• The Passion of the Weiss
  • Gorilla vs. Bear
  • Greencine Daily
  • Music Is Art
  • Shake Your Fist
  • Big Stereo
  • The New Yorker
  • The Torture Garden
  • Ear Farm
  • J'ai la cassette à la maison
  • The Hater
  • The Yellow Stereo
  • Movie City Indie
  • Fader
  • Covert Curiosity
  • Chromewaves
  • Sucka Pants
  • AV Club
  • Tinyways
  • Palms Out
  • Girish Shambu
  • So Much Silence
  • Heart On A Stick
  • Untitled
  • Sixeyes
  • The Documentary Blog
  • Contrast Podcast
  • Fecal Face
  • Quick, Before It Melts
  • Muzzle of Bees
  • La Blogothèque
  • The Rawking Refuses To Stop
  • Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good
  • indieWIRE
  • Gimme Tinnitus
  • Conscientious
  • Toothpaste For Dinner
  • Cable & Tweed
  • Culture Bully
  • Oceans Never Listen
  • Juxtapoz
  • I Am Fuel, You Are Friends
  • Subinev
  • Bookslut
  • Filles Sourires
  • Berkeley Place
  • Get Underground
  • Nah Right
  • Motel de Moka
  • Raven Sings The Blues
  • Fact
  • Missing Toof
  • Badical Beats
  • Clap Cowards
  • Chuckmore
  • Anthem
  • It's the right thing to do
  • Something is wrong here, something is terribly wrong
  • There ain't no life for me on land
  • The greatest #8: The Dreaming
  • Still I walk in darkness
  • Home of the cheesesteak, the beef piled sky high
  • Blogiversary #2
  • Blood rain
  • The best 15 films of 2007
  • The best 30 albums of 2007
  • The best 30 singles of 2007
  • The best 30 songs of 2007
  • The Greatest #6: Veedon Fleece
  • Behind the blog: Blogs Are For Dogs
  • It's winter again and New York's been broken
  • Blogiversary
  • Up high and ugly: Xiu Xiu MP3s
  • The Greatest #2: New Skin For The Old Ceremony
  • Behind the blog: The Passion of the Weiss
  • The best 15 films of 2006
  • Good clean fun: Clean Guns MP3s
  • Behind the blog: Music Is Art
  • United 93
  • The best 30 albums of 2006
  • The best 30 songs of 2006
  • The best 30 singles of 2006
  • The chapter in my life entitled San Francisco
  • The Up Series
  • Review #4: Ys by Joanna Newsom
  • Happy Yom Kippur
  • Rock bottom riser: Smog MP3s
  • Justin Ringle
  • Dan McGee
  • Sebastian Krueger, pt. 2
  • Sebastian Krueger, pt. 1
  • Bry Webb
  • Greg Goldberg, pt. 2
  • Greg Goldberg, pt. 1
  • Benoît Pioulard, pt. 2
  • Benoît Pioulard, pt. 1
  • Kevin O'Connor
  • Conrad Standish
  • Chris Bear
  • Owen Ashworth
  • Andrew Bujalski
  • My Photo
    Name:
    Location: Brooklyn, NY

    The MP3s available here are for sampling purposes. Please support the artists by buying their albums and going to their shows. If you are the artist or label rep and don't want an MP3 featured, let me know. Links will otherwise stay live for about two weeks before they vanish into the ether.

    If you'd like to send music, art, writing or promo material for consideration, email me at nerdlitter[at]yahoo[dot]com. This site is designed in Firefox and may not look optimal in other browsers. You can get Firefox here.

    Powered by Blogger

    Friday, January 05, 2007

    United 93



    It kept sliding down my queue. I kept inventing reasons why I should put it off and finding other movies that needed more immediate attention. It wasn’t that I was concerned that United 93 would be a bad movie. Given Paul Greengrass’s pedigree and how affecting his historical reconstruction of Bloody Sunday was, I took for granted that this new project would be worth seeing. No, what I was worried about was that United 93 would be too good, too real, too raw. Finally though, I gave up the excuses and ordered the DVD with a hopeful dread. Whatever my experience was going to be, I braced myself for it.


    The film begins with the would-be hijackers praying in Arabic. It’s a scene that instantly ratchets up the discomfort level, with their sense of peace and holiness juxtaposing with our knowledge of what it’ll lead to. From there, United 93 continues as uneventfully as the day it depicts, with average people doing expected things. Air traffic controllers supervise blips on a radar screen, passengers hustle through the usual airport rigmarole, flight attendants prep for another cross-country trip. And yet once again, even the most innocuous of actions carry a deep foreboding, the queasiness of prophecy.

    Greengrass’s direction here recalls a lot from Bloody Sunday, which also saw a lot of innocent people unknowingly marching to their doom. It’s harder here, because the events are still so fresh and so local. And because the people who board the planes are actors we don’t know, they can easily stand in as our neighbors and friends. In their unrecognized faces, we can project our own fears and ultimately, ourselves. While we’re doing this work though, the passengers are still just obliviously stuffing their bags into overhead bins or checking in with the office before takeoff.

    Along with casting unknown actors, Greengrass also incorporates real people who were intimately involved in the events of September 11th. They fit in undetectably, but underscore the level of participation he was able to secure and the authenticity it lends his project. The most notable “as himself” appearance is FAA Director of Operations Ben Sliney, who happened to be marking his first day in the position. We watch as Sliney again makes the unprecedented decision, after the two World Trade Center crashes, to ground every plane that was currently in the air (about 4,200). Learning later that it was the man himself only compounded the gravity of the scene.

    Ben Sliney as himself

    Supplementing scenes inside the airplane, Greengrass intercuts between the National Air Traffic Control Center, airport towers and a military headquarters. He seems as interested in depicting the mechanics of response as the emotions behind it. Rather than speculating about the origins of terrorism (a la Syriana) or sketching in the larger picture, he focuses on chains of command and tactical maneuvers. His air traffic controllers and pilots also speak in very specific and realistic vernacular, filled with bits of transponder code. In a larger sense, his choice to dwell on technical aspects like these confirms United 93 is about restaging, not reassessing. This is a movie that attempts to stay respectful by adding as little interpretation as possible.

    Throughout the first two acts of the film, United 93 is working to gather the credibility to deliver the horrific finale. That it ably does achieve this goal only promises that the inevitable crash will be devastating to watch. It is beyond devastating. The soul-rending center of the movie, it zeroes in on the chaos with an unflinching lens. Ordinary people are summoned to be reluctant heroes; ordinary people are stabbed, killed and turned into unwilling martyrs. Taking in the brunt force of the re-creation, I marveled that anyone could’ve watched this in a theater. I imagined rows of sobbing, shaking strangers looking up at the screen of rows of sobbing, shaking strangers. Near the end, at its tensest, most emotionally draining climax, I even had to pause the movie, leave my apartment and be around someone, anyone else.

    United 93 is a still-healing wound torn open and doused in rubbing alcohol. It’s easily the most painful viewing experience since at least The Pianist and far riskier an endeavor. It’s near-impossible to come away from it unscathed or unchanged. Indeed, I’m not sure if I could stand to watch it again. But no other film this year dared to plunge so heartfeltly, so bravely into the darkness. No other film felt nearly as relevant; no other film was better this year.

    The trailer on YouTube here.

    * MP3: "Far Away" - Sleater-Kinney from One Beat [Buy it]

    Comments on "United 93"

     

    Blogger Rachel said ... (4:29 AM) : 

    This is currently in my queue and I too put it off and put it off not really sure why though.Great review. :)

     

    Anonymous Natural vitamins supplements said ... (4:51 PM) : 

    I can't wait to see your examples of how your handwriting has evolved! I am obsessed with the different forms that hand writing takes. I love collecting old postcards just to see the writing.

     

    Anonymous Free Classified Ads said ... (12:09 PM) : 

    This piece was an inspiration for me to share with everyone I know. I must congratulate the author and the place and coming up with a beautiful creature like this.

     

    Anonymous 3d ultrasounds said ... (3:46 AM) : 

    Thanks for putting this together! This is obviously one great post.

     

    Anonymous Anti aging Vitamins said ... (9:33 AM) : 

    Thank you very much for that extraordinarily first class editorial! Very creative, one of the nicer sites I have seen today. Keep up the great work.

     

    Anonymous doctor ratings and reviews said ... (8:42 AM) : 

    Almost people like to write what he said, But I like to listen what they said, Your post is very good. Thanks!

     

    Anonymous Classified Ads Assam said ... (12:35 PM) : 

    Brilliant post and useful information…I think this is what I read somewhere…but I don’t know with your experience...

     

    post a comment