|
|
| |
|
|
| |
This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
Age 23, living in sin in Twickenham with Cheesy
Likes
Movies
Books
Writing
Theatre
Hugs
Kittens
Chess
Scrabble (mostly beating Cheesy's butt)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Dislikes
Vegetables
Arguments
Cleaning
Trashy TV
Pretensions
Public Transport
Pets
Rabbits-Bambi, Fern, Sooty, Pippa-all deceased
Dog-Sammy-deceased :(
Fish-CatFlap-recently (and finally!) deceased
Cat-Tiggy-still scratching
|
|
|
|
Technically Rachel
|
|
| |
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
I always felt some slight detachment for the World Trade Centre bombings on September 11th. Cheesy and I were on holiday in Italy when it happened - in a tiny mountain type village well outside of Sienna, where there was pretty much one television in the whole place. The landlady where we were staying told us what had happened and we went and watched a tiny TV where Dan did his best to translate the Italian as we watched what had transpired hours earlier. The only time we got the full story was the next day, picking up a newspaper in Sienna. As a result I don't think it ever seemed quite as real to me as it did to others - people who watched it happening real time, watching the horror unfold at the same time people were dying in it. It's bound to hit you differently.
Perhaps this detachment is what made me almost immediately think: "I wonder who's optioned rights for this?" Because, let's face it - disaster movies do well. But disaster movies are based mostly at an American audience - an audience for who this event is too personally tied I think. Movies should have waited I think, for ten, twenty, maybe even thirty years - to a time when you'd have to hire in period costumes to make it. So the audience watching didn't probably know at least someone who'd died that day.
However, it seems now is that time - with two movies ready for our consumption.
From the start I've always been more intrigued by United 93. Go and watch that trailer and see if it doesn't put your hairs on end. Ultimately, if you're going to make a movie about an event that still makes people shiver to this day then I think this is the right angle to take. United 93 really is about people who stood up and fought back. And without a Hollywood ending. These people died and we know they're going to die as much as they did the minute the hijackers took the plane. But there's something uplifting about their story. Tragic, but uplifting. And from the trailer it looks like there's a real sense of realism and respect for the people they're portraying - no glorification, no dramatics or cheesy hero lines or speeches, just a real view of what took place, what these people went through.
Which was why watching the trailer for Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre made me wanna puke. Watch it. Listen to that sentimental music, the American flag flying, the crappy ass shadow, the shaking building out of something like frickin Godzilla, the handsome magnetic police officers who step forward to be brave, "Can you still see the light?", and that hideous tagline: The World Saw Evil That Day... Two Men Saw Something Else.
Glorified pap.
Maybe you could argue it'll be just as uplifting. Two police officers, risking their lives and surviving that horrible day. The perfect Hollywood ending - heroes who survive. But what drags down that nice feeling, is that it wasn't really for much. All those firemen and policemen bravely laid their lives down in the hope of getting people out, and most of them didn't even make it half way up the building. That is seriously frickin depressing to me. But I'm mostly irritated by how blatantly obvious it is that this is going to be a movie of massive disaster sequences, with people dying in shocking and brutal manners, and lots of pomp and circumstance about it along the way. Realism thrown out the window in favour of action sequences and cheesy "powerful" dialogue. I'd rather watch the documentary of the firemen and their experiences than this - at least that is real.
8:04 pm
|
|
| |
|
|
|
