So I Was At the Movies Last Night...

Watching American Dreamz (review at The Gravy, but essentially a completely mediocre movie), and they started to show a trailer for that upcoming 9/11 movie United 93, about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers stopped terrorists from crashing it into the White House. Anyway, I was all bracing myself for the audience response, which has been a whole range of things from uncomfortable to mesmorized to downright angry. But then they started going into this whole thing with interviews with director Paul Greengrass and some of the family members of the people on that flight, basically saying why they don't think it's too soon for the movie at all.

I haven't seen the movie, I really don't know if it is too soon. I think it looks fantastic, and I can't wait to see it, but I guess more than anything I don't feel I'm in any capacity to say whether or not a movie like that should exist right now. I was, after all, on the other side of the country when it happened, and knew no one at the time who was directly affected by it. In a lotta ways, being at college and meeting people from New York has brought the whole thing closer to home than before.

But largely, I think it's really interesting the way they're promoting the movie. The best way would probably be to not show trailers for it at all; word-of-mouth is what'll get people behind the movie the most if it's as good as it's supposed to be. But now that audiences in New York have been screaming "too soon!" as soon as the trailer starts playing, they've released a trailer that ends with Greengrass saying something along the lines of "before we say it's too soon, maybe we should listen to what the families have to say."

I've been behind this movie from the start, largely because a) it looks really good, b) Paul Greengrass is a really interesting guy, and c) although yes movies are a commercial venture and yes the film will make or lose money, so did countless songs, flag companies, and books based on the tragedy...money may not have been the objective, but in the end someone does get paid. But honestly, I think this trailer is kinda a cheap way to publicize the film. Intentional or not, the message that is sent is "shame on you for thinking it's too soon! Here are the families! What do you know?!" It's telling people how to think about a film they have yet to see, which especially for a film like this is incredibly dangerous.

So I'll be surprised if this gets a positive reaction during the next week or so before the movie comes out next Friday (which I'll completely be there for). But I hope people'll be able to go into it with an open mind, if indeed they choose to go into it at all.