WEDNESDAY MOVIE
World Trade Center
On Monday, we will have reached the five-year mark since 9/11 and folks
including me are finally feeling ready to take in films about that
traumatizing day. I for one had such PTSD when it first happened that I checked the computer
news every hour on the hour for a full year while I was at work in fear
of not hearing more such news in time. And I live on the West
Coast. I can’t even imagine how New Yorkers dealt. I heard
Oliver Stone’s film was not going to concentrate on the endless planes
hitting the buildings footage but on two Port Authority policemen who
went in to help just in time to have the building collapse on
them. One fact I learned that struck me was that only 20 people
were rescued alive after both buildings fell. John McLoughlin and
Will Jimeno were the 18th and 19th. Another fact that fascinated
me was that it was a lone ex-Marine who drove from somewhere out in
America on his own, put on his uniform and walked in after dark with a
flashlight who found them after the day’s regular searching was
over. And who should he run into but another lone Marine with a
flashlight. Gotta love those Marines on a mission. So it’s
really a story about two guys who made it out alive and even endured
many surgeries afterwards, and their families and all those who helped
them survive. The acting was just fine – Nicholas Cage and
Michael Pena as the two cops; Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhal as their
wives – and I thought Stone did a good job of just telling a
story. I guess I’m ready to move on now to United 93, which
came out yesterday on DVD and is sitting on my shelf waiting.
Deep Thought:
”If you ever crawl inside an old hollow log and go to sleep, and while
you’re in there some guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on
a truck and take it to another city, boy, I don’t know what to tell
you.”
Today I am grateful for: Having a pulse
Guess the Movie: “I’m da
boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss… I’m da
boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss.” Answer: Raging Bull, 1980. 
Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
The ‘Crocodile Saver’
by David Helvarg
Three months ago, I stepped on a sea urchin in Hawaii, and my foot
still hurts some. That’s hardly comparable to the sadly ironic death of
“Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, killed by the barb of a stingray, one
of the ocean’s more benign creatures, while snorkeling on the Great
Barrier Reef. Still, it reflects a truth about our ocean planet: that
almost every creature of the sea has some kind of built-in mechanism or
tool with which to defend itself, be it camouflage, shell, spine,
tooth, stinger, venom or toxin. (Rest of article here.)
Comments (23)
I too was glued to the television set the weeks following 9/11. They just had a special on the other night about the men who were the heroes searching the rubble for survivors only to die due to breathing the air. The air had been tested and declared to be among the safe levels.
*sparkle
The movie is Raging Bull I believe.
And United 93 and World Trade Center are movies I’ve been waiting for on DVD. Watching either of em in the theater, with no option to stop the film once it got started, was not a pleasant idea for me.
I’m not ready yet. I still shiver when I hear that particular phone ringtone that I heard over and over on the ABC network coverage.
Have you heard about that biased piece of crap Disney/ABC is going to air titled the “Path to 9/11″?
Raging Bull – correctomundo.
I have a lot of feelings about 9/11, but little experience to use in processing it.
I liked the marine walking up part of your story.
Have a blessed day.
Maria Bello’s aunt and uncle are my neighbors back at home. I usually don’t like Oliver Stone’s films. My uncle saw that one and he said it was ok. Personally, I don’t think I’d like to watch a movie about 9/11.
Uhhh, that would be Jake La Motta.
Thanks for stopping by!! Love the deep thought.
Kisses to your kitty.
9/11 – the smoke was awful. the silence at night was deafening, after they closed off the streets downtown… emptiness and loss…fear and anger…and numbness…and intense pain…ugh…
i didn’t have a computer yet, but i did stay glued to the TV here in dallas. we were numb and it was so very weird how not only were there no planes in the air later on, but it seemed to me there were no birds singing or anything. totally terrifying but riveting in how it ground the nation to a halt. i will see the movie too.
I have a difficult time getting past the reality that we are still very much in the position we where 5 years ago. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Vegas seems to be the odds on favorite for another attack. Sin City and all that. This movie seems premature. We really haven’t had the time to rest and reflect. The focus is on THAT day, but until we eliminate the possibility of another terrorist attack, the victims are not at rest. That should always be the real story.
I’m barely ready to see this Sunday’s movie, because critics & others noted that it accurately documents the events and the official report published about how it could have been prevented or handled better.
As for the others, I am not ready yet or may never be. I hear Oliver Stone exaggerated and mis-states the effect on US. I think the word is sensationalizes. Living in DC, I have issues with United 93 as I was fleeing downtown after my daily commute via the Pentagon Metro station.
Otherwise, I’ll keep you posted. I’m planning to blog on the Sunday movie on Sept 11th.
I don’t think I will be seeing it…I saw the original story unfold on television…that, I think, is quite enough.
i’ve read that the clinton administration is nearly violently opposed to the new “Path To 9/11″
ryc: hence the demise of our empire… no passion
Lucky you! I still can’t even talk about it without choking on the knot in my throat. For 7 years I went in and out of the WTC on a daily basis. My best friend worked there on the 82nd Fl for Fuji Bank. She was on the elevator when the first plane hit. Having gone through the 1993 bombing and knowing how harrowing it is to travel 82 flights of stairs she had enough insight and common sense to walk out of the building when the elevator doors swung open and take the first ferry to the Jersey side. She has cheated death twice! As for me, I still can’t even set foot in downtown Manhattan! I guess I will get over it someday but I doubt it. There are so many memories for me that went down with that building. I don’t think I will be able to watch either of those two movies….I cried at the commercials! Next week will be a tough one.
I have mixed opinions. My problem being… people are profiting off of this tragedy. Day after day… that is what saddens me… the Almighty dollar. Now if they were giving the money to a charity or something I would be a little more apt to see it.
Have a wonderful weekend!
I am still not ready to see a movie about it..but then i have pushed it away time and again as being too much… perhaps i should see the movie and work through some feelings
I saw this movie , too..Oliver Stone is a great producer..*/N
I was really worried about watching any of the upcoming movies, so afraid that they’d be too “hollywood”. Let me know what you think about United 93.
Yes, reading on a Saturday night. But, I’m not so young.
although, I appreciated you saying it. Even when I was young, I think I preferred reading over going out. Go figure.
(I will not curse. I will not curse. I will not curse.)
Or, I’ll try. What else can be expected, right?
~lisa
Thanks for coming by and for your kind comment about my poem. Personally, I won’t consider watching a movie about 9/11. I have a hard time watching any kind of footage or looking at pictures. I will never forget trying to call my brother in Hoboken from South Florida to see if he had gone to work and taken the train to the WTC that morning. Thank the universe he and his girlfriend had taken the day off because they weren’t feeling well. I will never forget talking to my brother on the phone as he stood on the terrace overlooking the river across from the towers. He was sobbing and all he could say was….”I’m ok. They’re gone. It’s all gone…I’m ok. They’re gone. It’s all gone……” over and over and over again. I don’t need to see it all on camera. But, I am glad that many people are in a place where enough healing has taken place so they can walk through the feelings that day created and be united in that healing.
I think the whole world was in the grips of what happened that day… east coast, west coast… europe to austrailia. It’s unbelievable what a scope was reached…
I don’t think that I will be watching any movies that spawn off of these attacks. I think it’s a big exploit. I mean… look how many years they waited before making a movie like ‘Titanic’? (Granted… they didn’t have the technology to make one right away…) I still think there should be a certain… ‘grieving time’…
Ah well, anyways… have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!
Though I have no qualms about seeing any of these movies, I haven’t done so yet. They’re not high on my list of need-to-sees. That said, I heard enough about the TV movie — Path to 9/11 — to know that I for sure didn’t want to waste my time with that one.
Trotting off now to see what abbyndc wrote about it.
Stopped by to say hello. Have a great weekend!
Can’t. Won’t. Not now. Probably not ever. I wouldn’t think about “World Trade Center” because, well, sometimes narrowing a story down makes it a bigger lie than you could possibly do any other way. I totally respect Paul Greengrass – but unlike “Bloody Sunday” (which was magnificent, but also 30 years after the event) with “United 93″ he had no record at all of what really happened – so why pretend?
But I’m nitpicking. I may think that Americans are in a disgusting rush to celebrate their own victimhood, but I won’t see them because (a) there is nothing that they can tell me, and (b) I can see the scene without buying into someone else’s commercialized “memory,” and (c), like I said, I can’t.