Saturday, March 25, 2006

Two of the 1st 9/11 Films Ever

It's inevitable...films about recent history always surface...sometimes that history is front and center, other times it's just part of the backdrop. And this year we will start to see the first films where the events of September 11th take center stage.

United 93 (formerly Flight 93):
One Tagline: "September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijaked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the forth."
Director & Screenwriter: Paul Greengrass (director of the Bourne Supremecy, writer and director of Bloody Sunday...he's known for having a documentary style...he's also slated to direct the third Jason Bourne film, the Bourne Ultimatum)
Major Acting Talent: No ones name I recognize.
Release Date: April 28, 2006
Thoughts: Hum, can't say I'm rushing to see this one. I thank this story is probably a neat one to tell, but to be honest it's April 28th release date is very interesting to me because it's just not a prime movie time. Also, I like that this story is being written and directed by someone from the UK. Because of the real-time approach to the story it seems less likely to be filled with political commentary.

World Trade Center
One Tagline: A True Story of Courage and Survival
Director: Oliver Stone (his last project Alexander was pretty bad, but he's done some very recognized Americana movies: JFK, Nixon, Born on the Forth of July, Platoon...plus you know Stone could secure the money and crew to do the film right)
Screenwriter: Andrea Berloff (don't know anything about her except that she/he's written a screenplay called Harry & Caresse which Lasse Hallstrom is directing, so she/he must be doing something right)
Major Acting Talent: Those billed in the film credits are Nicholas Cage as lead, and then Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Stephen Dorff, Jay Hernandez, and Michael Shannon (can't say that I'm too excited to see Cage be in the lead...at least it's not Colin Ferrell)
Release Date: August 11, 2006
Thoughts: Released in time for a final summer push, one month before the five year anniversary of the event. I just can't help but wonder if it's too early for us to be "entertained" by an event most everyone can remember seeing?


Thank you to the hammerzone for 1st alerting me to both of these films.

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5 comments:

Ron said...

'United 93' sounds rather interesting.

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I don't know if Oliver Stone can pull off the sincerity involved in a big budget picture about 9/11 without being crowd-pleasingly sincere (like most big budget reality based films).

And for the Kaufman-made anomaly called "Adaptation" no movie starring Nick Cage has ever [or will ever] be seriously considered for viewing by me [also except for critical examination of course].

Frank Partisan said...

I'll pass on those. We know the endings.

starbender said...

They both sound interesting...,
we will see how they do!
:)

Ryan said...

I saw the preview for United 93 when I went to see Inside Man (which I thought was a great movie) and I had no desire to see this at all. Both will probably be a movie rental in my household

Anonymous said...

United 93 is being done by Paul Greengrass who managed to create a film out of a highly sensitive and politically charged subject, Bloody Sunday. It was a superb film, and managed to be political and moralistic without taking a huge stand and preaching. He did it by recounting the events well, as seems to be done here.

If you see the latest featurette on the trailer site you'll see that he only did this if the families agreed, and they did with some openly supporting the film.

I think this will be a strong and bold statement in the glut of September 11th films that are coming.

As for the Stone version, it could go either way. He could take it the JFK or the Natural Born Killers route. Either quite factual and intelligently put together, or sensationalisation, big screen madness - which works very well for some films, but not such a true and telling story.

Personally I don't think this one will focus much on the events and rather these two very personal stories.

United 93 is a must see in my book.

Richard Brunton
Filmstalker