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Newsweek devotes its cover to Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (star Nicolas Cage is on the cover, though, not Ollie), and there's a big, positive feature about the film. Time, which has a stem cell cover story, gives World Trade Center a positive review. What's interesting is how a lot of coverage notes that Oliver Stone seems to have kept his politics in check and, in turn, created a good film. Now, with positive sentiments from the right also pouring in, could World Trade Center be the feel good movie of an important election year?
The movie opens next Wednesday, August 9. We're not totally convinced about the film after seeing the trailer, and we're still not sure if we want to see it (we sort of think a World Trade Center movie would have to be at least week long, to really capture what was going on). Are you going to see it? Newsweek also interviews John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, the two Port Authority police officers portrayed in the film (by Cage and Michael Pena respectively). Jimeno says, "To this day I still have problems watching excessive news coverage of violence and bad things."
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I'm not going to see it. I have my own memories of that day (and the weeks following) and I am afraid that if I see the film, my association will be with Nick Cage, not what I actually saw. The experience feels personal to me; I don't need the Coldplay song that appears in the movie's preview to help me feel the mood or recreate that terror. In 50 years, I don't want to confuse what happened to me in Sept. 2001 with what I saw on the big screen in 2006.
nick cage looks so goddam gay in his little moustache and short shirt sleeve cop uniform. so blue oyster club.
Definite pass for me. I saw as much of September 11th as I'll ever need on Septmember 11th. I don't need little Nicky Coppola and Ollie Stone telling me what to think about it.
Spike, that's the most well-thought-out rationale I've heard yet for not wanting to see the film. Good for you (honestly).
Personally, I will see it. But I wasn't in NYC that day.
I'm not going to see it either. Not only was I there that day (I was over at one of the courthouses, and held the planes hit) but I have problems with the movie itself.
The majority of people who died that day were from over 60 nations. They were every color of the rainbow. Numerous Muslims were in that building, people who were not terrorists. Nothing I've seen about this movie reflects those realities.
As dramtic as those events were, ther's another story to be told. It's the story of a traumatized city pulling itself together. Of people of all races and classes being kind to one another. It's how many of us were horrified at how people of other faiths were attacked afterthe event in other parts of America, and horrified also at how some people were actually happy thatthis horror happened- and many of them were not Muslim. They were people who hate New York and all it stands for, and they were not arrested for treason. The story of the walls being covered with pictures of the dead. The story of EMTs with no none to sve. The story of how many people went temporarily insane from the smell of rotting boides that overtook Manhattan but stayed here, only to be called cowards and fools by people who weren't here and have no idea what that was like. When they do the story on how many of us overcame our paranoia and fear so that we could work together, I'll buy 20 tickets and send them to friends all over the US.
I can't wait to see this movie. It's gonna Be DA BOMB if you know what I mean. How can you not be excited to look at the box office and see that every dollar that goes into Oliver Stone's coffers and that pays for his ferrari was built on the exploitation of dead people and the biggest tragedy on American soil? brings a tear to my eye.
Does no-one else find it shockingly disrespectful and exploitative that such events are even considered appropriate fodder for the entertainment/drama mill? How is it okay that this movie even got made? Because the "story needs telling"? Please - by Oliver Stone and Nicholas Cage? Some events cannot and should not be ground in to a "based on a true story" tag line.
I won't be seeing this movie. Spike and Techmaven said it best.
Sadly, many Americans and a few in other countries will. Then they'll forget what actually happened. How many people remember the real WW2, Korea or Vietnam, compared to all the films about them? Very sad.
Perhaps we could boycott or protest outside NYC theaters that attempt to show this film? Or would that be anti-democratic?
I'm pretty sickened by the fact that this film was made. The fact that Stone directed it does not legitimize it, to me, one iota. To be honest, I'd never really dealt with my feelings about that day - I was still in high school at the time and it was too difficult to fathom all that loss. But the release of this movie has awakened something in me. I feel so outraged, and every time I try to talk about why this is so wrong I can barely keep from crying. The fact that this movie is basically being presented as the definitive account of 9/11, the fact that it's a summer release for maximum profit... It may be based on a true story, but that's ONE STORY as others have touched upon.
I moved away from New York for college, and most of my friends here don't understand why I'm so against this movie. It's nice to see that some others here share my sentiments.
We saw mass death & devastation on 9-11 (bad enough) and the government reaction which followed led to freedoms being curtailed by an extremely authoritarian administration (yet more bad).
It's virtually impossible to find anything remotely positive about the events of that awful day but the amazing survival of PA officers McLoughlin and Jimeno amidst total destruction has got to be the exception. Men who rushed into chaos and death and yet were plucked from the rubble to be reunited with their families? Why not
a film that features one of the few miracles of that terrible day?
I mean, if Spielberg can make a film about the Holocaust (not exactly fodder for entertainment/drama?) with an upbeat ending, why not Stone (a native New Yorker)? There has got to be some (true) stories of hope in the world, else why get out of bed in the morning?
We don't need to see the movie..we lived it.
I'm not going to see it, and I agree with Spike and Techmaven.
"I saw as much of September 11th as I'll ever need on September 11th."
This sums it up for me too.
I won't be seeing it.
At least they got the whole mustache-cop thing correct...
I would watch the movie, but every since Fast Times At Ridgemont High, I can't go 5 minutes without having a boner for Nick Cage. Dang Ghost Rider is full on porn for me!
i'm gonna take a pass, as i did with united 93. but i understand the need to try to suss out stories from significant events and dramatize them in order to understand them and find meaning. go back to the cave paintings of lascaux and you'll see the same impulse. the ugly relationship of art and profit is a newer phenomenon, but one i was willing to ignore when seeing "schindler's list," and "hotel rwanda," among others.
i think this movie, as with "united 93," will be good for the folks who didn't experience it firsthand. it's cheap to dismiss either of these movies as disaster porn--save that for "titanic"--but the fact is that this offers those whose only experience of 9/11 was piecemeal on tv a chance to engage in a sustained, emotionally involving narrative of that day. humans crave stories--they're how we understand our world. i don't think it's wrong or unfair to make this available to those who need it.
and no, i'm not under any illusions that ollie stone is doing this charitably, but give him credit for recognizing a story that should be told. it might be the easiest, most obvious story among the thousands, but so what. let's at least start there. this isn't going to be the definitive 9/11 movie, i don't think. that movie probably won't be made for another several years, or even decades.
so, let it be what it is. it might be what the rest of the country needs to help them process the information. as for me, i feel like i already put my hand into the fire on that day; i don't see any reason to hold it over a match now.
This movie is not needed, as United 93 wasn't, and Nick Cage looks like one of the Village People in that photo. And of course the right wing nut jobs seem to like the problem, but then again anything that doesn't go their way, they just invoke 9-11 as if it justifies all the illegal and immoral stuff they are doing.
Am I the only one who thinks that if 9/11 didn't happen and the WTC didn't fall, that this looks like an actually good movie.
Mind you, I never want to see 9/11 movies, but this movie has me at least curious, more than Flight 93 which was very blatent.
Blah, who knows.
Not going to see it - still too traumatized. Even the commercial makes me practically start crying.
I'm glad to see others share my feelings, and in the same words, that I saw enough of September 11 on September 11. I remember on a business trip last year to California, I found myself sharing an car with West-coast coworkers who decided to start reciting where each was on September 11. One was here, one was there, one was stranded somewhere with no flights. How inconvenient. I thought about saying, "I was on Chambers Street," and out-pointed them all on 9/11 cred, but what was the point? I just kept my mouth shut.
I finally broke down and watched that documentary on the National Geographic channel about 9/11, and when the sparks started shooting out of the gash in the south tower started screaming to myself, because I knew it was about to fall all over again.
I suppose sometime soon I'll run into out-of-towners who'll tell me they share my pain because they saw the movie and then I'll have to kill them.
estnyc,
I'm an out of towner, I wasn't there, but my dad was there for two weeks after dealing with the victim's family (he was part of the Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Team).
It was a horrible thing, something I never want to see again in any shape or form. That includes a movie.
I understand that every generation has it's defining moment. WTC, JFK, Great Depression, Etc... I even know the curiousity of wanting to know what happened before your time. But, why is it we NEED to have a movie based on events that only happened 5 years ago, put before us? Has anyone forgotten?
I guess it is different for those who have never stood at the foot of the building(when it stood), or used to shop its stores (as my wife did). I am a native Californian, and lived in NJ from 00-04. My wife was brooklyn, NY born and raised. My brother came out to visit NYC sometime after, and he and his wife wanted to see Ground Zero (and the piece of support bar that was recovered that bore the look of a crucifix[which I'm not even going to go into that]) While we respected their wishes and took them there, neither my wife or I could stand, facing the gaping open area that once was the WTC. We both witnessed what was once there, and couldn't stand the thought of all the thousands of lives that were senselessly lost.
In short, to answer my own question, "Why is it we NEED to have a movie based on events that only happened 5 years ago?" The answer is simple... We NEED to see this, beacuse there are those who stand to profit off others' pain and sufferings. Albeit, that they will never recieve a red cent from me, or one second's worth of my attention toward this movie, no matter how "well done" the critics say it is.
I WAS ACROSS THE STREET WHEN THE TOWERS WERE HIT.. FOR MANY OF US WE NEED TO SEE THIS BECAUSE WE HAVE FORGOTTON...