new Laurie King. Manages to combine -- brilliantly -- her Mary Russell Holmes series with her Kate Martinelli series.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

No. Sorry. Won't be seeing this one.
Hollywood, "Let's make a few mil on tragedy and loss! Shall we?"
Objective journalism (don't go there), or a documentary...fine. Not this.
No.

-=Jeff=-

[allaboutm-e.livejournal.com]

I think a warning / announcement before the trailer seems like a very fair compromise ...