United 93: Why I won't be watching
Despite all the glowing reviews
This was posted on Boing by a contributor:
"I was wrong. Universal Pictures held a preview screening of United 93 last night in Hollywood. I went with a friend, expecting something exploitative, schlocky, and agenda-laden. The film was none of those things. I can't imagine how this story could be told any better in film. I don't know how you'd review something like this, other than to ask: Was it respectful? Was it faithful to fact? Was it real? Yes to all three. I walked out of the theater thinking that this is what the film captured best: All the systems we trust to protect us failed on September 11. But the best of human nature is to do good, regardless of cost. That is what happened on this flight, and in many other places, on that day."
Still, I won't be watching it for two simple reasons:
1. I seriously believe that the over-reverence of the dead, even in the most tragic of circumstances, is wrong. Dead people should be buried and remembered, but we should then move on and mourn in private. It's more respectful that way and, the way things work today, the events usually end as a fan to the flame of hatred. A lot of wrong has been done under the auspices of 9/11 and we shouldn't forget that. But a lot of it was perpetrated by us.
2. Maybe I'll watch United 93 when they release a movie called Falluja 06. So many innocent men, women and children have lived in terror and died in Iraq, over the past two years and yet no one knows anything about them. We know the numbers (66 killed today) but have we ever seen their faces or their ages or the ones left behind to mourn them? No, because there's no media to brand them as victims or heros or even as fallen civilians.
People died on United 93 and we know we miss them. People are dying in Iraq (and I don't mean the troops) and no one cares. Because it seems to me that you have to be American to be considered a human being. And that's as shameful as it can get.
This was posted on Boing by a contributor:
"I was wrong. Universal Pictures held a preview screening of United 93 last night in Hollywood. I went with a friend, expecting something exploitative, schlocky, and agenda-laden. The film was none of those things. I can't imagine how this story could be told any better in film. I don't know how you'd review something like this, other than to ask: Was it respectful? Was it faithful to fact? Was it real? Yes to all three. I walked out of the theater thinking that this is what the film captured best: All the systems we trust to protect us failed on September 11. But the best of human nature is to do good, regardless of cost. That is what happened on this flight, and in many other places, on that day."
Still, I won't be watching it for two simple reasons:
1. I seriously believe that the over-reverence of the dead, even in the most tragic of circumstances, is wrong. Dead people should be buried and remembered, but we should then move on and mourn in private. It's more respectful that way and, the way things work today, the events usually end as a fan to the flame of hatred. A lot of wrong has been done under the auspices of 9/11 and we shouldn't forget that. But a lot of it was perpetrated by us.
2. Maybe I'll watch United 93 when they release a movie called Falluja 06. So many innocent men, women and children have lived in terror and died in Iraq, over the past two years and yet no one knows anything about them. We know the numbers (66 killed today) but have we ever seen their faces or their ages or the ones left behind to mourn them? No, because there's no media to brand them as victims or heros or even as fallen civilians.
People died on United 93 and we know we miss them. People are dying in Iraq (and I don't mean the troops) and no one cares. Because it seems to me that you have to be American to be considered a human being. And that's as shameful as it can get.
posted by Basil Epicurus at 11:34 PM
1 Comments:
hear, hear!
i'm gonna go watch it and let you know.
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