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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Anon -- The 'rest of the country' doesn't make these f*cking movies. These crap movies are made by film-makers, a great portion of whom live and work in NYC, and have been living there for a decade or more (as that is at least how long it takes to reach such a level).
This is a case of New Yorkers making films about New York getting destroyed. I complain all the time that I am sick of seeing new york in every f*cking movie. Apparently, according to filmmakers, not only do cities not get destroyed, unless it be NYC, but no one falls in love or gets up to hilarious hijinks anywhere else on the globe, either. Apparently everyone 'working class' anywhere in the world has a brooklyn accent. I thought this was true, until I saw Alexander the Great; I was fairly sure it was unlikely macedonian soldiers said 'badda bing, badda boom' when debating military tactics, although I guess I wasn't there.
I liked this piece better the first time I read it, when it was Zacharek's review of War of the Worlds.
Oh, wait, I didn't like it any better then either.
The above poser and swellsley gets it. The posters here seem to believe those of us offended by the movie (and unlike most of them, I've seen it) are tagging any movie with destruction to NYC as a 9/11 movie. No. I Am Legend, for example, which definitely plays on the mood of 9/11, nonetheless doesn't exploit the very definite imagery of that day. It's an oblique reference. Cloverfield, in addition to being a piece of shit for all the reasons some have supposed, does replicate that with no depth, no thought, no larer dimension.
That's the thoughtful response. The gut response is, if you weren't here on that day, fuck you and your insistence that we should get over our reaction to those images. Would you tell a war veteran who felt some war movies cheapened his experience to get over it? The level of callousness here suggests you probably would.
Yes, for you creeps, 9/11 is spectacle.
The horror™ of 9-11! the horror of 9-11™! Oh, the horror!!!
I, for one, hope to live long enough to see a frank, flat out comedy made of "9/11." I mean, even funnier than Fahrenheit 911.
Face it, if this were a healthy society, we'd have gotten over it long ago.
It's interesting to see both sides of this argument: the non-New Yorkers who think most of us are still wringing our hands and milking 9/11 for all it's worth (and who secretly or not so secretly get a thrill out of seeing New York get nailed), and the New Yorkers who are just tired of seeing fictitious versions of New York getting blown up in movies over and over again, after having seen some *actual* horrific stuff a few years ago.
I'm a New Yorker too--I was born here I've lived here all my life. I knew people who died on 9/11, and and I too am tired of seeing trailers for movies that show some sort of post-apocalpytic Manhattan. And it's unfortunate that "I Am Legend" and "Cloverfield" opened at roughly the same time because it does feel like overkill.
It's not like other movies haven't shown other cities getting slammed. Baltimore gets blown away in "The Sum of All Fears" and the rubble of Las Vegas is under 80 feet of sand and debris in the latest "Resident Evil" movie.
But let's face it: New York makes an awesome setting for this kind of stuff. It just does. Aesthetically, symbolically, it really works.
If it bothers you to watch a movie where New York City gets destroyed, do what I'm doing: choose not to see it.
And, to the Anonymous Coward at 7:14:
You make good points, but there's a difference between someone who has actually experienced horrific events and is postly-traumatized by them, and with the rest of us who are little more than voyeurs.
We voyeurs shouldn't claim to still be "traumatized." You, however, may.
.....in seeing New York destroyed in yet another movie. Manhattan is my home, where I work, and where my children live and go to school. It's not just a fracking movie set. I know lots of you disagree, but I am another New Yorker who is totally fed up with seeing imagery of my home destroyed, over and over and over. I would feel the same way even without 9/11 having happened, but since it did, yes, there is always an abiding sense of dread here, knowing what a target the city was and still is, and people who say we should get over it should think twice about being so damn glib.
That said, I know that all I need to do to avoid experiencing this movie is to not see it, and I won't. I'm not disputing anyone's right to make this kind of film, but I am saying it's getting old.
I would really like the price of real estate to go down.
What a great game!
Here ya go:
http://www.midway.com/page/ClassicGamePlayer.php?game=rampage
and for more:
http://www.midway.com/page/ClassicGames.html
Clearly you're just seething with rage at New York and New Yorkers. I'm sorry about your inferiority complex.
Maybe you should go watch a movie where New York City gets destroyed; it might make you feel better...
Every Big Scary Monster movie takes our anxieties and packages them into a soothing, amusing spectacle. That is the point of the Big Scary Monster movie.
This is how soldiers get cured of PTSD. They don virtual reality helmets and slowly re-experience war, all the while knowing it isn't currently happening. Of course the soldiers work their way towards the full experience. Today they may look at a 3D tank, tomorrow there may be an explosion. Some of us are ready to look at the explosions and the footage, to feel the memories and then say, "Hey wait, 9/11/2001 happened seven years ago. We're o.k. now. There is no giant crab bat from the sea attacking New York RIGHT NOW." Some of us are only ready to look at the 3D tank.
This movie exposes the very direct fears we have about 9/11, then reminds us via a giant CGI crawfish that those fears are rooted in the past. 9/11 happened in *2001*. We can watch the footage now and not feel like it's happening in the present. It surely did happen, and may happen again, but it isn't happening RIGHT NOW.
So quit arguing about whether or not this movie should have been made, whether or not Abrams is callous, what Kind of People go to see such a movie. If you're not ready to re-experience 9/11 footage on the big screen, don't see it. End of story. Some of us are ready, and that doesn't make us callous or shallow, it just makes us ready.
And how much more awesome would this movie have been with a cameo by the Blair Witch?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
