No Turn UnStoned
I see where my onetime director and forever nemesis Oliver Stone’s latest movie opened yesterday.
Yeah. “WTC.”
WTF is more like it…
As usual, he claims it’s a true story. Uh-HUH. Heard THAT song before. Been down THAT road with him. We won’t get fooled again, nosirreebob! Because it's NOT a true story, so stay away from it in droves, anyone out there with a heart and a soul and a brain. If you value truth AND facts.
Even him having directed from someone else’s script, not his own, and being forced to toe the truth line with regard to real live human beings with real live lives, and not being able to invent, embroider, fabricate and make up taradiddles and outright untruths about them, as is his customary wont, hasn't stopped him from giving it the old college-dropout try.
Not for nothing does his name anagram as LIES NOT OVER.
Even though the truth this time was seen and witnessed by millions. You'd think that would have kinda cramped his usual free-and-easy way with actuality.
But no! For Oliver, facts are something that happens to other people.
He's not even daunted in his inventions by (though he, typically, tries to capitalize on) the fact that the real-life people in "WTC" are sympathetic plain American characters. As opposed to the real-life people in "The Doors", who according to Stone's take were merely a passel of caricature boomer rocknrollers for whom audiences would not feel compassion and sorrow at their grief for the loss of someone they loved. (Go to hell, Oliver!)
Now I read on the Slate website that HE'S STILL MAKING THINGS UP. And why oh why oh why are we not surprised?
From Rebecca Liss's excellent piece http://www.slate.com/id/2147350/fr/rss/ :
'Since the filmmakers have repeatedly stated their desire to "chronicle what happened as truthfully as we could," 'World Trade Center' will likely go down in the minds of many as a historical and factual account. But [WTC hero Chuck] Sereika recently told me that he felt the entire rescue, as portrayed in the film, is "fiction"—the facts are so distorted that he didn't recognize what he was seeing as what he lived through.'
Ah, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, I know the feeling and I share your sentiments and I speak from bitter and illuminating experience.
When Oliver was putting together his Doors movie, which was released lo this fifteen years ago (my, how time flies when you’re holding a grudge! it keeps you young when you keep your hate alive, it really does…), all sorts of promises were made, to me and others who had ridden on that particular storm back in the day. Promises about truth and sympathy and understanding, all of which went straight to hell once filming started, in favor of Oliver’s particular brand of nonfiction. Which is to say, FICTION. I've never seen an Oliver Stone movie since.
So I think you will understand when I say I have no intention in this world or any other of going to see “WTC.” I was watching from my rooftop with my neighbors, a mile and a half away, when it actually happened. I saw blazing bits of debris falling off it that turned out to be people. I saw the North Tower spark and collapse like some terrible fountain. I felt the earthquake rumble a few seconds later that made me lose my balance, heard the godawful noise, so frighteningly slow in coming, that I will never, ever forget. It is imprinted on the back of my eyelids, in my inner ear, along my nerve pathways. I don’t need Oliver Stone to recast it for me in the name of entertainment.
I saw truth on my rooftop, not fiction. So having been dissed/lied about/trivialized by Oliver with respect to my religion, my marriage and my general behavior, I decided not to force myself to endure any more Olliewood gospel ever again. Not with a gun to my head. Not though he claims that THIS time it’s really accurate and sensitive to those who endured it. It would be nice if that were true. But come on! It’s Oliver fucking STONE! What are the odds?
He doesn't think he does this, however; he really believes he's not like this. Awwwww...how endearing is THAT?? So when I caught Oliver’s plug (and plugs?) on “Access Hollywood” last night, and actually heard him say with an actual straight face, about “WTC”, that “The facts were the driving force. You don’t want to screw that up”, my shriek of derisive disbelief was probably heard in Hoboken. I was only amazed that his nose didn’t instantly grow so long that it broke on through to the other side of the camera lens. Oh man! Get me rewrite! Pinocchiver!
Hear LA Times critic Kenneth Turan on Oliver:
“The old Stone was not exactly a bargain, but he was never this pious or this conventional.
“The difficulty here, though, is not that Stone has gone all sincere on us but that he has no gift for that state of mind, not to mention that the depiction of ordinary people in crisis has not always been his strength.
“As a result, "World Trade Center" often feels like something constructed from a blueprint of standard movie situations rather than honestly felt in any genuine way.”
Bingo! Turan goes on to say:
“Even more puzzling is that Stone, usually viewed as the antichrist in conservative circles, has made a film that rightist commentators are falling all over themselves to applaud. Cal Thomas, in a much-quoted example, has called it "one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see." This tribute comes in part because "World Trade Center" makes an explicit connection between Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq that will make the Bush White House and the Republican National Committee eager to embrace it as their own.”
—Sorry, I was laughing too hard to type. Hey, check it out, Stone! We call that dramatic irony…not that you’d recognize anything that subtle if it bit you on the butt.
But maybe I should cut him a little slack? What do you think? He HAS sort of half-assed apologized for That Damn Movie...Ye-e-e-es?
…NOOOOOOOO! Never gonna happen. To quote a character in one of my books, I do not forgive and I do not forget.
Well, I’ll never forget. But I just might forgive. If.
IF, and I say again if, I get a personal and public apology from Oliver, to me AND to Jim AND to the Sixties, at high noon in Times Square with him wearing a French maid’s outfit and kneeling humbly at my feet. Yeah. That might do it. (Except he might actually LIKE that French maid part…)
Still, maybe Oliver’s learned a bit in the 15 years since a picture of him was wrapped in tin foil and placed at the back of my freezer. (NOT a curse! Just the Karma Mirror being held up to him, an instructional tool reflecting back upon him all the bad fu he puts out there into the universe. I’m a very lazy Witch, and I prefer to see him do it to himself. He’s been very obliging in that respect, really…)
As I say, perhaps he’s learned. But I won’t be unthawing him anytime soon.
Yeah. “WTC.”
WTF is more like it…
As usual, he claims it’s a true story. Uh-HUH. Heard THAT song before. Been down THAT road with him. We won’t get fooled again, nosirreebob! Because it's NOT a true story, so stay away from it in droves, anyone out there with a heart and a soul and a brain. If you value truth AND facts.
Even him having directed from someone else’s script, not his own, and being forced to toe the truth line with regard to real live human beings with real live lives, and not being able to invent, embroider, fabricate and make up taradiddles and outright untruths about them, as is his customary wont, hasn't stopped him from giving it the old college-dropout try.
Not for nothing does his name anagram as LIES NOT OVER.
Even though the truth this time was seen and witnessed by millions. You'd think that would have kinda cramped his usual free-and-easy way with actuality.
But no! For Oliver, facts are something that happens to other people.
He's not even daunted in his inventions by (though he, typically, tries to capitalize on) the fact that the real-life people in "WTC" are sympathetic plain American characters. As opposed to the real-life people in "The Doors", who according to Stone's take were merely a passel of caricature boomer rocknrollers for whom audiences would not feel compassion and sorrow at their grief for the loss of someone they loved. (Go to hell, Oliver!)
Now I read on the Slate website that HE'S STILL MAKING THINGS UP. And why oh why oh why are we not surprised?
From Rebecca Liss's excellent piece http://www.slate.com/id/2147350/fr/rss/ :
'Since the filmmakers have repeatedly stated their desire to "chronicle what happened as truthfully as we could," 'World Trade Center' will likely go down in the minds of many as a historical and factual account. But [WTC hero Chuck] Sereika recently told me that he felt the entire rescue, as portrayed in the film, is "fiction"—the facts are so distorted that he didn't recognize what he was seeing as what he lived through.'
Ah, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, I know the feeling and I share your sentiments and I speak from bitter and illuminating experience.
When Oliver was putting together his Doors movie, which was released lo this fifteen years ago (my, how time flies when you’re holding a grudge! it keeps you young when you keep your hate alive, it really does…), all sorts of promises were made, to me and others who had ridden on that particular storm back in the day. Promises about truth and sympathy and understanding, all of which went straight to hell once filming started, in favor of Oliver’s particular brand of nonfiction. Which is to say, FICTION. I've never seen an Oliver Stone movie since.
So I think you will understand when I say I have no intention in this world or any other of going to see “WTC.” I was watching from my rooftop with my neighbors, a mile and a half away, when it actually happened. I saw blazing bits of debris falling off it that turned out to be people. I saw the North Tower spark and collapse like some terrible fountain. I felt the earthquake rumble a few seconds later that made me lose my balance, heard the godawful noise, so frighteningly slow in coming, that I will never, ever forget. It is imprinted on the back of my eyelids, in my inner ear, along my nerve pathways. I don’t need Oliver Stone to recast it for me in the name of entertainment.
I saw truth on my rooftop, not fiction. So having been dissed/lied about/trivialized by Oliver with respect to my religion, my marriage and my general behavior, I decided not to force myself to endure any more Olliewood gospel ever again. Not with a gun to my head. Not though he claims that THIS time it’s really accurate and sensitive to those who endured it. It would be nice if that were true. But come on! It’s Oliver fucking STONE! What are the odds?
He doesn't think he does this, however; he really believes he's not like this. Awwwww...how endearing is THAT?? So when I caught Oliver’s plug (and plugs?) on “Access Hollywood” last night, and actually heard him say with an actual straight face, about “WTC”, that “The facts were the driving force. You don’t want to screw that up”, my shriek of derisive disbelief was probably heard in Hoboken. I was only amazed that his nose didn’t instantly grow so long that it broke on through to the other side of the camera lens. Oh man! Get me rewrite! Pinocchiver!
Hear LA Times critic Kenneth Turan on Oliver:
“The old Stone was not exactly a bargain, but he was never this pious or this conventional.
“The difficulty here, though, is not that Stone has gone all sincere on us but that he has no gift for that state of mind, not to mention that the depiction of ordinary people in crisis has not always been his strength.
“As a result, "World Trade Center" often feels like something constructed from a blueprint of standard movie situations rather than honestly felt in any genuine way.”
Bingo! Turan goes on to say:
“Even more puzzling is that Stone, usually viewed as the antichrist in conservative circles, has made a film that rightist commentators are falling all over themselves to applaud. Cal Thomas, in a much-quoted example, has called it "one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see." This tribute comes in part because "World Trade Center" makes an explicit connection between Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq that will make the Bush White House and the Republican National Committee eager to embrace it as their own.”
—Sorry, I was laughing too hard to type. Hey, check it out, Stone! We call that dramatic irony…not that you’d recognize anything that subtle if it bit you on the butt.
But maybe I should cut him a little slack? What do you think? He HAS sort of half-assed apologized for That Damn Movie...Ye-e-e-es?
…NOOOOOOOO! Never gonna happen. To quote a character in one of my books, I do not forgive and I do not forget.
Well, I’ll never forget. But I just might forgive. If.
IF, and I say again if, I get a personal and public apology from Oliver, to me AND to Jim AND to the Sixties, at high noon in Times Square with him wearing a French maid’s outfit and kneeling humbly at my feet. Yeah. That might do it. (Except he might actually LIKE that French maid part…)
Still, maybe Oliver’s learned a bit in the 15 years since a picture of him was wrapped in tin foil and placed at the back of my freezer. (NOT a curse! Just the Karma Mirror being held up to him, an instructional tool reflecting back upon him all the bad fu he puts out there into the universe. I’m a very lazy Witch, and I prefer to see him do it to himself. He’s been very obliging in that respect, really…)
As I say, perhaps he’s learned. But I won’t be unthawing him anytime soon.
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 10:11 AM
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