United 93 - Are we ready for this?

[Mister Tee]

Yeah, Penelope -- you might not (based on your comment) like Bloody Sunday any more than you did Bourne Supremacy, but you'd at least have a better idea of what to expect from United 93. Bloody Sunday is a faux cinema verite recounting of the 1971 Irish uprising/bloodbath. It's done utterly without literary flourish (Elephant has a stong point of view, by comparison), but it has its own power. I assume this new film will be done in much the same style.

For the record, I think it's too soon to want to watch this incident on film, but we'll see.

[Okri]

Penelope, please, please watch Bloody Sunday. It breaks my heart to see Greenglass called abysmal. I'll mail you my copy of the DVD if you can't find it, but it's a powerhouse film.

[anonymous1980]

From what I understand it, the movie was made with the cooperation and approval of the family of the victims.

[Franz Ferdinand]

I think it looks fine. The jerky camera on the attendant was the only one in the trailer that I noticed. I just question the idea of placing it so close to that TV movie from a couple of months back which did a fine job portraying Flight 93. I'm guessing five years is a long enough wait for Hollywood to sensationalize one of America's greatest tragedies...

[Penelope]

After viewing the full trailer here -- actually, I couldn't watch the full trailer because it just made me sick, both emotionally and aesthetically -- I have to wonder, who's going to see this movie? Are we really ready for it? Perhaps if it appeared to be a meditative examination of the event, but -- I hope I'm wrong -- it looks to be very exploitative.

What gives me that impression? The bits we see give further indication that Paul Greengrass is one of the most truly abysmal directors in the entire world, as if The Bourne Supremacy wasn't proof enough. One of the first shots in the trailer is of a flight attendent in the galley; the camera floats around, and there's a sudden focus jerk towards her -- you know, the kind of photography you see in really awful ads for prescription medicine. I'm sorry, but that's amateur hour to me.

I assume the whole movie is like that, and combined with the subject matter, which strikes me as a very tender, raw issue, I don't know if I can sit through it. Maybe, if enough of you here say it's worth seeing...but, given the (lack of) talent behind the camera, I'm inclined to stay away.

And you just know United Airlines is NOT happy with the title change (originally it was just Flight 93).