Sunday, May 21, 2006

"BASED ON A TRUE STORY"


Yeah, you think?

You can't drag me to a theater and watch this, nor could you lure me to the theater with three hawaiian pizzas and a 750ml bottle of Lindeman's Framboise Lambic--which could lure me pretty much anyplace.

I didn't watch this and I won't watch that either. It is not because I have anything against Oliver Stone, or because I'm in a permanent state of grieving and can't bear to relive those days, or because I feel that it's just "too soon". There's no such thing as "too soon". How does "never" grab you?

The idea of this movie leaves such a bad taste in my mouth I can hardly describe it. The idea of filtering the most devastating/harrowing/horryfying/surreal hours in modern US history into a semi-fictionalized, formulaic Hollywood movie--a sort of "The Towering Inferno" albeit with a extra-large side of emotional devastation, is unforgivable. I don't care that it has a terrific cast. I don't care that the sets look amazing. I don't care that the special effects seem so life-like, or that the lighting is so very dramatic. I don't care that the script was based on the lives of two real-live people and their stories. All that adds up to is a product. I'm not ready for September 11th to become another American commercial product. I have a hard enough time being downtown and passing street venders hawking $10 Trade Center snowglobes. This venture is not about giving the two men portrayed in the film "a voice". It's not about making sure their stories get told. It's about making money. Any way you slice it this film has all the earmarks of a zillion-dollar Summer blockbuster. The events of 9/11 unfortuately lend themself too well to a big Hollywood movie...I can't think of Oliver Stone as so much crafting a film, here, as much as getting really lucky because it's more like hitting some sort of storyboard lotto.

Perhaps it will be an excellently written, emotionally charged film that will bring a tear to every audience members' eye as they watch and feel true empathy for the people on the screen...

...but not this eye, because I'm not going. No viewing=no dots.