"Are you guys ready? Let's roll! Come on, let's go! "

Shavua Tov.

I know that many (if not most of you) know that I enjoy movies (to say the least), and I've tried to avoid writing about movies in this blog and just stick to using movie quotes...but that is about to change today.

I had been anticipating the release of United 93 ever since I heard it was coming out in the US back in April. I checked every week to see when would it finally arrive here in Israel and it never came. Two months ago, I downloaded it using bit torrent and when I checked the quality of the copy, I decided to skip watching it until a better copy came out. Last month, a friend told me that he had seen it advertised on a website that it would arrive here in Israel yesterday on Aug. 31st....I couldn't wait.

Prior committments didn't allow me to see it on opening night (I for some strange reason always prefer to see a movie on it's opening day, haven't really figured out why, but maybe it's similar to me prefering to watch award shows live at 3am...who knows)

But I digress, I discovered last week by accident that the Malcha mall here in Jrslm, has 2 matinees on Friday's of many of it's movies (mostly for kids to get a chance to see a movie I guess, since the mall is closed on shabbat).

I decided that I would make sure my plans for shabbat were settled on thursday night or Friday morning and try and catch a 1:30 showing.

Over the last few months, I have seen the two made-for-tv movies about Flight 93 (the one on NBC and on A & E) and eventhough I thought I knew everything about what (possibly) happened on that flight, I still had the urge to see United 93 since I had heard a number of top reviews who claimed that it was the best movie of the year and still blew everyone out of their seats eventhough they knew how it would end.

What I found very interesting is that all 3 movies looked at the story slightly differently and I'm actually quite glad that I saw United 93 last.

Flight 93 (NBC) focused on the flight itself and especially included the many phone calls from the passengers to their family members. This gives the viewer a more personal view of who these men and women were and how they (once again) supposedly acted when facing a calamity as grave as this one was.)

Flight 93: The Flight that fought back (A & E) showed the story from a documentary approach; it was narrated by Kiefer Sutherland who described what was going on and even told some background story on the individuals involved. The story itself was shown as a dramatization in the style one would see on numerous TV shows or dosumentaries, bujt teh action was described by the narrator as it was happening.

The director of United 93 chose to go a completely different route. The first half of the movie focuses on what was happening to the flight controllers in Boston, New York, Virginia, Cleveland and at the military installation at NORAD. We see all of the events of that morning as it unfolded from their eyes, the people who were the first ones to be aware of what was happening as it happened. These stories were interspersed with the regular mundane issues of air travel for the passengers of flight 93; security check, boarding, waiting for takeoff, chatter between passengers and eventually take-off itself.

The second half of the movie takes place once United 93 is hijacked and then we only see what is going on in the aircraft itself.

They made the story about all 40 passengers without giving us intimate details about their lives, they could be anyone we know and eventhough I knew who many of the characters were, it didnt matter, because the story wasn't about an individual, but about the passengers as a whole.

This version kept me glued to the screen the entire time I was in the theater and made me see the story from a totally different side.

Here is the trailer:




Eventhough this movie just came out in the theaters this past week in Israel, it will be coming out on DVD on Tuesday (Sep 5th) all over the world.

I highly recommend seeing it.

J.




Quote from United 93 (2006)

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"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security,
deserve neither liberty or security"

– Benjamin Franklin