Coming Too Soon: Oliver Stone's 9-11
The LAT got an early look at the script that will spawn Oliver Stone's sure-to-be-controversial 9/11 movie (starring, quite logically, Nicholas Cage, fresh off a movie in which he rides a motorcycle while his head is engulfed by demonic flame). The good news: The screenplay "might be the most coherent, moving piece of material to fall into Stone's hands in over a decade." We think we all know what the bad news is:
A year from now, when the film presumably will be released, close to the fifth-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, audiences might be wondering whether they want to shell out 10 dollars to relive the experience. The riveting and well-crafted script — by 31-year-old newcomer Andrea Berloff — is not political. But it is disturbing, with shots of people jumping out of the towers and characters dying under slabs of concrete. Stone's visceral style of directing could amplify the terror experienced by the policemen and, consequently, by the audience.
It seems perfectly understandable to be worried that Stone is going to do his best to scare the shit out of people and reopen wounds with his "visceral" storytelling. Sure, Spielberg's already dabbled with disturbing 9/11 imagery in War of the Worlds (also noted in the LAT piece), but at least we know that when he has Tom Cruise running down the street, covered in soot produced by the vaporized bodies of his neighbors, he's going to buy it back by showing us how cute and cuddly the baby alien "terrorists" look. Just pray that Paramount resists some of its baser instincts and doesn't hold the premiere at Ground Zero on the fifth anniversary of the attacks.
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