world trade center

i stayed up late last night and watched oliver stone's "world trade center." i had no intention of watching it all (i went to bed at 4 a.m.),but once i started i kept on going and subsequently paid for it this morning when i worke up feeling like crap.

anyway, i had low expectations for the movie. i'm not one to watch films based on true events, since many times the event is glorified or people seem like super heroes in real life situatons. so i rented the film with trepidation and only on mark's recommendation.

i was pleasantly surprised by it. it's not a great film and not one of stone's best work as director, but i sat and watched it, as i said all the way to 4 a.m. there are few glimpses of the airplanes hitting the towers -- only shadows, and only snipets of the towers collapsing. there was little of stone's usual over-the-topness in the film. even the two men (port authority police officers) on whhich the movie was based arond, turned out to be regular guys in pain while they lay trapped in a colapsed concourse.

the only issue i had was with the jesus figure one of the men saw. i told dawn it was a little dramatic. but after watching the commentary with one of the men trapped in the concourse, he said he saw that image of jesus and it wasn't something stone created for the film.

even though the men survive, there is no happy ending for the film. i found myself cursing bin laden and hoped those assholes flying the jets found nothing but black after they died for what they committed on people who did nothing to them.

it's a strange feeling to h ave. i guess i have to separate it from what happened last night with president bush saying he is sending 20,000 more troops to iraq. that is something that angers me, sending troops to a situation that is chaotic.

so i think i am allowed to feel angry about both the 9/11 attacks and the iraqi war, although they are two kinds of anger and they are aimed at different people, opposites infact.

back to the 9/11 attacks, briefly. it was such a haze for me. i was at work, it was early. no tv in the office, maybe a radio. i knew something was up, people were out of sorts. dawn called me on my cell and i couldn't tell her anything, probalby because deep inside i knew something bad had happened and shock was settling in. at first i tried denying it, since i heard trade center and plane hitting it. silly enough, i thought a plane had simply crashed into the trade center in corpus christi, which is what i said, a trade center, although only one story. but taht was at the beginning, before people started really getting scared. then that silly thought went away.

the rest of the day is a lost memory to me. i only remember being at home. dawn came over and we watched some of it. she was crying because she was scared for some of her friends who live near d.c. it was a tough day emotionally.