September 11th and the meaning of movies in our lives

Not to be cynical but to be truthful, the studios have one goal in mind for summer movies: $$$. The 3 movies you cite in your piece were all summer popcorn event flicks – the same kind that studios have been throwing at us every summer for the past 25-30 years. Then, like clockwork, the studios switch up to more “cerebral” and “meaningful” flicks for the fall. But, once again, reaching, teaching, hope and inspration isn’t their goal. Oscar nominations are.

But that’s what happens when you give MBA’s the keys to your studio. Art is sacrificed for “the bottom line”. It’s all corrupt. So what do we do? Stop supporting the film industry, or simply brush our shoulders off and escape for a couple of hours every weekend. I choose the latter. I have plenty of other sources to find hope, meaning and inspiration than the movies alone.

I take issue with your comment that post 9/11 the studios displayed anything what could remotely be construed as a “sensitvity to violence”. In the weeks following 9/11 all the studios seemed to release were nihilistic violent filled crap such as “Training Day” and “From Hell”. You could not give tickets away to family movie at that time. The families seemed ‘hunkered down’ and to have completely disappeared from the moviegoing scene. The only people that seemed willing to venture out to the movies were those who delighed in the gore. The families did not return until release of Harry Potter & the Socerer’s Stone in mid November 2001.

Listen I remember it like yesterday. No kidding Late Movies. Want to know what movie I saw the weekend of Sept 14? Well for me,since the new releases were delayed,I went to go see Legally Blonde with Reese Witherspoone. I said to myself,having been through an extraordinary week,I wanted laugh. So When I saw Legally Blonde—it made my day. And by November the Lord of the Rings as well. And the dvd Amelie as well. For that year I visited London,Paris for my first time.
One fact I did learn when this tragedy occured how would Tinseltown cope with it. It has turned out psychogolically they couldn’t handle it. The trauma effected them. But I can tell you that very few 9/11 films haven’t fared at the box office. These include United 93 and Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center. I’ve become a critic of these films becouse of historical accuracy. And familiy sensitivies. Frankly with a slew Anti-Irag war films coming out in the fall I expect those pushing a political agenda to be floppers. Already Brian DePalma is getting criticism by Iraq Vets accussing tinseltown of aiding and abetting terrorists.
At least on my 9/11 weekend I laughed but lower Manhatton wasn’t to far from my mind. U know I want to visit New York City now.

Justin – the first 9/11 film to be released after the events was called THE GUYS, with Anthony LaPaglia and Sigourney Weaver; about the death of several firefighters and the writer who is challenged to write their eulogies. It was a decent film.

Whilst I hate to stand up for the “Hollywood MBAs”, the fact is that movies are a business and always have been. But all art is a business. Even Michelangelo needed the Pope’s money to paint the Sistine Chapel. As the line goes from “The Right Stuff”, “no bucks no Buck Rogers”.
Personally I think people ought to be “tough” enough to hear the word “terrorist” in “Back to the Future” even on 9-12-01. Actually following Pearl Harbor people didn’t want a media with “sensitivity”, they wanted a media that rallied the country to get up and whip Japan. So I think people need to toughen up.
By the way, if one screens a lot of early world war II films, you will find a lot of cheap, less than artistic films. But they served the purpose of getting Americans fighting mad!

Kirk you’re right on the money about the World War two films too. Also I believe a lot fans and movie goers are getting tired of political correct and political angenda films which are antiwar. I would love to see more 9/11 films but shows the human side. Not see a tradgy exploited for political purposes.

Regarding a 9/11 based movie – somewhere down the road, we are inevitably looking at a big budget, action-filled, event-type film along the lines of TITANIC and PEARL HARBOR. Whether it’s done with any taste or sensitivity is anyone’s guess.

Probably not.

Oh, and to set the record straight – I am NOT necessarily looking for any type of enlightened spirituality in my life. I mearly suggested that when I’ve come out of a movie, I would rather feel a little brighter and wiser instead of dumber and intelligence-insulted.

It was movies I saw early on in my life — BEN HUR, KING OF KINGS, THE ROBE, ON THE WATERFRONT, THE AGONY & THE ECSTASY, etc., etc., etc. — that inspired me to want to become a Christian. But nothing has ever turned me off more to Christianity then the experience of going to church. I have seen churches of all different shapes and forms and in many different places. And if their role is to uplift and inspire us and commit to doing the Christian good, boy, they are doing one heck of a lousy job at it! As Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce in 1974’s LENNY put it so well, “People are leaving the church in droves and returning back to God.” Which I feel was true back when movie theaters were being run so well. But let me just say of the here and now, inless I just want to play a really cruel and unChristian-like joke on someone, the last thing I would tell anyone in search of any sort of spiritual uplift is: “Go to church.” Maybe church was a great place to go for this at one time. But I’ve never seen that in my lifetime. As a little kid being dragged to church, I hated it! But then movies like those I listed above made me a great lover of Christianity, so much so, that I actually started going back to church again with a whole new outlook. But oh how all the churches were so quick to disappoint. But I still love those movies! And believe me when I say it’s from them that I get my Christian values, not the churches. The churches are just out to make a buck, while I think it’s very dangerous for anyone to put much faith in them.

Fedoozle, it sounds like you were in NYC that day, as I was. I watched much of what happened from the street in Greenwich Village. By the end of the day, I was part of a massive exodus, walking uptown. I walked from the Village to my apartment on East 86th Street and held my fiance like I never had before.

The first movie I managed to come across on television after days of news and images was Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Suddenly, it was 1977, I was ten years-old, and all seemed more innocent and better with the world. And in those brief moments, I was watching a classic movie favorite of mine, which managed to give some form of meaning and hope in my life – without having anything to do with religion.

The problem with movies today, and I think that Roger Ebert says it best in his book, THE GREAT MOVIES II, is that audiences would rather be assaulted than seduced by a movie. I think this may account for why many action movies are made with so many fast edits and jump cuts that practically give you a headache. Tony Scott’s MAN ON FIRE is a perfect example. When I walked out of that one, I felt dizzy and very angry. I could not believe what movies had just turned into! Everything it seems has to be fast, fast, fast and in your face!

Do you think today’s audiences would wait patiently to finally see Harry Lime appear in THE THIRD MAN? I doubt it.

After 9/11, the movies that I went to see were mostly light hearted fare like drama, comedy, and fantasy. Here’s a list of them in chronological order: Hearts in Atlantis, Iron Monkey, K-Pax, Monsters, Inc., Harry Potter 1, Not Another Teen Movie, LOTR 1, The Royal Tenenbaums, A Beautiful Mind, Black Hawk Down, Collateral Damage, We Were Soldiers, Ice Age, Blade 2, Panic Room, The Scorpion King, Spider-Man 1, Star Wars II, Minority Report, Men In Black II, Austin Powers 3, Stuart Little 2, Signs, and XXX. I saw 24 films at the plexes, mostly at either Succasunna, Clifton Commons, Aviation Mall 7 in Queensbury, and Mansfield.

I think in times of war, depression etc, people do tend towards comedy. Surrounded by sorrow we need a good laugh. Some of the great Hollywood comedies were made in the 1930s.
I remember reading that when the Second World War started in Sept of 1939, the cinemas and theatres in the UK closed. But Churchill ordered them reopened because he understood that people need entertainment all the more in wartime.

Just as is the case now, I was residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the day of 9/11. And being as the terrorist attacks that day were both on New York City and Washington, D.C. — with Philadelphia being right in between the two, plus Atlantic City, New Jersey as well — I very much felt the impact and emotion of both attacks full throttle, while having every good reason to fear that these two in-between cities could get hit next. Particularly given how a third terrorist mission had been intercepted and forced to crash land in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And for me personally the attacks came totally out of the clear blue. As was I’m sure the case for many, I was totally clueless who all was behind them and at a total loss to comprehend what the provocation was. And now, just as was the case then, I know that there was no justification for them, now that it’s well known who was behind them, plus what the provocation actually was. But I can also see how naive I was at the time for thinking that Philadelphia and Atlantic City could’ve been terrorist targets next. For just as is the case now, there was little about Philadelphia or Atlantic City at that time that could be said to be truly legitimate. Case in point, during the moments when New York City’s World Trade Center towers were coming under attack, certain Atlantic City casino operators considered shutting down all operations for the safety sake of their gambling clientele. But those playing the slot machines in Atlantic City that day wanted no parts of that. As always, they were playing the slot machines feverishly that morning right before the news broke, continued feverishly playing when the news broke, and feverishly played the slot machines non-stop well into the night long after the news had broken. I.e., they could not possibly have cared less! Meantime, here in Philadelphia, all members of the Philadelphia Fire Department joined in solidarity with the firefighters of New York City and Washington D.C., and that much I felt very proud of, for I thought it was a magnificent act on their part. However, Philadelphia’s fire commissioner saw this action quite differently. When Philadelphia’s firefighters put out the black flag in front of all their fire stations to show their solidarity, he immediately ordered every last single one of those flags taken down, saying such should only be reserved for tragedies that happen in Philadelphia, not New York City or Washington. And that was very typical of how Philadelphia’s governmental agency heads and politicians reacted to the attacks over all, both that day and in the weeks following 9/11. As for the role that Philadelphia’s and Atlantic City’s movie theaters played in all this, then, just as now, Philadelphia had no great movie theaters to speak of, while Atlantic City lost every last single one it had when casinoization overswept that once great seaside town. So in my case, there was no cinematic outlet to look to, other than one or two multiplexes some distance away. And they’re no good for anything. Meantime, upstanding religious establishments here in Philadelphia and Atlantic City had disappeared years before. So there wasn’t that to look to either.

As much as I hate to say it, I can say now in looking back that there was plenty of solidarity on the part of Philadelphia and Atlantic City that fateful day of September 11, 2001. But let the truth now be told, the solidarity then, as is the case now, aside from those such as me, was with the terrorists. And today we’re seeing living proof of that as Philadelphia prepares to go the way of casinoization as had Atlantic City, with everyday Philadelphians having no say over it whatsoever. There’s also a renegade cancer center up here in Philadelphia’s northeast section — where I live — that’s about to do some very devastating stuff in its zealous quest to expand, and which to me has all the smell of America’s next big terrorist attack to come. It’s a cancer center that boasted having Nobel chemists on its team at one time, but appears as if it’s been hijacked. That might sound like an exaggeration, but believe me, it’s not. And just to make a special note, the movie theater closest to it was just shut down. As if in preparation.

Caesar, I’ve been airports all over the world, and I’ve never seen any anywhere even near as bad as Philadelphia International! You’re talking about the other Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Mississippi, right? For if you’re talking about the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania International Airport, you’re the first person I ever met who ever liked it!

It had been a great airport way back in the 1960s, and even the early ‘70s. But then it all went downhill and has been downhill ever since. Contrast that to Norfolk, Virginia’s International in your neck of the country which I feel is one of the best airports I’ve ever been to. It’s so great that even a McDonalds I ate at while there was run exceptionally well! But nobody in Philadelphia who’s in the know uses Philadelphia International. We all go up to Newark, New Jersey’s instead, even though the New Jersey Turnpike we use to get up there is really showing its wear for age these days. But, that’s the trade-off. Either the potholes of that or Philadelphia International….and so it all comes down to, “Hello, potholes!”

Although I know Philadelphia traditionally shows its best face to outsiders, even in that context I can’t even begin to imagine how it could do this with its airport. For there were instances when I was living away from Philadelphia for such long stretches that when I returned it was like coming to this city as an outsider. But even then I found Philadelphia International in comparison to other airports throughout the world a grave disappointment. You know, for instance, that Philadelphia is the national leader in the sale of illegal arms, don’t you? And how its murder rate is now one of the highest in the country? Add to this that Philadelphia International is about to become one of the first American airports to have nonstop flights between the U.S. and China, compliments of U.S. Airways which you mention. And though I don’t know for a fact yet, I believe one of its main purposes will be to assist in human smuggling. With everything about Philadelphia kept shrouded in such huge mystery, in Philadelphia’s case if the answers to this or that question aren’t clearcut or forthcoming, you can be absolutely sure the information being withheld is bad.

And as I say, the day of 9/11, Philadelphia was little phased by it. It just took it all in a happy-go-lucky ho hum stride. I personally was emotionally devastated by the news surfacing that day. But this city’s reaction as a whole was the polar opposite. Instead of Philadelphia rethinking all its corruption — and that would have been an excellent time to — it just made use of that breaking news as a smokescreen to become corrupter still. And the same with Atlantic City.

At least with Pearl Harbor America was blessed with having a great president in place at the time. But with 9/11 it was the total opposite. Meaning that there really hasn’t come a time yet when we have been able to fully come to grips with what happened on 9/11. That much continues to be kept on hold. It’s like you break your leg and go to a hospital to have it treated, but alas, here it is 6 years later and you’re still waiting in that dang emergency room to have a doctor come look at it. For looking back to 6 years ago, seriously, folks, whatever happened to “Osama Bin Laden dead or alive” and all that good stuff? Remember that? Answer: He’s still out there grinning at all this; nothing’s changed. And Al Quada today is stronger then ever. And is America now much safer than it was 6 years ago? Hah! Given how 9/11 was totally mishandled it’s now such that America these days is one of the corruptest places on the planet. As the saying goes, “The greatest victory you can give your enemy is to become just like them.” Or as Jesus asked, “Can Satan cast out Satan?” And when I look around me at how Philadelphia is right now — aside from the nice, but false, face it shows to outsiders — it’s like, gee, what’s keeping the dang doctor? And oh, silly me, why he’s out playing golf, of course! Looking at that green instead of the gangrene of my leg.

I would hope that on this 6th anniversary of 9/11 — it officially being that right now as I’m typing this — that all of us, or at least a large number of us, are much wiser and less gullible then we were on that fateful date six years ago. Some people, of course, are hopeless, as always has been the case since time immemorial. I’m sure when Pearl Harbor was attacked there was probably somebody somewhere having a high stakes card game, and didn’t even so much as blink when news came over the radio of that horrific event.

But the difference between that time and 9/11, such type Americans were not “highly regarded citizens” who all else must get sacrificed for. Today everything in America is geared towards the lowest common denominator. When it comes to saving and restoring a beautiful historic old movie palace or rushing up the next new Wal*Mart or Target Store, guess what prevails? As in who needs terrorists destroying our country when we’re already doing it to ourselves? And the thing is, I wasn’t born into a country like that. It wasn’t always this way. Yes, there were always lowest common denominator people. But they weren’t always on top and the element of Americans most catered to. And when that wasn’t the case that is what made America so great.

There should’ve been a Finest Hour in reaction to 9/11. And there certainly was on the part of America’s police, firefighters, rescue workers and the everyday people who put everything else aside to rush to the aid of New York and Washington. Not to mention the first who lined up — including NFL great Tillman — to go to war in Afghanistan. But in terms of who America had in political leadership I can’t imagine a list of people more trashier and worthless — names including Rumsfeld, Rice, Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft. And now when I look back to 9/11, that comes across as the most sinister aspect of all.

For as for the terrorists, and please don’t misread me when I say this, I feel sorry for them. That is, I feel sorry for anybody so stupid as to lay down their lives for what they’re fighting for. For these aren’t people fighting to be free, but to be oppressed in the worst possible ways imaginable. At the same time they have plenty of company here in the U.S. Classic case in point, what led up to the demolition of the historic DuPage Theater in Lombard, Illinois last winter. In a small Chicago suburb that had nothing else good going for it, at the very least it was home to a movie palace designed by Rapp & Rapp no less, and which major efforts had been underway to restore. But a sizeable and unruly portion of the populace there wanted no parts of it, and of all things they fought tooth and nail to get that theater torn down. And today Lombard is a very dark and creepy place as a result of that. So as I say, given that, who needs the terrorists?

To me, people fighting to be oppressed, whether in Afghanistan or in various places here in the U.S., is so far out there that I can’t even begin to comprehend it. But in the wake of 9/11 I see it ALL the time now. And Philadelphia, where ironically this country’s longing for freedom was born, is far from being the exception now. Interesting to note, the quest away from freedom is the number one thing now driving America’s prison overcrowding crisis. I.e., they can’t build prisons fast enough for the many people who want to get into them.

Anyway, just my own thoughts for this 6th anniversary of 9/11. With that said, I wish there was a movie theater around somewhere that I could go see MESSAGE TO LOVE: THE 1970 ISLE OF WIGHT CONCERT in…

Regarding the side of the 9/11 story as it took place in Washington, D.C., two distinct memories I have of that both had to do with relatives of mine. And to this day it’s a side of the story that remains very upsetting. One of the relatives was a cousin of mine who works for the Library of Congress. When I got in touch with him right afterwards to find out how he was holding up, he said he could see the smoke billowing from the Pentagon from the Library of Congress building where was working, but just seemed very annoyed that he had to walk home from work that day, given how the police had all the streets in and out of Washington blocked off. “Weren’t you afraid at all?” I asked. “No, just displeased with the inconvenience it caused,” was his only reply. As cousins go, he’s the cousin of mine who it seems every other week is taking lavish trips to Europe on your and my taxdollars, rather than working at the Library of Congress, yet getting paid handsomely nonetheless. And these are personal trips he takes, not related in any way to his Library of Congress work. Anyhow, after I saw how he reacted to 9/11, I instantly decided I wanted no more parts of him.

The other relative of mine was an aunt who’s retired from working at the Pentagon. And figuring she had to be upset by it, I got in touch with her as well to check up on her. But to her, living in a beautiful retirement complex across the Potomac River in Arlington, VA — again on our taxdollars — it was as if “nothing bad ever happened.” For what did she possibly care since she was no longer working there? That was her whole attitude.

And it is said in Washington’s case that when the firefighters, police and rescue workers risked their lives to save those working in the Pentagon that day they didn’t even so much as get a thank you afterwards. And today the fact that the attack on the Pentagon was part of the 9/11 story is all but forgotten. And for very good reason I would say. For I don’t know, are we Americans supposed to be impressed by how callously Washington, D.C. reacted to all that happened that day and ever since? For I sure as heck am not. I don’t like such people, whether blood relatives or otherwise. For to me there is a certain obligation that goes with being alive and well.

Meantime, regarding many Southerners' reaction (or nonreaction) to 9/11 — as you say, a grudge leftover from the Civil War era — hopefully this feeling changed somewhat with the North’s reaction in the Katrina disaster. For just as 9/11 was devastating to me and many other northerners, I can’t see where our reaction to what took place in New Orleans was any less. I know for me personally it wasn’t. Katrina, just as 9/11 did, hit me like a brick wall. While to me the same ultimate band of culprits was behind both disasters — the Bush administration. For sure, we can keep blaming terrorists for this and that, and continue blaming hurricanes likewise, or whatever else. But at some point we just have to say, “Oh come on!” But sadly, America hasn’t done that yet. Which in turn has both New York and New Orleans still hurting. And that isn’t going to change until we finally face up to who the real enemy is and have a Finest Hour for real accordingly. For if we don’t, and soon, there ain’t gonna be any America by the time all this is through, North, South or otherwise. And yes, I DO think that matters.

The day and night difference between terrorism and natural disasters, we can overcome the dangers of natural disasters by coming to grips with them on their own terms. As FDR once brilliantly put it, “we should work with nature rather than fighting her.” And it was through that understanding that he brought our country out from the Great Depression. Not to mention final victory in WWII. But God help us all if we come to grips with terrorists on their own terms in that same fashion. We know with hurricanes, for instance, or at least we should know, that they occur for good reasons. And if we accept and work with that, nature will reward us a thousandfold. But with terrorists, if we use that same approach with them, what can be expected is the polar opposite. For where did all this terrorism America is wrestling with today originate from, anyway? Answer: By American leaders in the past consenting to things that no one with any sort of wisdom or foresight would’ve done — whether it was the first OPEC agreements back in the late 1950s/early ‘60s, or Nixon’s shaking hands with Chairman Mao in 1971. And when do those leaders of today finally learn?

Now as for the lingering Civil War grudge you refer to, or what many Southerners call “The War of Northern Agression,” there’s hardly a lingering grudge on the North’s part, not when you consider how when GONE WITH THE WIND was exhibited at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall for that film’s 50th anniversary the audience of 6000 mainly New Yorkers went wild and cheered when Vivien Leigh proclaimed, “As God is my witness I’ll never be hungry again!” And last year (2006) when the “Second Battle of Gettysburg” was being waged, that time around to stop a casino from being built right next to the historic battlefield, both the North and South came together to stop it. And though many say racism still lingers in the South, in all my travels I’ve never seen more racism than right here in Philadelphia, PA. And the South has nothing to do with it. It’s purely a Northern thing. And embarrassing I might add.

Since I recently resumed posting here on CinemaTreasures after not having posted here for sometime, I realize that I’m sort of late to the party, but I still remember that awful day. 9/11/01 started out as an ordinary day for me, and when I heard about the horrific attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center Towers, and later, the Pentagon, I thought it was all a hoax. However, when I turned on my little TV and saw the horrible footage of the WTC Towers being hit by planes and collapsing, I knew differently. To get to the subject at hand, however; back in mid-August of 2001, shortly before 9/11, I’d just gotten back from an eye-dilation exam when I received a call from some friends of mine who’d lived in Boston but moved down to NYC years ago (and who knew that West Side Story is my favorite film), telling me that there was going to be a special 40th-year anniversary screening of the film West Side Story at Radio City Music Hall in early October, and that many members of the cast would be present. Enthusiastically, and from the bottom of my heart, I said yes when they asked me if I wanted them to send off for some tickets for me. After some snafus, the tickets were obtained.

Saturday, October 6th, 2001, was the big day. Since West Side Story is my alltime favorite film, I drove down from Boston to the Big Apple specially to see it, and to see old friends and relatives. What a Saturday night out that was! Radio City Music Hall was packed with an exuberant, friendly, fingersnappling, applauding crowd (of about 5-6, 000, to be exact), and there was a beautifully remastered, cleaned-up and restored print of WSS. My friends and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, and it was fantastic that several thousand people could get together for such a wonderful evening less than a month after the horrific 9/11 attacks. This, imo, is another great example of how to bring people together.

Thanks, Justin Fencsak. It would be nice if these get-togethers happened more often, with great classic movies, to boot.