Here is a review of the movie "World Trade Center" that I wrote for HollywoodJesus.com, but was never posted. It's now 12:15 a.m. on Sept. 12 and I have survived one more anniversary. Sept. 11 is a draining and horrible day, even 5 years later. Why do we need to keep remembering? keep dragging out the families and survivors on television once a year? Because even though I wasn't conscious of it, my body knew what day it was and I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning wide awake, heart aching, head pounding and it went downhill from there. And the survivor's guilt won't quit. I was insanely lucky that day. I had strep throat and instead of being on Capitol Hill, I was at my doctor's office in Chevy Chase. My friends in the White House, Supreme Court, Capitol Building, Pentagon and WTC all survived. And the sacred pain of not knowing why I was so blessed on such a profane day is stored up in my bones and lets itself out a little bit at a time, once a year. So, the day is over, dry your eyes. We're all older and hopefully wiser. Hug everyone a little longer and tighter and try to push the questions away and just sit and be thankful that you survived and it wasn't worse.
The new Oliver Stone film, “World Trade Center” a critically acclaimed ode to those who acted bravely on 9/11 with cutie Nick Cage and the newest girl next door Maggie Gyllenhaal. May be the water cooler topic du jour on Monday for those in the heartland, but I’ve already made it clear to those around me, I’ll be passing on this one.
“World Trade Center” is the newest and hottest by Oliver Stone, who has been inexplicably laying low the past few years. The guy who loves to whip up conspiracy and spin fanciful yarns to make Middle America think, has turned his sights on the darkest day in U.S. history in the past thirty years.
Now I love Nicolas Cage as much as the next girl. Loved him since “Raising Arizona” and his rant in “The Rock” about being a chemist who drives a tan Volvo. I haven’t actually seen any of Maggie G’s movies, but I love that she’s a fellow brunette who doesn’t seem to have been brainwashed by what I call the Platinum Pack (the pack of young Hollywood starlets who have sold their souls to fashion and thinness).
But, back to the point of this article. I was a reporter in Washington, DC on Sept. 11th, 2001. I covered the Capitol, White House, Supreme Court and Federal Agencies. I knew people in the Pentagon, White House and Capitol that day. I had friends in lower Manhattan, one of whom we couldn’t locate for days. My cell was jammed and it seemed only one or two calls were getting through each day. I spent every spare moment watching the coverage. I actually dragged my bed into the living room and slept with the television on. When all friends and acquaintances were finally located safe and sound, I was able to relax a little. But then the survivor’s guilt set in. And then the military set in. Washington turned into one of those foreign cities you only see on the news.
Concrete barriers were set up all over town, roads blocked off, police and armed military were camped out everywhere. There was a guy in green army fatigues and a M16 in front of my grocery store for two weeks. The Capitol was in lock down. FBI, CIA, Capitol police, District of Columbia police and armed military guards were everywhere. The once ubiquitous, but seldom necessary ID tags now became mandatory to go anywhere.
Another thing that got under the skin of Washingtonians, although we never said anything was the second-class status. Part of that was the fact that the Pentagon officials wouldn’t let us wallow in self-pity or mourn over a hole in the physical embodiment of U.S. Defense and Security. They had a “there is no crying in baseball” (so to speak) attitude from the time it became clear everyone was accounted for and they were not going to waste any energy available to rebuilding. Partly, it was the fact that the Pentagon had fulfilled its ultimate purpose: protecting the Capitol and White House from attack, by literally taking a bullet in the chest for those they protect. Partly it was our 200 deaths as opposed to the 2000 in New York. Whatever the reason, Washingtonians refused to admit they were rattled and just picked up and moved on.
Then a month later…Anthrax! The building which was “hit” was the Hart Senate Building. It’s connected by hallways and air ducts to the Dirksen Senate Building. For two weeks after the anthrax attacks, all Senate hearings slated for the Hart building were rerouted to the Dirksen. This didn’t really make any of us feel better. Hallways suddenly turned into dead ends in mazes as you would be faced with plywood with orange spray paint and plastic wrap. It just didn’t make you feel as secure as say, the concrete barriers outside and we all wondered how exactly plastic and plywood were going to keep the anthrax out. I started getting sympathetic symptoms…rashes, hives, headaches, sleeplessness.
I took up kickboxing to release stress. It helped to go to that little aerobics room twice a week in the suburbs and beat the crap out of the imaginary, faceless, nameless guy terrorizing me, and my friends. They still haven’t found the person who sent the letters.
I moved back home to Chicago in August of 2002, but in December the snipers struck. And they struck two blocks from my former home. I spent every night by the phone waiting for news praying desperately that no one I knew and loved would be the next victim. One friend said it succinctly when she told me one night on the phone, “the worst part is that we would all love to meet at someone’s home or at church to pray and support each other, but it’s just too dangerous.”
I didn’t sleep for another two weeks. My friend Lisa (also an HJ writer) went home to Atlanta that Christmas and a fire alarm went off accidentally in the airport. She told me it was her first sign that maybe she’d been a tad stressed out for the past year. Everyone else was calmly walking toward the exits and she was going into a panic meltdown wanting to scream bloody murder at everyone for being so calm. I told her I felt the same way. I would hear people here in the safe, Midwest suburbs talking about 9/11 and New York and how hard it was and how their lives had changed and I wanted to smack them and yell that they had no clue! No clue! It was my first sign that I was a tad stressed.
Okay, so you’re thinking, Whoa Lady! “World Trade Center” is only about 9/11! Chill out. Yes and no. The movie is only about that one day and days following and I assume only about New York. But to many of us, those three events have all melded into one long nightmare that is no longer separable. And, while I no longer live there, every time I visit or see Washington on CNN I think about how different life is now, how much things have changed and how much we’ve lost. I still get stressed out in airports, one of my favorite places on earth as a child. I still get passive-aggressive with the TSA people because I know I’ll never get five minutes alone in a dark alley with someone responsible for any or all of this so I can beat the bloody snot out of them. (I’m really not a violent person, I swear.)
So, no…I won’t be in the theaters this weekend for “World Trade Center.” I’m still trying to get the original to fade from my memory and my soul. Although that flick about the Philly Eagles looks like a good choice….
