United 93

I just got back from seeing United 93 for the second time this weekend. The first time I saw it was Friday afternoon, and I wanted to see it again.

Yesterday morning, at breakfast out with the girls, I told them about it, but my usual movie-going buddy didn't want to see it. She was afraid of how it would make her feel, that it would be depressing. But it isn't, and after I did quite a bit of persuading, she decided to go with me today after church. And she was glad she did.

This is a movie that Hollywood got right, but given the subject matter, it took a British director to make the film. And any time Hollywood gets something right and tells the truth, I want to support it. Seeing this movie--twice--during its opening weekend is my way of sending a message to Hollywood.

It's an intense movie, but it's not graphic. We don't see close-up shots of people being killed. Instead, we see the positions of the people, the arm motions, the fall of the body. We don't need to see more.

On Friday, I took my travel pack of Kleenex out of my purse in preparation before the movie started. Just about all I did with it was crumple it in my hand. At one point, when the passengers were calling their families to say, "I love you," I got sniffly, but that was the only time.

And I learned things, about the air traffic controllers and the military, about their confusion and disbelief over what was happening in the sky. I was impressed by how difficult an air traffic controller's job is at the best of times, and I was even more impressed by how they handled themselves on September 11, 2001.

Christina at The Right Perspective has an excellent review (spoiler warning--in case you don't know what happens).

What gets to me about the aftermath of 9/11 is the way the media has tried to get us to forget. After about a week, they stopped showing the crashes and the collape of the Twin Towers. They said it was being overdone. But they've never gone back to show them again. Instead, they showed photos of Abu Graib over and over, whenever the opportunity presented itself. They want us to be reminded of Americans falling short, but never of why we fight.

One character in the movie said it best: "Someone out there is at war with us." Let us not forget.