UNITED 93 is the best film of the year so far and by far...- Page 4

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:03pm

"Bawling" is correct when someone means loud crying.

No offense, but you missed the error in that sentence.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:06pm

Namo, what is PTSD?

[Type_A_Tiff]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:06pm

Post-traumatic shock disorder, I think.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:07pm

Dangling Preposition!

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder!

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:08pm

Thank you.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:09pm

Leave it to the lawyer!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:12pm

Yeah, it's funny how my preposition was dangling in the very paragraph in which I mentioned post-traumatic stress reaction. I wrote that epic post for the impression, not for publication. I'll let the gaffe stand as a symptom.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:14pm

Well, I didn't feel guilty about pointing it out, since I've seen you do the same from time to time. I was just giving you a little jab!

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:17pm

My wife and I said that we would not see it, but I think we should discuss seeing it. I do dangle a few preps here.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:18pm

And as I have pointed out time and time again, Jane dear, I only point out such errors when people are making posts calling other people stupid. It's a level of distinction that must have eluded you. However, I'm glad the rest of my writing met your high standards.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:21pm

Actually Namo, it didn't elude me.

[Chloe]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:23pm

Sorry, but I've seen "bawl" misspelled so often lately that I was beginning to think everyone really believes it's spelled "ball."

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:23pm

Very well then, perhaps there's something on A&E that needs your attention?

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:25pm

Hey, is this what I get for being the first one to praise your talents?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:45pm

Aaaaaannnnnnyway, I've gone from not being interested in this movie to being interested in other people's impressions and look forward to reading some of them here.

[DG]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:49pm

I made a snap decision from the first moment I heard about this project not to see the film. So far, I’m not inclined to change that decision, but I believe in a sentiment that Sueleen expressed the other day – never say never.

I am reading everything about the project, because I am immensely curious as to what it means – or what it could represent. I’m not really sure I’ve been able to wrap my head around much of it yet, but Namo’s post did bring a few thoughts into clearer focus.

I think artistic impressions of historic events can serve a variety of purposes. There are some that can provide a window into an era or event about which you have no awareness. In my mid to late twenties, I went through a faze of seeing every Viet Nam film I could – usually many times. People kept asking me why I would subject myself to that, and all I could say was that I was trying to at least get an impression of something in history that I missed, and really didn’t understand. But this has come so close on the heels of the portrayed incident, that I can’t see it in that light.

Certainly, there are questions that I and many have to this day about why it happened. But I haven’t gotten a sense that that is what is being discussed. From what I can tell, it pretty much exists as a re-enactment, however subjectively realized. But I can’t help thinking that, when I’m sitting on the couch watching a trailer for it – and it’s the same couch that I was curled up on in terror and horror as the real event unfolded – I don’t really need the reminder just yet.

Which turns my mind to other possibilities. There’s a real cynical part of me that sees it as drum beating. But I honestly can’t see who would be beating the drums, or even why.

And then I think about what Namo just wrote – especially the description of sitting in a theatre with popcorn eaters and soda drinkers, as if this were any other escapist movie experience. And I wonder if that really isn’t the point (the benefit – I guess?) Movies have a way of removing one from the situation. Sure you can sympathize with the characters – but they’re UP THERE, and you’re safe in your observational seat.

I wonder if we’ve become so desensitized to the very real experiences of life, that we can’t accept it in, or allow ourselves to see it, unless it is presented in some homogenized processed form. A form that allows us to view it like we’ve become accustomed to – on a screen that eventually goes black and the lights come on and here we are right back in the safe theatre from which we started. No need to empty your own trash, that’s what those kids are paid for.

I wonder if someone thinks that we’ve devolved so much into our own little worlds, that we actually need a reminder that this happened – even though we are living every day with and through the very real aftermath. I’ve passed under for the last couple of days a banner on an overpass welcoming a local soldier home from Iraq, and I really wonder how many of the thousands of people driving by know what it means – or if they really notice.

In the end, I’m still wondering where the world has headed while I’m along for the ride, and I’m just not sure that I’ve seen anything to tell me that this movie might hold an insight.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/30/06 at 11:51pm

Wait....wait!....It's coming!...Oh, yes! It's here!!!

Hup! No...it's gone...oh, well...

I just can't generate enough energy to have any interest in seeing this movie. Sorry, folks.

So why the hell did SLITHER leave the theaters so fast? DAMN!!

Updated On: 4/30/06 at 11:51 PM

[Luscious]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 12:14am

"Plus, it's definitely worth going to the theater and seeing anything Luscious has taken a stand against sight unseen!"

Thanks for the mention, Namo! Flattered to know that I'm on your mind and in your thoughts. You're in mine too.

Updated On: 5/1/06 at 12:14 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 12:18am

I have no investment in drumming up business for the movie, I just wanted to illustrate that my starting off point is where BorstalBoy is and I find myself standing here in "Imagine My Surprise Land."

DG, less than a year after the Jonestown massacre a cheapy exploitation movie called "Guyana: Cult of the Damned" was released in theaters. My friends and I had to see it, primarily because the whole thing was so completely incomprehsible to us and also, we had a morbid fascination. Well, that movie was particularly awful. Names were changed to "fictionalize" the story, Rev. Jim Jones and Congressman Leo Ryan became Rev. Jim Johnson and Congressman Lee O'Brien. It was tacky as hell. (But what a cast! Gene Barry, Yvonne DeCarlo, friggin Joseph "Citizen Kane" Cotton, for gawdsakes.) It was everything negative you mentioned in your "con" column as you try to make sense of why UNITED 93 exists.

But that's not what this "felt" like to me, as much as my radar was up for that feeling. For one thing, there was so much co-operation from the survivors of so many of the people on the flight. There were so many people on the ground in the command centers and air traffic control towers that played themselves. In many ways, this struck me as being more like a community art project to work through shared and collective grief, if that isn't overstating the case. (And it could very well be, because it's late!)

It's not like artists across millennia haven't used their work to make sense of war and tragedy, from the Greeks, through Shakespeare, through the NAMES Project Quilt, to think of just three examples off the top of my head.

There is a danger, obviously, that some viewers will see it as a documentary, as something sacrosanct and immune from criticism (like so many fans of a certain gay cowboy movie were around here!). But it doesn't "feel" (there's that word again) like it's beating a drum for war, or anything like that.

And as much as I pointed out the popcorn and the soda and the chatter as distancing mechanisms (that probably relieved others of THEIR PTSD responses), I didn't get anywhere near the sick-to-my-stomach sensation I got while watching the much raved about "Sleeper Cell" on Showtime a few months ago. Now there was an incongruous conflation of the horror of reality packaged as a "24"-like miniseries that left a horrible taste in my mouth. UNITED 93 didn't do that to me, and believe me, I was ready for it to. [Yeah, I know it's dangling.]

[Luscious]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 12:41am

Namo... did you see it with your best girlfriend, Josey? If so, did anything about the evening leave a horrible taste in her mouth?

Updated On: 5/1/06 at 12:41 AM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 12:43am

DG-I think this film serves as more than a reminder. I think it is creating much needed discussion. Discussions on many levels. This is what artists do best.

Namo-stunning review

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 12:48am

Thanks, JRB, I wasn't aiming for review, more like impressions. But I guess the copious word count I generated could indeed add up to a review.

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 12:53am

Lovely reflection Namo. It definitely gave me a different perspective on the film.

I am still feeling very conflicted as to whether or not I can handle seeing this film at all, and whether or not I can handle seeing it with friends or alone.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 9:22am

There's absolutely nothing wrong with people deciding they're not up to seeing the graphic recreation of real-life horror. Lord knows, I didn't sleep too well after it.

Of course back in the "show business as usual" department, it seemed weird to read the obligatory Monday morning box office reports prognosticating about how the film will "easily" turn a profit because of it's low budget. Forget whether or not it's an effective piece of art, or even a useful document. How's its box office mojo?

I did, however, find this paragraph in the AP box office report interesting:

"Married couples accounted for just over half the 'United 93' audience, and 71 percent of viewers were 30 and older, according to Universal."

I wonder how they would even know that...?

[DG]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 9:24am

Namo – I actually put great stock in those ‘feelings’ – especially when felt by someone of enhanced awareness. One of Jane Wagner’s more brilliant thoughts (one of many) is that reality is nothing more than a collective hunch. How we feel about our experience may very well define it.

And Jerby, I don’t doubt the very real emotional impact of the movie, and I have no reason to feel that it is exploitative in the least. In fact, what I read leads me to think quite the opposite. I just wonder what the value would be for me to see it – on a very individual and personal level. I appreciate the views of those who may have started from a place of reservation, and have ended up with a meaningful experience.

And, by the way, I almost drove off the road the first time I saw an ad for SLEEPER CELL. In some unidentifiable way I felt like it signaled a turning point of some kind – and not in a direction that I felt comfortable heading.