sturm und drang
"It's like an orgy of grief," a friend said to me last night about all the 9/11 anniversary coverage, "and it's frankly offensive."
I tend to agree, even if the BF and I have been willingly sucked into the nostalgia whirlpool for the past couple of days. The other night we watched almost all of National Geographic's Inside 9/11, arguably the best and most even-handed exploration of the events leading up to the attacks. I'm still haunted/fascinated by one scene showing the towers burning above while canned muzak plays on in the plaza below — such a creepy Stanley Kubrick moment.
Sadly, many of the other 9/11 docs and specials have proven less compelling. We started watching ABC's controversial The Path to 9/11, but I found it overwrought and a bit too conventional. Really, it was just a bad TV movie that got a lot more mileage than it deserved. The BF flipped us over to A&E, where he sat through most of The Man Who Predicted 9/11, another rehashing of the days events, though mostly told from the perspective of office workers who escaped.
We finally landed on Logo, surely a shiny gay bauble that would whisk us away from all the woes of a world at world? Think again. We got there just as the opening credits of WTC View were finishing, and ended up watching the whole movie.
It's another low-budget gay flick with hoaky acting and limited sets — and a surprisingly moving story. Protagonist Eric lives close enough to the towers to have seen them fall, even if his apartment went untouched. But in the weeks after the attacks, he can't find a new roommate, nor can he sleep because of lingering anxiety and fear. It's a little contrived, sure, how he opens up to every would-be tenant who comes to check out the apartment, but the movie says volumes about the different ways we all processed 9/11.
Today, however, is 9/12. Maybe I'm a bad American, but I'm seriously ready to move on.
I tend to agree, even if the BF and I have been willingly sucked into the nostalgia whirlpool for the past couple of days. The other night we watched almost all of National Geographic's Inside 9/11, arguably the best and most even-handed exploration of the events leading up to the attacks. I'm still haunted/fascinated by one scene showing the towers burning above while canned muzak plays on in the plaza below — such a creepy Stanley Kubrick moment.
Sadly, many of the other 9/11 docs and specials have proven less compelling. We started watching ABC's controversial The Path to 9/11, but I found it overwrought and a bit too conventional. Really, it was just a bad TV movie that got a lot more mileage than it deserved. The BF flipped us over to A&E, where he sat through most of The Man Who Predicted 9/11, another rehashing of the days events, though mostly told from the perspective of office workers who escaped.
We finally landed on Logo, surely a shiny gay bauble that would whisk us away from all the woes of a world at world? Think again. We got there just as the opening credits of WTC View were finishing, and ended up watching the whole movie.
It's another low-budget gay flick with hoaky acting and limited sets — and a surprisingly moving story. Protagonist Eric lives close enough to the towers to have seen them fall, even if his apartment went untouched. But in the weeks after the attacks, he can't find a new roommate, nor can he sleep because of lingering anxiety and fear. It's a little contrived, sure, how he opens up to every would-be tenant who comes to check out the apartment, but the movie says volumes about the different ways we all processed 9/11.
Today, however, is 9/12. Maybe I'm a bad American, but I'm seriously ready to move on.
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