Unpop Culture

My apologies for not posting about this earlier. I really should have. A five-hour ABC movie entitled The Path to 9/1 1 recently aired over two nights of commercial-free broadcasting. It’s a docudrama based on the 9/11 Commission Report, as well as a few other sources. It begins with the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and ends with the events of September 11th. The movie details the numerous failures of both the Clinton and Bush administrations in the investigation of the growing terrorist threats against the United States. The film is outstanding. Kudos to everyone involved on the project, both behind and in front of the camera. John Cameron’s score is especially effective—what little there is of it. (Most of the music in the movie is source music and not original score.) The main theme hauntingly and powerfully accents the film’s final act. As I have said elsewhere , I think this is the best film music theme for 9/11 yet. If you missed the movie, you can v...

Oliver Stone is nothing if not controversial. This time around, though, the controversy surrounding World Trade Center is based on the fact that the award-winning director has jettisoned his usual trademarks in favor of telling a simple and straightforward story. Reverent, heartfelt, restrained, spiritual, patriotic—the film is all these things and much more. There is no need for extravagant effects and Stone thankfully avoids sensationalism. Most of the horror the movie portrays isn’t visual—it’s aural. Rather than being forced to watch what we have already seen a hundred times, we simply hear the first plane’s impact. When the policemen run into the elevator shafts for safety, we don’t see much; instead, we endure the seemingly-endless and gratuitous sounds of the towers collapsing. What we hear is more than enough to make the movie real. In fact, the sense of claustrophobia/peril is so real that there were times I feared John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Peñ...

I remember visiting the Filmtracks ScoreBoard (a message board for film score enthusiasts) as the attack on our country took place on September 11th. Going back to the messages we posted during that time, I am reminded of the shock, fear, and anger that engulfed not only those of us in the United States, but those around the world as well. Even in the midst of the confusion and unanswered questions, we seemed to understand something better then than we do now: we are at war. Everyone was saying it—liberal, conservative, religious, atheist, whatever. At one point in the film, Ben Sliney, head of the FAA’s National Air Traffic Control Center (who plays himself in the movie), says, “We’re at war with someone .” This war is something many in the United States are choosing to ignore—and it is one reason why I am thankful for United 93 . The common phrase used today is, “We are at war with terror,” but that sidesteps the real issue. Andrew C. McCarthy comments on the events of 9/11 ( in ...

If I had to pick one category in which United 93 is most deserving of an Oscar, I would say it is Best Director. Regardless of its future favor (or lack thereof) with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, United 93 will stand the test of time because of one factor: writer/director Paul Greengrass approached this project with no political agenda. He desired to tell the story in a way that was faithful to the facts and that honored the memory of the heroic passengers onboard Flight 93. This film could have been the springboard for manipulative proselytizing. Instead, it thrives on its greatest asset: sincere objectivity. Not everything is factual. Much of the dialogue was improvised, and we obviously don’t know many details about those last horrible minutes before the plane crashed into the ground. But through a painstaking process, the filmmakers pieced together what we do know and filled in the blanks as best they could. Greengrass contacted all the families of those who died on Flig...