Posted on 05/07/2006 10:53:29 AM PDT by Ramius
Somebody has bought tickets to “United 93.” The movie about heroism about the doomed Sept. 11 flight grossed $11.6 million in sales and finished second place (to “RV”) when it debuted last weekend.
Directed and written by Paul Greengrass, the docudrama has gotten spectacular critical reviews. But those same reviews tell you why “United 93” poses no box office threat to “Mission: Impossible III.” Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times, for example, called it “masterful and heartbreaking” – but also “deeply disturbing.” Gary Thompson of the Philadelphia Daily News described it as “taut, clinical, almost merciless.”
Audience reaction has been somber, especially in areas directly affected by the Sept. 11 terror attacks. No one expected otherwise.
Weeping has been frequently reported during showings. One New Yorker described “United 93” to the New York Daily News as “just very disturbing.” Her husband said, “I guess it’s a form of shock.” One Long Island woman told Newsday: “During the movie, I heard a lot of sobbing, and when it ended, there was just silence. Almost everyone left with their hands crossed in front of them and their heads bowed down as if it were a wake or funeral.”
For the most part, Americans – including members of this newspaper’s editorial board – haven’t been able to bring themselves to watch a movie that vividly recreates so much of the horror and pathos of Sept. 11. It’s just hard to buy a ticket and board Flight 93 knowing beforehand how the tragedy will end and how skillfully and heartbreakingly Greengrass has no doubt rendered it.
This says something about drama’s almost mystical power over the human psyche. For some elusive reason, a well-told story can be unbearably, painfully, excruciatingly real.
It also says the wounds ripped open in this country by Sept. 11 are a long, long way from being healed. It is too easy to imagine ourselves or our loved ones caught by chance, not so long ago, on one of those doomed flights, in one of the twin towers or in the west side of the Pentagon. Part of the horrifying brilliance of “United 93,” according to reviewers, lies in the very ordinariness of its characters.
When the trauma of that day is further behind us, more Americans will probably embrace this film. But not yet. Not yet.
I agree.
Then why didn't they show the vote?
Because the director needed to retain the balance between the terrorists and the passengers. Showing Americans voting and making decisions while being terrorized would favor us - and make the terrorists look evil. It would not sell overseas.
I *did* say "stupid people" -- so obviously like Democrats!
:-D
Huh? You're hung up on the mechanics of a vote? There's no way to know precisely how that was done. They did show a great deal of the argument, discussion and eventual decision to act. That's what the whole thing was about. I don't see how that could be your big problem.
Oh, maybe because our freedom of self government is the very thing the terrorists want to take from us?
They did decide as a group to fight back. You're mad because they didn't show them using ballots?
Post #122:
Then why didn't they show the vote?
Because the director needed to retain the balance between the terrorists and the passengers. Showing Americans voting and making decisions while being terrorized would favor us - and make the terrorists look evil. It would not sell overseas.
I agree........such a shock to this bozo.......that the 'TRUTH HURTS'!!
He did no such thing. That you continue to think so simply tells me that we have nothing further to discuss. I've said my piece and you've said yours.
Good day.
They showed the passengers discussing what they were going to do.
The film portrayed them discussing it in whispers, so that the terrorists wouldn't overhear them.
This seems to me the most likely scenario.
Yet you seem to be craving for the movie to show some sort of parliamentary proceeding, with a polite raising of hands and calls for "Yea" or "Nay" votes.
I don't get your point at all.
The point, FRiend, is that Evil is banal and hard to recognize until it springs on you.
Eichman, the BTK Killer, 4/5 guys from the ME out for a plane ride. All perfectly normal appearing, all blending into the background until the trap is sprung.
We'd all like them to be like this Ahmagoinjihad there in Iran so we could see them up front for what they are, but that's not the way it works.
If you won't accept my explanation maybe this will help:
A&E did a version called "Flight 93" in January. Here is an excerpt from a [National Review] review that explains the importance of the vote:
"There's a moment toward the end of Flight 93 — the new A&E film about 9/11 and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania — when the passengers realize they must make a decision about whether they're going to try to overpower the hijackers. So they do something quintessentially American: They vote."
"The entire movie, which premieres tonight at 9 P.M., can be interpreted as a metaphor for the war on terror: The bad guys wield box cutters, invoke the name of Allah, and kill people; the Americans vote, say the Lord's Prayer, and fight back." (snip)
I object!
A movie is like any other piece of art; what you are seeing is not necessarily what the artist wants you to see because you are filtering it through your own experiences. To the author of this piece it could've very well been a movie about grief, while to you it's about courage. Both of you are right.
2006 DOMESTIC GROSSES
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