Let's Roll. Come On, Let's Go Already: United 93 (2006)

I have discussed in varying detail the idea of post-9/11 cinema at least once during my review of the decidedly enjoyable Red Eye.  That particular film makes for such a great point of reference since it takes place on a plane, focuses on terrorism and plays upon the emotions associated with both frames of reference to American moviegoers.  Now to be fair the idea of post-9/11 cinema obviously extends well beyond plane based movies and affects the elements of horror and espionage/action films specifically and in some more unusual ways it also deals with comedy.  While these films began emerging within the year or so after the attacks on the Twin Towers, the obvious "don't talk about it" subject for film seemed to be any sort of retelling of the events surrounding the terrorist attacks, or more importantly a recreation of the actual events of those persons on any of the ill-fated flights.  Yet, in 2006 Paul Greengrass audaciously approached the story of those on United 93, the one hijacked plane that was diverted from its mission by a set of courageous passengers.  I will admit, I avoided this film for what was seven years now, because I felt that this narrative would be exploitative and in bad taste, particularly since it plays on emotions that were, and still are, highly sensitive to Americans.  Yet, I could not help but be made aware of the various sources of championing and praise that were directed towards Greengrass' work, and understandably so considering that given the controversy that would exist with such a subject I would posit that it is handled perfectly.  In fact, there were a ton of wrong ways that the film could have gone and it never does so, more so, there even "safe" approaches to this film that would have assured its success without taking risks, something that Greengrass also manages to reject.  The result that comes from United 93 is a film that manages to capture the events on the day of September 11th, both in its inconceivable initial events to its jarring realization that silenced Americans and the world around.  The film ends in the only appropriate way possible, gloomy sure, but nonetheless indicative of the tragedy and the very real loss that still lingers in the American discourse.

United 93 begins in an unexpected manner by focusing on the activities of the terrorist preparing for their missions, shaving and praying in the bathrooms and floors of hotels, indeed following them along to their entering into the airport through security, running late even, as they rush through the gate to their respective flights.  It is, in fact, not until the boarding sequence that the film starts to focus on non-terrorist characters, first looking at the pilots who move through their daily chores with practiced indifference to the beleaguered air hostesses who clearly just want to get through with their flights to exist in their moments of rest between travel.  The passengers flow into the plane in a sense of normalcy, a few moments of dialogue and light banter occur, aside from the normal preparations.  Their flight United 93 is scheduled for an early take off, however, when the air traffic increases they are forced to wait longer than expected.  It is during this wait that air traffic controls across the United States begin experiences trouble with their communication on a handful of planes in the skies of America.  Seeming at first to be technological issues, it is not until one correspondent picks up what he thinks to be a threat that a fear of hijacking emerges, although the various organizations involved wait with bated breath before sending the nation into panic.  Their patient approach proves ill-conceived when a plane crashes into one of the twin towers in New York, only to be immediately followed by another, in which footage of the real life event is incorporated.  These attacks lead to an outright madhouse approach between various organizations, demanding that military interception is used a request that is denied due to the safety issues of entering more transportation into the busy airways.  All the while the attendants and passengers of United 93 are oblivious, only made worse by the leader of the terrorist particular hesitance to lead his men in their own attack.  Yet when the time comes the overtake the plane with violent use of a box cutter and an assumedly fake bomb.  Panicked and confused the attendants and passengers initially follow the demands of the terrorists, whose actions are made known to the government and flight branches due to their change in path and radio silence.  When it is made apparent that the actions of the terrorists are violent the passengers mount a revolt against them, using boiling water, knives and a fire extinguisher to take back the plane, eventually making it to the cockpit, although their endeavors prove to only fatally ground the plane, it is suggested that the diversion resulted in saving the White House from being another victim of the 9/11 attacks alongside the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

So how then can one conceptualize a film that is so close to the emotions of Americans.  It is tough to say, because it is not the same method Bigelow incorporates into the opening moments of Zero Dark Thirty with the voices of real 9/11 victims overlapping darkness.  Paul Greengrass is pulling from the actual experiences of a group of people who were riding a plane that was victim to a terrorist attack.  Now it is worth remembering that nobody survived this attack and aside from a handful of phone calls and what could be gleaned from the black box recordings, most of the film upon the planes takeoff is left to poetic license.  Now this poetic license could have meant that Greengrass painted a perfect and idyllic picture of those on the plane, while juxtaposing it with the fumbling acts of the government to intervene, although it is an understandable hesitation on the part of those organizations due to the unfathomable nature of such an attack.  Yet, Greengrass creates a dramatization that shows the real humanity of all those involved from the breaking down emotionally of men and women realizing that their lives will come to an end on the plane, as well as painting a picture of the terrorist as people driven by a misguided blind hope for justice, as well as being susceptible to regret for their engagements.  Even the final retaliation by the passengers is filmed in such a frantic and disjointed manner as to reflect what the attack may have actually looked like, no glorious feats of heroism or athleticism, but instead the frantic rage of a mob hoping to quell a terrorist attack, while clinging to a fleeting hope that they will somehow rally together for survival, ignoring their own wounds and burns in they name of survival.  Now the film takes minor missteps throughout, whether it be a lack to subtitle certain conversations between the terrorists, or the particular demeaning treatment to one of the few non-American passengers who is not a terrorist, but to call any of this exploitative in relation to the larger narrative is ill-advised and a complete overlooking of the sincerity and gravitas that Greengrass has given the story, again closing it on the moment when all involved would have lost the ability to explain their respective experiences.  The brief explanatory texts are not really necessary for viewers, who have at this point had their collective memory rekindled in an unsettling manner, although it is the type of disconcerting feeling that is necessary to understand the wrong doing that occurs on a daily basis.

Key Scene:  The once scene Greengrass pulls from actual footage is seemingly obvious, but again he takes this narrative seriously and is fully aware of the power this image has on the collective memory of a post-9/11 society, one so jarring and world changing as it could prove to be the single most important moving image of this still early century.

Netflix has this very important film available and while it is a decidedly daunting engagement, I think it serves as a pseudo-documentary on the events of one plane during the traumatic date in American history.

I'm Made Of Wax Larry. What Are You Made Of?: Night At The Museum (2006)

Sometimes a middle of the road, uncomplicated family friendly movie is exactly what a person needs to distract them from the very real and work heavy semester they will undertake in graduate school.  At least, this is what the Ben Stiller vehicle Night at the Museum provided for me last night as I attempted to forget about the fact that I will have very little free time until at least the end of April.  I will admit that I would never have given this family feature any credence, were it not yet another discovery as a result of buying DVD lots and being afforded copies of films that I had otherwise dismissed.  Of course, Night at the Museum was not a revelation in the same way some of the other films within this method of obtaining have proven to be, but that should not mean that I found it to be terrible.  For a feature focusing on one man's attempt to, on a cursory level, maintain the magical world of a museum coming to life at night, and proving his worth to a doubting son on a deeper level, it is really hard to think terribly about this film.  In fact, Night at the Museum gets its message out, leaves viewers happy with some decent special effects and certainly has enough cameos to make a viewer of any age ecstatic.  Furthermore, while I am wary to give Ben Stiller complete, unadulterated praise (despite adoring Tropic Thunder) it is hard not to love his commitment to such an absurd plot, so much so that you can believe him both as a man struggling to maintain his paternal identity, as well as a befuddled night guard placed in an absolutely incomprehensible level.  One cannot help but consider the possibilities of this notably star-studded film had the producers considered providing even a bit more time with the work, as opposed to clearly creating it as a quick money grabber, suitable for a handful of straight-to-DVD spinoffs.  Night at the Museum could have been a far greater and respectable film, but at the same time it could have been way worse and probably still made a considerable amount of money, it deserves acknowledgement at the very least and maybe even an earnest viewing cinephiles with even the most discerning of tastes.

Night at the Museum focuses on the constantly changing life of Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) a single dad living in New York, while attempting to make his various "big ideas" translate into money with little or no success, much to the disappointment of his ex-wife and son Nick (Jake Cherry) who is proving to take a liking to his mom's new husband and successful Wall Street broker Don (Paul Rudd).  Desperate to make a respectable living and assure his ability to stay close to his son, Larry agrees to take a job at a museum on the night shift, even though he has been warned of the headache that will invariably ensue with the notably odd job.  While the former employees seem quick to pass the torch to Larry, he, nonetheless, sees the work as a means to make money for doing next to nothing, however, during his first night on the job he realizes that working at this particular museum may be a bit more complicated than he initially assumed, especially since everything in the place comes to life thanks to an ancient Egyptian rune that adorns the wall above a sarcophagus.  Assuming it to be a bizarre hallucination it is not until Larry is confronted by the museum manager about some figurines being out of place that he realizes it is, in fact, something much more complex.  When it is revealed that the rune causing this magic to occur is of high value and sought after by a set of thieves with close ties to the museum, not to mention the threat by the director of Larry losing his job if he is to find another thing out of place, Larry plans a means to properly maintain the wily world of the museum.  This of course involves the help of his skeptical son and the eventual aid of one of the museums curators, for whom Larry has taken a liking.  It is through his ability to acknowledge history, as well as the promotion of unity amongst the disparate and famously jarring identities within the museum that Larry is eventually able to save his job, as well as the magic of the museum.  More importantly, Larry is able to gain the much desire respect of his son and assure their future together.

It seems a bit foolish for me to dig too heavily into the commentary within the film, but to ignore the notion of history within Night at the Museum would be equally foolish in my book, particularly its clear promotion of studying it in order to better understand one's own relationship with the world around them.  For Larry this has a very literal sense, in that he is forced to learn the ways of Mongolians, warring Romans and rambunctious cowboys, in order to maintain the museum from delving into complete chaos, not to mention learning the ways of a variety of animals as to assure that they do not maim one another.  This learning, while narratively manifesting itself with his relationship to the museum, nonetheless, reflects his own evolution, particularly considering that he is depicted as a spineless, self-loathing individual, emphasized by a poster in an elevator, as well as his own inability to get a job, or blame inventive competitors for his failures.  It is not until Larry gains knowledge that he is better able to navigate between his past failures and the promises of his future, going so far as to defy historically powerful figures like Attila the Hun, as well as deal with the tiny revolutions in his world, brilliantly visualized through the cowboys and Romans.  These tiny figures serve as an exceptional metaphor because in the films earlier portions it is clear that Larry is allowing for a series of small inconveniences and missteps to completely navigate his life.  Furthermore, it is no coincidence that when he learns to harness the power of a T-Rex and break a few members of the museum from glass freedom, or even tame an entire menagerie of animals that he finally asserts a self-esteem and authority that gains him respect from his colleagues, as well as his son.  Sure the antics of Larry taming the zoo have a great cinematic appeal, however, one must consider how these elements exist as a reflection of his life, as it is attached from the museum.

Key Scene:  Robin Williams is Teddy Roosevelt is Robin Williams...enough said.

Rent this film, by all means it is not close to worth owning, but who knows if you are in a bad mood or need to relieve some stress it is well worth affording a few hours towards.

Offer Relief To My Patients, With Little Chance Of Killing Them: Hysteria (2011)

The film Hysteria came and went with very little hype, despite having a well-respected Maggie Gyllenhaal and zany Rupert Everett and being directed by a woman.  Perhaps it is the subject matter of the film that proved problematic to individuals considering that it is essentially a film centered almost entirely around the invention of the vibrator.  A film with such subject matter runs a risk of being blatantly exploitative and degrading to women in its commentary, and while director Tanya Wexler certainly displays the problematic, misogynist patriarchal place of science and medicine circa 1890, this period piece is anything but exploitative.  Sure it uses a great degree of comedy to deal with discussing women's sexual awakening, but this comedy rarely, if ever, envelops the greater statement on a great moment right at the cusp of the push for women's enfranchisement.  It is a film that certainly suffers from attempting to coalesce a few too many stories and ideas into a small narrative window and can at times seem a bit trite, but I cannot help but praise its existence, firstly as a film of considerable quality by a relatively unestablished female director and secondly for handling such a important topic in women's health with some degree of respect.  It would be easy to read this film as a male dominated fantasy about what they believed to be their role in women's sexual awakening, but it is quite clear from the onset that the male figures in this film are set up only to undermine and mock, something done both within the writing and often with some very clever cinematography.  I would be cautious to call this one of the better films of 2011, particularly considering the amount of great work that did come out that year, however, Hysteria is a fantastically funny, surprisingly pertinent and incredibly enjoyable work.  I only hope it does not spiral into obscurity for the sake of its great message and for some absolutely hilarious acting on the part of Rupert Everett.

The film, while focused on the invention of the vibrator and the debunking of the term hysteria, nonetheless, fixates on the doctor credited with the devices invention Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) an up and coming young doctor who finds trouble maintaining a job in any hospital for his, then absurd, theory that germs were causing a serious hazard to medical safety and practice.  Feeling quite dejected, despite the assurance of his friend and aristocrat Edmund St. John-Smythe (Rupert Everett) that he is more than welcome to have money from him to pursue whatever medical research he desires.  On a last chance shot, Mortimer approaches a clinic for women's health run by Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) who is known for a particular "technique" that allows women to receive satisfaction and relief form hysterical build up, of course it is quite clear that all that is occurring is that of bringing the women to orgasm, something they have not had the pleasure of experiencing within their marriages.  All the while, Dr. Dalrymple plans on passing the practice on to Mortimer, along with his prodigal daughter Emily (Felicity Jones) who studies various social sciences, as well as the now outdated science of phrenology.  All seems idyllic in Mortimer's new life, aside from serious hand cramps, until he takes an unsuspected liking to Dr. Dalrymple's less conventional daughter Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhall) who runs a free health clinic/daycare/community outreach center, all while continually advocating for women's right, most notably voting rights.  After word comes to Dr. Dalrymple that he has been aiding Charlotte, as well as failing to relief his clients, Dr. Dalrymple demands that he leave his practice.  Dejected, Mortimer returns to Edmund in shambles, only to discover that the free-floating aristocrat has been toying with electrical devices, causing Mortimer to come up with a crazy notion to create a device specifically for dealing with hysteria.  This proves a rousing success, and after some problematic run-ins with the law, centered around Charlotte's refusal to adhere to gender norms, the two find success in the profits from the device called a "Jolly Molly" named after a rather "affectionate" female character in the film, Charlotte and Mortimer are then engaged happily as they undertake a task of creating a better community outreach program within their community.

This film, as I noted earlier could have been incredibly exploitative and problematic in its portrayal of the invention of the vibrator.  I say this because it could have been a far more sexualized film, one in which the male gaze would come into play and the work would play into fantastical pleasures of sexual acts. This is not the case with hysteria, in fact, there is no nudity whatsoever, and the moments of "treating" hysteria are done with a perfect combination of humor and gravitas as to assure that they are not exploitative.  Furthermore, the film makes certain that the doctors depicted are neither experts in women's sexual organs, nor adapt at performing this treatment outside of a medical setting, suggesting that it is not an act entirely to be credited to male egos.  Instead, the film very much places the invention with a context of larger women's rights issues, in this case their awakening to disillusionment and overall dissatisfaction with their sexual lives.  Furthermore, the women depicted in the film are of a diverse setting, of course all white though since the film is set in 1890 England, once again not idealizing the women's body as a means of sexual conquest for the male figures in the film, certainly not for Mortimer who takes his job quite seriously and seems to see it as a rewarding act to help women with what he believes to be a serious medical condition.  Finally, and perhaps the best argument for why this is a film detached from exploitation, is the amount of time devoted to the character of Charlotte and her quest for equality in terms far larger than intimacy.  She is an activist through and through, particularly in her concern for helping lower class individuals, as well as her demand for suffrage.  If the film were to be exploitative she would not have been considered even passingly, instead, Wexler centers her in the narrative, helping to explain some of the disjointed issues in the overarching narrative.

Key Scene:  The side panels during the credits are particularly fun and help to ground the historical narrative nature of the work.

This is a fun and informative movie that is frankly hard not to enjoy.  While it is not a must own work, it is well worth renting.