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The deepest thinker in Hollywood. No, really.

By Michael J. Smith on Monday May 22, 2006 09:25 AM

Seems that Oliver Stone is making a movie about the World Trade Center. Now since I live in New York I feel perfectly entitled to say that really wish no one would ever mention the World Trade Center again. It's bad enough when people who live here talk about it; it's insufferable when anybody else does.

That said, however, the subject and the director seem a perfect match: a topic upon which, it seems, nothing but windy cliches can be deployed, and a director who offers ruminations like these:

Sometimes history is shaped by the collective memory of people, men and women, and here was a great chance to work with these people.... And they gave us what I hope one day will be seen as the truth. For the truth must exist in some way to confront power and extremism.... [The film is] the true story of two New York Port Authority policemen who are trapped in the rubble, their wives and their children and the incredible and almost improbable rescue efforts to save them.
I especially like that line "incredible and almost improbable." Cf. Dogberry:
Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly.

Comments (4)

Since moviegoers didn't burn down theaters showing United 93, Hollywood figures it's got a cash cow on it's greasy little paws. Thus Stone's pic, plus Sandler's atrocity-in-the-making Empty City (Yes, Adam Sandler) and any number of 9/11 themed pics will assault our sensibilities in the months to come.

After a slew of dramas, it'll only be a matter of time until the first 9/11 comedy (probably a Farrelly Bros. pic) slimes it's way into the theaters. Followed by a 9/11 buddy-cop action pic, a 9/11 romantic comedy and the inevitable 9/11 - The Musical! (Adapted from the hit Broadway play!)

J. Alva Scruggs:

A 9/11 theme park can't be far behind.

Let's count our blessings. At least Sandler and Stone aren't turning their sights toward, say, Wounded Knee or Shay's Rebellion.

Tim D:

I haven't seen it, nor do I plan to, but from what I have read about it, United 93 might have been a very good film had it included a prologue with CIA agents training and arming bin Laden and his buddies in Afghanistan, then footage of the U.S. bombing civilians in Iraq, Sudan and Libya, a brief glimpse of the utter poverty and violence faced daily by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; and finally the brutal repression of protesters by Mubarak's police forces in Egypt. Then cue the suicide bombers...

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