Chicago: robe or housecoat?

I want to go to Ikea this summer too.

That's cool. You can coordinate your marriage with the completion of Trump Tower Chicago. I am excited about both.

hahaha I appreciate the concern for my well-being that went into this post.

My only reason for not wanting to see United 93 is that I am afraid that it will be very popular and reignite a wave of jingoistic xenophobia and brown people bashing in our lovely nation.

LOL @ Dan

Oh come on, you're just talking about me. Call a spade a spade.

I am not expecting this movie to do anything of the kind. The director is nothing if not polite. Which is probably what I'll be bitching about when I leave the theater, but that's to be found out in a few hours. Most likely: I'll come back going "OMG you guys this is the bestest movie ever!" and then I'll shit all over it exactly two days later.

And two, there were a number of posts about the immigration rally on the Chicago Tribune yesterday, most of which were filled with hate and contempt for "illegals." These posts were at best uninformed ("illegals taking advantage of social programs" without the realization that if paid legally, undocumented workers pay taxes for services that they are not allowed to access) and at worst, hostile to the point of violence. This is in CHICAGO, notoriously liberal city, and not in say, Texas or North Carolina. While those are two totally different issues, the underlying sentiment is the same - brown bad, regardless of rational thought, facts, actual probabilities... So I think my lack of faith in the majority of US citizens to NOT engage in knee-jerk racism as a result of seeing a movie about some bad dudes who crashed a plane into a field while attempting to fly it into a building is very well-founded.

I'll cop to being condescending and elitist.

FUCK THAT SHIT

I'm serious.

Oh, like one critic said that it was "too neutral" because it left open the possibility that the passengers didn't heroically wrest control of the plane from the hijackers and crash it into the ground to save other lives and buildings. So because we weren't painting passengers as PATRIOTIC AMERICAN HEROS (since we don't know what happened) it's too neutral? Sheesh.

The movie itself was well done. It somehow managed to be neutral without making its own neutrality a prominent feature.

The terrorists were not terribly brown, they never engaged in "America, the Great Satan" speeches, and while they slashed and stabbed some passengers, they were not portrayed as needlessly very cruel in their killing.

The passengers were shown in their everyday oblvious airline behavior; the audience's sympathy obviously lay with them, but without much saccharine manipulation (I feared there woudl bew a scene with Mom kissing Dad and the Kids (and a puppy) goodbye at their suburban home and promising she would be back to cook dinner, and the toe-headed daughter saying "I wuv you mommie!" With Vaseline and gauze filters).

I'm going to go check out some reviews. I don't want to read the "Unanticipate" thread.

I don't get it. Was the other option that they were simply trying to save their own lives?

In the run-up to the movie’s national release, two questions continually pop up in reviews, features and op-ed pieces: “Is it too soon for a movie like this?” and “Do we need to see this?” The answers are, respectively, no and hell no.

I think the other option was that the plane just crashed or that the hijackers themselves did it to abort the mission. I heard the reviewer talking about the review on TV but didn't actually read it. Thus possibilities for misinterpretation abound.

Jesse's and Kenan's comments are tipping me more towards wanting to see it for movie reasons than not wanting to see it for "political" reasons. I'm glad that it wasn't overwrought and over done*, but I really didn't think it would be once I found out who was directing and read the initial reviews.

So but Kenan, you said on the other thread that there was an underlying feeling of "But where's the government?" Which is an excellent question. But that's what I'm afraid of - people who think the patriot act is a good thing (and before you get angry at me for saying it, Bush got reelected based on fear of terror attacks so I am talking about a large part of the population here) will see this movie and agigate loundly and anew for the further erosion of our civil rights to protect national security. Sure, you didn't leave the theater thinking that way, but you didn't vote for GWB, either. That's a pretty good summation of why I wish nobody had made this movie - I don't want our current administration to have any propaganda pieces in their arsenal. Even if it is an excellent, well-made film that wasn't intended to be a propaganda piece. I fear it will be turned into just that. Does that make more sense than my anti-average American tirade above? Because I want it to, seriously.

*I'm not glad that I'm still up studying! Gross.

I am pretty sure that a lot of people will see this movie as an inspiration for brown-people hating, justification for the Patriot Act, etc.

In fact, I'm sure that there are people who won't even need to actually see this movie in order for it function as fuel for jingoism.

Also, I'm going to bed.

I said all that to say that I as for my own consideration, I can set aside the concerns I mentioned above quite comfortably.

Your tirade above made plenty sense; no one is saying that you don't make sense. I think this movie makes clear something more fundamental than politics, though, and let's not misunderestimate the audience before we've even seen the movie.

Yeh, me too.

Also, I'm going to bed.

Me three.

I'm up at Nick o'clock.

Let's not condescend to me, either, shall we?

You're right. It's probably a good idea not to.