World Trade Center

[Guest Kong76]

Feel free to add discussion in addition to answering

[Guest Kong76]

Maybe I''m a wuss, but I ain't ready for this movie.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Couldn't have any less interest. Would rather sit through a chick-flick festival. Would rather watch a blank screen for 2 hours.

[Willets Point]

Article on the film in the Onion.

[Guest Edgy DC]

A big problem I have with real-life disaster pcs is that, by titling the flm Titanic, Pearl Harbor, or World Trade Center, is the implication that your story is the definitive summatoin of the experience.

That's, orf course, impossible and insulting.

You want to tell an individual's or group's story, call it Pete and Danny's World Trade Rescue.

[MFS62]

I'll see it, but I won't knock down anyone in a rush to the ticket line.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

No strong feelings about it.

I won't pay to go see it, mostly because it's an Oliver Stone movie. If it's eventually on HBO I might watch it. But I might not.

I didn't click on any of the poll choices because none of them involved maybe watching it when it's available for free. (Or, in the case of HBO, on a channel I'm paying for regardless.)

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I'm not ready for 9/11 based infotainment. I'm going to pass.

[Frayed Knot]

I'm just curious to see who Stone blame the attacks on?

[Vic Sage]

its apparently a rather apolitical approach, and has been lauded by some conservative groups for its patriotism.

i'll wait for NetFlix.

[Elster88]

Rent-by-mail.

[soupcan]

ScarletKnight41 wrote: I'm not ready for 9/11 based infotainment. I'm going to pass.

It seems silly to say 5 years later but I agree with Scarlet. I'm not ready. Not sure when I will be.

I see that gaping hole in the skyline from 2 blocks away for at least 5 seconds everyday and I always think about that day for those 5 seconds when I do.

Thinking about it for 2 hours is not an appealing thing to me.

I wish the ads and commercials weren't EVERYWHERE I look these days either

[seawolf17]

ditto Soup.

[Centerfield]

I'm with Scarlet, soup and seawolf. My stomach gets knots every time I see an ad for it. If that makes me a wuss like KC, at least I'm in good company.

[nymr83]

i clicked "no intention" but i suppose when it is eventually on tv i will watch it. its not that i'm "not ready" for it, i'm just not interested in it and i probably go to 1-2 movies a year in theaters, its gotta be something special to get me there and this aint it.

[RealityChuck]

I refuse to watch anything by Oliver Stone. Did so once, but only because my daughter rented it for school (History of Vietnam).

[Guest cooby]

Chuck, how was that?

[dgwphotography]

I have no interest in seeign this movie. It just seems to be too soon.

[Vic Sage]

Dismissing Stone out of hand is, IMO, a mistake. His films can be truly dreadful, but can, on ocasion, be amazing.

His filmic vision was forged in his violent experiences in Vietnam. While only a few of them deal specifically with that war, ALL of his films have a high level of violence, and sometimes violence is the very subject of the movies. And his view of it is interestingly ambivalent. He revels in it, and despises it, too. And the politics surrounding the war radicalized him about government and power and capitalisim, and its potential for evil. His biopic of Ron Kovic would seem autobiographical for him, as well.

But what makes him interesting is his abilitiy to fuel his angry, violent skreeds and fun-house mirror vision of "history" into wildly visual, viceral experiences.

Sometimes the heavy-handedness swamps the movie, but sometimes it comes just short of killing it and acts succeeds, instead, in heightening the film's impact.

Love him or hate him, his talent and point-of-view are unique, and he hasn't yet become a hack for hire.

feature films written and directed by Oliver Stone (unless otherwise noted):
Seizure (1974) - his first feature; an awful Canadian horror film
Midnight Express (1978) (screenplay only) - Stone's adaptation turned into a great film, directed by Alan Parker
The Hand (1981) - 2nd feature; a slightly better horror film (but still not good); script is an adaptation of book and rip off of "Hand of Orlac"
Conan the Barbarian (1982) (co-screenplay only) - helped out on Milius' screenplay; actually a pretty good adaptation
Scarface (1983) (screenplay) now-classic adaptation, directed by DePalma
Year of the Dragon (1985) (co-screenplay) adapted with director Michael Cimino; underrated, violent crime story
8 Million Ways to Die (1986) (co-screenplay) many writers mangled this crime drama directed by the late, great Hal Ashby

Salvador (1986) - he wrote, produced and directed this, the first of his original, political, personal movies... his breakthru film (artistically, not commercially). He produces all his films hereafter.
Platoon (1986) - his personal account of the vietnam war was the blockbuster that made him a Hollywood force.
Wall Street (1987) - "greed is good"; Stone takes on 1980s-style capitalism run amok.
Talk Radio (1988) - worked with Eric Bogosian to adapt Bogasian's play; powerful.
Born on the Fourth of July (1989) - back to Vietnam, worked with Ron Kovic to adapt Kovic's memoir. Overblown, heavy-handed epic.
The Doors (1991) - original script for hallucinagenic music biopic; Like most of his films, it's overblown and heavy-handed, with some interesting imagery.
JFK (1991) - adapted Garrison's book into another hallucinagenic, overblown, heavy-handed look at our "history", with even more spectacular visual panache.
Heaven & Earth (1993) - the 3rd in Stone's vietnam trilogy, this sad, emotional story is told from the vietnamese perspective. underrated.
Natural Born Killers (1994) - Stone worked with Tarentino on this over-the-top violent comic farce, about the impact of media violence. disturbing black comedy is an example of what its criticizing.
Nixon (1995) - see: overblown, heavy-handed, imagery, "history", etc., yyybbb ... but surprisingly more sympathetic to its subject than i thought it'd be, and more moving than usual. But he's done nothing since this one of particular note, ending a 10-year run as one of Hollywood's biggest filmmakers.

Freeway (1996) (co-screenplay) Stone co-wrote and produced this twisted, comic version of "little red riding hood"; now a cult movie.
Evita (1996) (co-screenplay) - came on board to help old friend Alan Parker with the script. Nothing could save it, though.
U Turn (1997) (direction) - stone just directs this nasty, little modern film noir.
Any Given Sunday (1999) - Stone fukks up football. oy.
Alexander (2004) - catastrophically awful bio epic of gay warrior king.
World Trade Center (2006) (direction) - ?

Shorts and documentaries:
Last Year in Viet Nam (1971) - short film
Mad Man of Martinique (1979) (direction only) - another short film
Persona Non Grata (2003) - documentary on Palistinian conflict.
Comandante (2003) - documentary about Stone's meeting with Fidel Castro.
Looking for Fidel (2004) (TV) - a followup documentary on Fidel

[Willets Point]

Even though I linked the Onion article it always makes me bristle a bit when folks comment that Stone's newest film will have some crazy conspiracy theory. I think JFK is the only of his films that relies on conspiracy theories yet he's been stuck with the tag. Kind of like the phrase "going postal" label stuck because of one murderous postal worker even though surveys show that the majority of postal workers are above average in job contentment.

[TransMonk]

I never realized Stone did Talk Radio. I watched that again this past weekend...great movie for it's time.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

The sappy Coldplay song on the commercials doesn't lead me to believe that this will be at all well done.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Meanwhile, breaking news that says British and Pakistani authorities have stepped in to prevent the sequel.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Crushing blow to the beverage industry

[metirish]

This article says the movie is fiction.

http://www.slate.com/id/2147350/?nav=tap3

[Guest cooby]

What's happened today is pretty frightening, too.

[Vic Sage]

we should move this thread to the Movie forum

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yup, yup.

[Vic Sage]

i ended up seeing it, and it's pretty effective, and restrained, too... for a Stone movie.

[Guest Edgy DC]

You saw a lot this weekend.