WORLD TRADE CENTER
I just saw World Trade Center, Oliver Stone's lavishly-filmed army recruitment drive, and I have to say I was underwhelmed. The epic opening shots of the movie; breathtakingly beautiful scenes of ordinary New Yorkers descending on Manhattan on a drop-dead gorgeous day, played against the audience's foreknowledge of the Hell they would soon descend to.
The tension in the audience was palpable, and I thought, Oliver, you're really coming into your own as a filmmaker. Instantly, one was transported back to images of that beautiful, ugly, tragic morning that attacks the intestines before the brain can engage. You feel the scale of the disaster long before the first plane hits.
The rest of the movie, for the most part, takes place in a claustrophobic, rubble-strewn hole in the ground. There's the requisite heroism rescue workers displayed during their finest hour. Selflessly, rescuers begat rescuers, as the rescuers themselves needed rescue.
In cutaways, the families of the victims struggled to hold out against hope. Clips of George Bush and Rudy Giuliani, the only beneficiaries of Osama's 9/11, were interspersed.
Command and control issues aside, scenes of compassion between comrades and strangers alike made you want to hug the fat, popcorn-stuffing lout sitting next to you.
One woman, who was drinking a 32-ounce soda behind me, starting crying before the open titles, and never let up. In a movie I had to run to the bathroom twice during, this woman was able to cry it out.
Mr. Stone, more remembered for his silly anti-war and conspiracy theory films, has apparently decided to expand his audience to Christian hawks and Bush die-hards. There are many Christ-like apparitions that appear before the dying police officers--so many that I was starting to feel as though I had been touched by an angel (turned out it was merely the Coked-up, sugar-crazed woman grabbing my shoulder in absence of a Kleenex).
And one retired reservist, who, in the film, located two of New York's Finest after they were buried by the collapse of the towers, tells us at the end of the movie that he is going to sign up, again, just to avenge this horrible crime. In the closing titles, we learn that he served two more terms -- in Iraq.
Needless to say, recruiters for both the army and the church were delighted with the results. Not your usual Oliver Stone supporters, they have kept the film from flopping at the box office.
Those of us unwilling to avenge the events of 9/11 by invading a random country, were left scratching our heads over Mr. Stone's shift of heart. It's not hard, even for a skeptic like Stone, to lose oneself in 9/11 -- a fact not lost on the Bush administration.
Sure, World Trade Center is based on a true story, so Oliver doesn't necessarily have to agree with his character's characterizations. But, if the net result is to send more US boys and girls off to die in Iraq, perhaps the editing needed tightening up a bit.
I just saw World Trade Center, Oliver Stone's lavishly-filmed army recruitment drive, and I have to say I was underwhelmed. The epic opening shots of the movie; breathtakingly beautiful scenes of ordinary New Yorkers descending on Manhattan on a drop-dead gorgeous day, played against the audience's foreknowledge of the Hell they would soon descend to.
The tension in the audience was palpable, and I thought, Oliver, you're really coming into your own as a filmmaker. Instantly, one was transported back to images of that beautiful, ugly, tragic morning that attacks the intestines before the brain can engage. You feel the scale of the disaster long before the first plane hits.
The rest of the movie, for the most part, takes place in a claustrophobic, rubble-strewn hole in the ground. There's the requisite heroism rescue workers displayed during their finest hour. Selflessly, rescuers begat rescuers, as the rescuers themselves needed rescue.
In cutaways, the families of the victims struggled to hold out against hope. Clips of George Bush and Rudy Giuliani, the only beneficiaries of Osama's 9/11, were interspersed.
Command and control issues aside, scenes of compassion between comrades and strangers alike made you want to hug the fat, popcorn-stuffing lout sitting next to you.
One woman, who was drinking a 32-ounce soda behind me, starting crying before the open titles, and never let up. In a movie I had to run to the bathroom twice during, this woman was able to cry it out.
Mr. Stone, more remembered for his silly anti-war and conspiracy theory films, has apparently decided to expand his audience to Christian hawks and Bush die-hards. There are many Christ-like apparitions that appear before the dying police officers--so many that I was starting to feel as though I had been touched by an angel (turned out it was merely the Coked-up, sugar-crazed woman grabbing my shoulder in absence of a Kleenex).
And one retired reservist, who, in the film, located two of New York's Finest after they were buried by the collapse of the towers, tells us at the end of the movie that he is going to sign up, again, just to avenge this horrible crime. In the closing titles, we learn that he served two more terms -- in Iraq.
Needless to say, recruiters for both the army and the church were delighted with the results. Not your usual Oliver Stone supporters, they have kept the film from flopping at the box office.
Those of us unwilling to avenge the events of 9/11 by invading a random country, were left scratching our heads over Mr. Stone's shift of heart. It's not hard, even for a skeptic like Stone, to lose oneself in 9/11 -- a fact not lost on the Bush administration.
Sure, World Trade Center is based on a true story, so Oliver doesn't necessarily have to agree with his character's characterizations. But, if the net result is to send more US boys and girls off to die in Iraq, perhaps the editing needed tightening up a bit.
posted by R. Reynolds at 9:49 AM
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