Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Date night downer!

Lord knows I don't get out to the movies a lot. It was one of my favorite past times before we had kids. Now it is a special treat to go the the movies. Getting to see a film is often the result of a well planned out "date night" for my husband and me. A night where I can check my cares at the door, chow on popcorn and just plain escape into a world where I am not trying to wrangle screaming children. Well for the first time in my life I am happy not to be a frequent moviegoer these days. I just saw on World News Tonight that a trailer for a movie called "United 93" is now playing in theaters. Apparently many NYC theaters started playing the trailer and frankly, that shocks me. Do we really think that the citizens of NYC are ready to be hit with a film about the worst day in their city's history? Albeit, this film is not about either of the planes that hit the twin towers but nevertheless, it jars loose memories and feelings we would rather not conjure up on a "date night"! I guess enough people complained that many theaters pulled the trailer. You can view the trailer at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/. I watched it. WRENCHING. At the end I found myself with my hands clutched at my chest and going into UGLY cry. I am very happy not to have been upleasantly surprised by that in a theater. I can't say whether the nation is ready for films about 9/11 but I would have to guess that we are not. Well maybe I am not. I am curious about the movie but I am not sure I want to go sob for 2 hours. And that is exactly what I do in the face of images or stories from 9/11. I take the anniversary of 9/11 very seriously. We have a collection of newspapers, magazines and books that we take out for the week of the anniversary just to remind ourselves of that horrific day in history. I watch the reading of the names on TV and my husband and I play a TiVo recording we have from that 9/11/2001 morning. At that time, I had a TiVo season pass to Martha Stewart Living which aired at 9 am. Well on this day, the CBS morning show took over and we have live footage of that mornings broadcast including the second plane hitting. I guess I am worried that Hollywood will in someway mainstream this event or trivialize it. I do feel like it is too soon. For me the closest thing I can liken it to is the movie "Munich" - that was about a similarly tragic event but it was almost 34 years ago and there are many of us who would like to know more about the events at the 1972 Olympics and their aftermath. 9/11 is still recent enough that most of us remember it. Yes, too soon IMO!

1 comment:

Meg said...

As a girl who grew up in NY-"Amen" girl.....we are just not ready.