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Exxxtasy Show, July 16-18, Chicago
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CINEMA SEEN - "Towering Infernal!" By William Margold It was 7:14 in the "smazey" (a combination of smog and haze) morning of September 11, 2001. I remember the time, because even with two perpetually hungry cats (Pogo and Samson) invariably ravenous shortly after dawn, the gloom of that fairly early hour had kept them snuggled up next to me beyond their normal "get your ass out of bed and feed us" demands. That is until the phone rang! And rang!! And rang!!! And. . .I managed to pick it up before the fourth ring, which would have kicked in with my beloved pet cats response of that era: "Our master's not home, and we're all alone, and we can't answer the phone, so please leave a message. . .at the tone." Struggling to adjust my glasses with one hand, and hold the phone with my other (coordination is not my strong suit), I focused in on a clock, and was ready to curse whomever was rousing my cats, and me, from our slumber. While Pogo and Samson incessantly rubbed themselves against my ankles, and yowled their plaintive wails of "we are starving!"---Brian Sebastian, a close associate as well as my remarkably adept production manager for all of my "Fun"draising events over the past decade, told me to turn on my TV. Trying not to step on either cat, I lumbered over to my set, and clicked it on to ABC (Channel 7, since the previous evening had been spent watching Monday Night Football), at the precise second a big airplane slammed into a skyscraper. "Great special effect" was my immediate comment. To which Brian responded, "it's real." My mind was still somewhere in the "smaze"---so I couldn't completely comprehend what was going on. Then as Brian said something to the effect of "terrorists have attacked the World Trade Center in New York City"---and subsequent images began to reveal HELL being unleashed on OUR nation, I bristled in angry, helpless, loathing frustration, and uttered the line "well, now we know what it's like to be a foreign country." The rest of that day was a blur. I don't even remember if I ever fed those damn cats. The next day, while down at the Protecting Adult Welfare office, an adult entertainment industry actress stopped in, looking very shaken, and as I held her in my arms ("Hug Is A Very Important Three Letter Word" is a comforting PAW motto) and she sobbed, "what are we going to do?"---I bristled again, and said "We Blow People. . .We Don't Blow Them Up!" And that sardonic statement was then emblazoned on a t-shirt, along with an American Flag, and the shirts became a hugely successful fundraising item for a quickly created organization called Adult Entertainment Against Terrorism. . .a short lived subsidiary of The Free Speech Coalition. As I sat watching Oliver Stone's interminable, suspense-less, and in fact, amazingly ordinary WORLD TRADE CENTER (Paramount Pictures), the twisted buildings and the grotesquely destructive images of that miserable September morning in 2001, began assaulting my eyes all over again. And I was utterly unmoved. Laboring under the guise of being a film critic, rather than simply being an innocent member of an audience seeking a little late summer screen diversion, I found myself condemning Stone for bringing very little compelling to the cinematic tableaux, with the minimal exceptional of a dedicated Marine, portrayed staunchly by Michael Shannon. (As a very personal sidebar. . .I tried desperately to join The United States Marines in 1960, and was turned down because I had been in Juvenile Hall in 1956 for being "incorrigible.") Trying WAY too hard to analyze my lack of feeling virtually anything, I finally figured out that while there have been a number of documentaries--- the most shatteringly impressive being "9/11" (crafted by Frenchmen Jules and Gedeon Naudet, and a fireman named James Hanlon, who had the horrifying fortune to be in the right place at the right misfortunate time) dissecting the moment when OUR country's smug sense of security was ruptured forever---paradoxically Mr. Stone's (whose "Platoon" made me feel guilty about NOT being able to participate in the Viet Nam conflict) admittedly nobly-intended effort may well be a matter of being simply too damn soon for a "major motion picture" starring Nicolas Cage, to attempt to heal OUR wounds. Finally, I really think my insensitivity to Oliver's Odyssey inevitably stems from the cryptic message that I received from a New York City resident named Jon Hart, the day after 9/11. It was delivered with a weary somberness that penetrated my soul like a dagger: "You really don't want to be here." And Hart's sentiment reverberated in my mind persistently as I watched "World Trade Center" in a sparsely filled North Hollywood Century Theater auditorium a few weeks ago---because, quite frankly, I really didn't want to be there, either! end NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, September 7, 2006, issue. |