United 93
On April 28th, Universal Studios is scheduled to release United 93, a real-time depiction of events that occurred onboard the flight that crashed in western Pennsylvania on 9/11. The movie's tagline is "September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the fourth."
The cast is made up of relatively unknown actors who were provided detailed studies of their real-life characters. Writer-director Paul Greengrass obtained the approval of all the victims' families before moving ahead with the film. And the families unanimously agreed to the project, with some of them participating and most of them anxious to have the story told.
The trailer is already causing a stir. It was pulled from one Manhattan theater after it received several complaints and one woman’s tears. An audience in a Hollywood theater shouted, "Too soon!" when it played last week. So when, exactly, is it the right time for a movie on this topic?
The answer: Now. The words "We Will Never Forget" were plastered everywhere after 9/11. But in the four and a half years that have passed since that day, some people have already forgotten. And they don't want to be reminded.
The typical characters with big box office draw are an unlucky-in-love, quirky thirtysomething who finds her soulmate in the most unlikely place, or a devilishly handsome crime solver who beds the beautiful woman and drives the expensive car. These are the movie characters we talk about as if they are real people, even heroes. Yet when a film about real events, real people, real heroes, comes along, it opens to cries of, “Too soon!”
It’s time we were reminded of our promise to never forget.
(Note: 10% of the gross ticket sales from the opening weekend of this film will be donated to the Flight 93 National Memorial. I'm scheduled to depart for Thailand the day after it opens. As uncomfortable as it may make me to see this film the day before I fly to the other side of the world, I will be there.)
The cast is made up of relatively unknown actors who were provided detailed studies of their real-life characters. Writer-director Paul Greengrass obtained the approval of all the victims' families before moving ahead with the film. And the families unanimously agreed to the project, with some of them participating and most of them anxious to have the story told.
The trailer is already causing a stir. It was pulled from one Manhattan theater after it received several complaints and one woman’s tears. An audience in a Hollywood theater shouted, "Too soon!" when it played last week. So when, exactly, is it the right time for a movie on this topic?
The answer: Now. The words "We Will Never Forget" were plastered everywhere after 9/11. But in the four and a half years that have passed since that day, some people have already forgotten. And they don't want to be reminded.
The typical characters with big box office draw are an unlucky-in-love, quirky thirtysomething who finds her soulmate in the most unlikely place, or a devilishly handsome crime solver who beds the beautiful woman and drives the expensive car. These are the movie characters we talk about as if they are real people, even heroes. Yet when a film about real events, real people, real heroes, comes along, it opens to cries of, “Too soon!”
It’s time we were reminded of our promise to never forget.
(Note: 10% of the gross ticket sales from the opening weekend of this film will be donated to the Flight 93 National Memorial. I'm scheduled to depart for Thailand the day after it opens. As uncomfortable as it may make me to see this film the day before I fly to the other side of the world, I will be there.)
posted by Amanda at 8:56 PM
1 Comments:
truer words were never spoken.
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