Friday, September 11, 2009

A New Low: 9/11-sploitation

I have been bothered by this for a long time, but did not feel right bringing it to a public venue. The date being what it is though, it just feels right.
9/11-sploitation
This is just a terrible idea and I wish that it would go away. The basic idea is to make movies that reference the event or are inspired by the imagery of it. Yeah, we all want to relive it through cinema! There are many levels of it and different offenders that bear mentioning.
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1. Cloverfield: While not an outright culprit, it knows just what it is doing. A mysterious event suddenly happens in NYC while everyone is caught off-guard. Everyone is running and giant dust/debris clouds litter the street. Everyone films all the destruction as well. I might forgive this movie if it did not suck.

2. W.T.C./United 93: I might get some flack for including this, but hear me out. For one thing, the first film is all about the heroic sacrifices of the men, but changes their names and turns one black man into Nicolas Cage! The latter is supposedly quite realistic based on what we know from the supposed phone calls. Oh, so you wanted it to feel gritty- thanks.

3. Reign Over Me: This weepy Adam Sandler film (how rare is that) is also not a major offender, but is pretty dumb for what it is. Adam's character is heart-broken because he lost his family in 9/11. That's very sad. Why does it have to be this event? It could not be a car accident/cancer/any other plane crash? It just feels so tacked on and stupid.
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There are a few more minor and major offenders of this. While I will admit that most of them are not super-callous, the sheer idea of this even being thought up is bad enough. This is coming from a guy who lives in Florida and lost nobody that day. I have no real connection to the event, but can see why so many people still do. There's no need to do this, so why bother? At least District 9 is a vague allegory on the events it is based on. Just stop it.

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