Monthly Movie Preview: October 2014

October is the refreshing lemonade at the end of the dreadful desert that is late August-September, a month that provides a sampler's assortment of medium-sized genre pictures and early (and typically more genre-driven) awards seasons contenders.  Of course, the genre most associated with October is horror, of which we have three this month (ANNABELLE, DRACULA UNTOLD, OUIJA), although unfortunately, I'll be pleasantly surprised if any one of them is particularly good.  On the other hand, there's a Halloween-centric animated fantasy film with potential (THE BOOK OF LIFE), and also in the family interests is a new live-action Disney comedy (ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY).  Three strong cases for awards attention and each of them gritty, psycho-dramas with adult interest (GONE GIRL, FURY, NIGHTCRAWLER), each evenly spaced through the month.  Throw in a couple of cheesy bones to proven demographics who deserve better (LEFT BEHIND, BEST OF ME) and we've got an evenly spread October month.

October 3rd
ANNABELLE  (HORROR)

Directed by John R. Leonetti; Starring: Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Eric Ladin, Brian Howe, Tony Amendola
Rated R for intense sequences of disturbing violence and terror.
I liked THE CONJURING- it was one of the more frightening movies in recent years- but I honestly never was all that interested in the threat thrown in with the doll, Annabelle.  But now Annabelle is getting her own movie, although I'm not sure whether it takes place before or after THE CONJURING, and the paranormal investigators from that film, the Warrens, are apparently not involved.
After a man give his wife a rare vintage china doll, Annabelle, their house is invaded by members of a satanic cult who attack the couple, and in the act, conjure an entity of evil that possesses the doll.  There's an inherent problem to this whole affair; only a totally sick f*** would give a doll like that to his wife.  It is an unreasonably creepy-looking doll.  On the other hand, I do like the kind of stylish, Gothic horror that this could be.  The director has only made a couple of straight-to-home-video sequels and usually works as a cinematographer, it's not too promising.

October 3rd
GONE GIRL  (MYSTERY-THRILLER)

Directed by David Fincher; Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, Casey Wilson, Missi Pyle, Scoot McNairy
Rated R for a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language.
This is definitely the most exciting movie of the month- David Fincher (director of THE SOCIAL NETWORK, SE7EN, FIGHT CLUB, ZODIAC) with a critically-acclaimed source material right up his alley (psychological mystery crime-thriller) and a cast led by Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike- could it be more perfect?  Well, I was a little cool on Fincher's last film, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (it was confusing), but I'm very very excited anyway.  Fincher is one of the most interesting directors working in film today, and as usual with his films, the marketing has been stellar (Fincher is known for having a strong hand in the marketing of his films; the two posters are a couple of my favorites this year).  Gillian Flynn, who wrote the book and now the screenplay, has said the film deviates significantly from her novel, which I haven't read anyway, but it supposed to be very dense, exploring the psychology and dynamics of long-term relationships through the story of a man whose wife disappears, leading to suspicion that he may have murdered her.  I can hardly wait.

October 3rd
LEFT BEHIND  (THRILLER/SCI-FI)

Directed by Vic Armstrong; Starring: Nicholas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Cassi Thomson, Lea Thompson, Jordin Sparks
Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements, violence/peril and brief drug content.
A slightly more prolific entry in the recent boom of films attempting to cater to the conservative Christian demographic, some of which are very successful in spite of that demographic's loudly professed dismissal of "the media" and Hollywood, this second adaptation of 1995 novel Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days and subsequent series of books (previously adapted in 2000 starring Kirk Cameron) stars none other than Nicholas Cage.  If he goes "Full Cage," then this could be a lot of fun, but the screenplay is from the same team behind the 2000 Kirk Cameron film, which were critically savaged and particularly ridiculed for their dreadful dialogue, and director Vic Armstrong isn't known for directing- he does have a prolific career as a stuntman (including doubling regularly for Harrison Ford, mainly as Indiana Jones) and stunt coordinator, however.  It's hard to see where this might go right, but if you're looking for a good movie about the Rapture of Christian dispensationalism, last year's THIS IS THE END is intentionally hilarious.

October 10th
ADDICTED  (DRAMA/THRILLER)
Directed by Bille Woodruff; Starring: Sharon Leal, Boris Kodjoe, Kat Graham, William Levy, Tasha Smith, Maria Howell
Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and brief drug use.
In this soapy dramatic-thriller adapted from the best-selling erotic novel by Zane (oh boy, we're off to a great start) a woman with an enviable life -the perfect husband, three kids and a great career- but an addiction to infidelity that threatens to bring her whole life crashing down.  Directed by Bille Woodruff, the illustrious name behind HONEY, it's straight-to-video sequel HONEY 2, BEAUTY SHOP, the fourth straight-to-video BRING IT ON sequel (FIGHT TO THE FINISH) and a slew of music videos.  Yeah, this doesn't look worthwhile.

October 10th
ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY  (FAMILY-COMEDY)
Directed by Miguel Arteta; Starring: Steve Carrell, Jennifer Garner, Ed Oxenbould, Dylan Minnette, Kerris Dorsey, Bella Thorne, Megan Mullally, Jennifer Coolidge, Donald Glover
Rated PG for rude humor including some reckless behavior and language.
I remember as a kid my family owning a VHS cassette of a 1990 HBO animated-musical adaptation of Judith Viorst's children's picture book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  I remember hating it.  It was annoying and I hated Alexander; he was whiny, uninteresting and dim.  He just...he was just a terrible person, and I sympathized more with the day he kept complaining about than I did with him.  I'm hoping this Disney film will at least be better than that stupid cartoon.  The previews make it look like a Disney Channel movie that somehow managed to snag Steve Carrell (NBC's The Office) and Jennifer Garner (Alias), as it's actually Alexander's Family and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  The adult actors rounding out the cast though, including Parks and Recreation's Megan Mullally and Community's Donald Glover, are some very funny folks.  I'm guessing this is generally hit-and-miss slapstick family comedy.

October 10th
DRACULA UNTOLD  (ACTION/HORROR)
Directed by Gary Shore; Starring: Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper, Samantha Barks, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance, Charlie Cox, Will Houston
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of warfare, vampire attacks, disturbing images, and some sensuality.
This is kind of a shame.  Luke Evans stars as the title character in this blending of the historical Romanian warlord Vlad Tepes (the real-life inspiration for Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's classic novel) and the fictitious Count Dracula.  There's some really fun ideas in this, and apparently Universal is hoping to use this to introduce their Marvel-style Universal Monsters universe (Universal doesn't have any major superhero properties to play with like the other major studios are doing post-THE AVENGERS), but this just looks dumb.  It's the feature film debut for both the director and the screenwriters, so it isn't clear what we're looking at for behind-the-scenes talent, but the visuals are naturally gray and drab, and there's unintentionally laughable moments in the trailer, such as Dracula supernaturally wielding a hoard of bats against an army.  The story revolves around Vlad III the Impaler's (aka Dracula) role in the Wallachian-Ottoman Wars, in which he fought the occupation by the Ottoman Empire, except in this account, in order to secure victory against his enemies, Vlad becomes a vampire, attaining supernatural powers.

October 10th
THE JUDGE  (COMEDY-DRAMA)
Directed by David Dobkin; Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Billy Bob Thornton, Sarah Lancaster, David Krumholtz
Rated R for language including some sexual references.
Robert Downey, Jr. stars as Hank Palmer, an unscrupulous criminal defense lawyer returns to his small town home for his mother's funeral and learns that his estranged, straight-laced father and local judge (Robert Duvall) has been accused of murder for hitting someone with his car.  Putting aside old disagreements, Hank decides to defend his father in court, while a hard-edged prosecutor (Billy Bob Thornton) comes at him with the full power of the law.  The cast here is excellent, and although the story appears to be teetering on the edge of unearned self-seriousness, if it keeps its balance, this could be really good.  The big fat question mark however is director David Dobkin, whose overrated THE WEDDING CRASHERS was a big hit in 2005, but then followed up with FRED CLAUS, THE CHANGE-UP and a story credit on R.I.P.D.

October 17th
THE BEST OF ME  (ROMANTIC DRAMA)

Directed by Michael Hoffman; Starring: James Marsden, Michelle Monaghan, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato, Sebastian Arcelus, Gerald McRaney, Jon Tenney, Caroline Goodall
Rated PG-13 for sexuality, violence, some drug content and brief strong language.
There's not much point in complaining about Nicholas Sparks and the many adaptations of his books; they're basically the women's demographic's equivalent to ultra-dumb action movies, which I complain about anyway, but whatever.  Either way, they're not as harmful as THE TWILIGHT SAGA, so that's a plus.  The tropes abound in this story of teenage romance ended by an unreasonable father of the female party, but later rekindled when they reunite in their small hometown.  It is what it is, so whatever, although one has to wonder what was going on in casting when they cast the young couple against their older versions played by James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan.  Maybe the casting director had prosopagnosia, aka "face blindness," or maybe they were playing a joke, but when the previews fade one face over the other, it's impossible not to laugh out loud.

October 17th
THE BOOK OF LIFE  (ANIMATION/FANTASY)

Directed by Jorge Gutierrez; Featuring the Voices of: Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Christina Applegate, Ice Cube, Kate del Castillo, Ron Perlman, Cheech Marin
Rated PG for mild action, rude humor, some thematic elements and brief scary images.
This unusual-looking animated feature started life at DreamWorks Animation but broke away due to "creative differences," and found a producer in the busiest man in Hollywood, Guillermo del Toro, and an animation studio with Reel FX Creative Studios, the makers of last year's dumpy FREE BIRDS.  Borrowing elements of Mexican and Mesoamerican folk culture, a pair of powerful spirits place wagers on a love triangle between a charming young man, Manolo, a dashing ladies man, Joaquin, and the beautiful Maria, but one of the spirits decides to hedge his bet by sending Manolo to the underworld, but Manolo is determined to find a way out and back to Maria.  I'm not sure how this will all go over for mainstream American audiences, but I'm interested.  It's different in just about every way, visuals, themes and background, and the burgeoning Mexican family demographic deserves a good animated film to represent their fairy tales.

October 17th
FURY  (WAR DRAMA/ACTION)

Directed by David Ayers; Starring: Brad Pitt, Shia LeBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, Scott Eastwood
Rated R for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout.
There have probably been more good and great war movies made about World War II than any other war, so the most important factor of any new WWII film is how it differentiates itself from its predecessors.  FURY, a new WWII epic about the crew of a U.S. M4 Sherman tank led by a war-hardened sergeant (played by Brad Pitt) as they push through the to Berlin during the last month of the European Theatre, has a strong line-up of talent, but it's unclear what particularly about it is different or if it'll work.  Writer/director David Ayers' last two films were the critically-savaged flop SABOTAGE and the acclaimed hit END OF WATCH, so this is a wild card.  Brad Pitt has a knack for picking good projects though, so we'll see.

October 17th
JOHN WICK  (ACTION-THRILLER)
Directed by Chad Stahelski; Starring: Keanu Reeves, Bridget Moynahan, Willem Dafoe, Jason Isaacs, Bridget Regan, Adrianne Palicki
Rated R for strong and bloody violence throughout, language and brief drug use.
It seems like JOHN WICK came out of nowhere- the release date was only just announced in August- and while I dislike Keanu Reeves in all but a few movies, this looks pretty good.  The story, about a former hitman who comes out of retirement to kick everyone's ass TAKEN-style after gangsters destroy his life, is clearly nothing special, but advertised action looks kinetic and brutal, and Reeves seems surprisingly intense.  Plus, the early reviews are very positive.

October 24th
LAGGIES  (ROMANTIC-COMEDY)
Directed by Lynn Shelton; Starring: Keira Knightley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell, Ellie Kemper, Mark Webber
Rated R for language, some sexual material and teen partying. 
Keira Knightley gives a feminine spin on the oft-told story of the man child's coming-of-age in this Sundance acquisition about a woman in her late-20s who works as a sign-flipper and lives with her high school boyfriend but panics at a marriage proposal and starts hanging out with a 16-year old played by Chloe Grace Moretz (she is in everything these days).  Knightley looks unusually loose-limbed and breezy, but the whole affair could be too twee for some.

October 24th
OUIJA  (HORROR-THRILLER)

Directed by Stiles White; Starring: Douglas Smith, Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff, Matthew Settle, Ana Coto, Bianca A. Santos, Shelley Hennig
Rated PG-13 for disturbing violent content, frightening horror images, and thematic material.
Apparently Ouija boards were patented back in 1891 and are trademarked, owned by the Hasbro company, so I guess it makes more sense now to call it a "board game adaptation," even if Oujia is more of a parlor trick or a tool (depending on your beliefs) than a board game with rules and an objective.  Anyhow, the combination of Hasbro, Michael Bay and Blumhouse Productions (the independent horror film company behind PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and INSIDIOUS) has produced this "adaptation," in which a group of teenage friends attempt to contact a friend who was killed in a horrific accident, but the Ouija board they use unleashes a deeply sinister force on them.  It's from the writing team behind BOOGEYMAN, one of whom can also be held partially responsible for THE POSSESSION and KNOWING, plus Michael Bay is involved, so the whole affair does not bode well.

October 31st
BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP  (MYSTERY-THRILLER)
Directed by Rowan Joffe; Starring: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Anne-Marie Duff, Dean-Charles Chapman
Rated R for some brutal violence and language.
Based on the best-selling novel by S.J. Watson, this psychological thriller stars Nicole Kidman as woman with amnesia who wakes up everyday having forgotten who she is, how she got there and why she can't remember.  Using a video journal, she tries to dig up the truth and discover who her real enemies and allies are.  It's unclear what the story is beyond that, but it sounds somewhat similar to Christopher Nolan's excellent 2000 thriller MEMENTO, and doesn't look as good.  Check the reviews on this one.

October 31st
NIGHTCRAWLER  (CRIME-THRILLER)
Directed by Dan Gilroy; Starring: Jake Gyllenhall, Bill Paxton, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Kevin Rahm, Eric Lange, Jonny Coyne, Michael Hyatt
Rated R for violence including graphic images, and for language.
Jake Gyllenhall stars as a sociopath in unrelenting pursuit of the dark side of the American Dream as he films grisly accident and crime scenes in Los Angeles to sell the footage to television news stations where the demand for these horrors is high enough to drive people into bidding wars and criminality.  Since it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival just a couple weeks ago, Gyllenhall has become one of the early contenders for the coming awards season and the film has been getting acclaim as a pitch-black satire and intense thriller; looks promising.

Review: THE BOXTROLLS

THE BOXTROLLS  (ANIMATION/FAMILY-FANTASY)
3 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Graham Annable & Anthony Stacchi
Featuring the Voices of: Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Simon Pegg, Dee Bradley Baker, Steve Blum, Tracy Morgan
Rated PG for action, some peril and mild rude humor.
Verdict: Visually sumptuous and patently bizarre, Laika's latest stop-motion animated feature film is charming and rickety, but while it may overindulge itself, it's goodhearted and more family-friendly than their previous films without sacrificing their trademark edge.
YOU MAY ENJOY THE BOXTROLLS IF YOU LIKED:
PARANORMAN (2012)
JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1996)
LABYRINTH (1986)
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG (1968)
MR. TOAD'S WILD RIDE (1996)
 
THE BOXTROLLS is the third independent feature film from the stop-motion animation studio Laika, the creators of the disarmingly frightening "family" films CORALINE and PARANORMAN, both great movies (especially the latter), but also the kind that are aimed at the kiddie crowd only to leave those kids in tears, dragging their now-interested chaperones out into the lobby.  BOXTROLLS, while still on the edgy side, is significantly lighter, more family-friendly fare in the vein of Roald Dahl's offbeat children's literature.  Unfortunately, what starts out very strong loses focus toward the final act, and the uninhibited bizarreness will probably be a hurdle for many audiences.  When it works though, it works great, and it's always fun with a good heart and no shortage of very unique energy.
Based on the children's novel Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow, the Boxtrolls are mischievous but harmless little gremlins who live beneath the streets of Cheesebridge, an eccentric, little, cheese-loving town that lives in fear of the of them.  After a baby boy is taken by the Boxtrolls and presumably eaten by them, a malicious and ambitious exterminator named Archibald Snatcher (spectacularly voiced by Ben Kingsley, but in appearance, a cross between Robert Helpmann as the Child Catcher in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG and Timothy Spall in most movies) negotiates a deal with the mayor, Lord Portley-Rind (voiced by Jared Harris).  What Snatcher desires more than anything is to have a White Hat, and sit in the Tasting Room with Portley-Rind and the other White Hats of the town council, talking about addressing civil issues, but mostly tasting varieties of exotic cheeses.  For this, Snatcher swears to exterminate every last Boxtroll, but the Trubshaw Baby, whose kidnapping by the Boxtrolls is commemorated every year with garish festivities, was never actually eaten, but rather, lovingly raised by them as one of their own under the name Eggs (voiced by Isaac Hempstead Wright).  The number of Boxtrolls decreases over the years as Snatcher and his henchmen (voiced by Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade & Tracy Morgan), but when they catch Fish, Eggs' loving surrogate father, Eggs ventures above ground and teams up with Portley-Rind's fiery but morbid daughter Winnie (voiced by Elle Fanning) to rescue the Boxtrolls from Snatcher and uncover his dastardly plans.
Visually, THE BOXTROLLS is Laika at the top of their game with a style that blends storybook illustrations with the warped visions of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920).  As gorgeous a medium as it can be, with the stylized forms of animation in handcrafted photographic realism, it's unfortunate that stop-motion animation has been unable to find a foothold with mainstream audiences (the only one to gross $100 million in the U.S. is 2000's CHICKEN RUN).  There is something about the art form that seems to attract the darker eccentricities of animators, who usually adopt the painstaking process to indulge whimsical nightmares within the boundaries of a PG rating for family marketability (Aardman, of CHICKEN RUN and WALLACE & GROMIT, being the lighthearted exception).  THE BOXTROLLS is more eccentric than dark, although it is both, and it works best when purveying a sense of discovery and oddball heart, which is strongest throughout the first half of the film as we get know the Boxtrolls and their world, and the relationship between Eggs and Fish.  Archibald Snatcher dominates most of the later half, and while his cross-dressing antics and Ben Kingsley's bravura comic performance have the sense of Monty Python's brand of dark and bizarre buffoonery, it's not as witty as that or as fulfilling as exploring the Boxtrolls' world (two of Snatcher's stooges, voiced by Richard Ayoade and Nick Frost, are an inspired comedic duo however).  Speaking of Monty Python, troupe member Eric Idle wrote "The Boxtrolls Song" which plays over the end credits and has the feel of a Peter, Paul & Mary folk tune, which aptly sums up the movie's weirdness.  It works a bit better in the song though.
It's a funny little film with lots of charm, but the energy and eccentricity that works so well at the start becomes the film's major flaw when it upsets the balance and overindulges.

Review: THE MAZE RUNNER

THE MAZE RUNNER  (SCI-FI/ACTION-ADVENTURE)
1.5 out of 4
Directed by Wes Ball
Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, Kaya Scodelario, Patricia Clarkson
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, including some disturbing images.
113 minutes
Verdict: Another misfire in the canon of young adult literature adaptations, THE MAZE RUNNER starts with a leg up, but with each step towards its inevitable non-conclusion, it slowly disintegrates into a lame rehashing of the same characters and themes.
YOU MAY ENJOY THE MAZE RUNNER IF YOU LIKED:
DIVERGENT  (2014)
LORD OF THE FLIES (1990)
ENDER'S GAME  (2013)
THE HOST  (2013)
THE GIVER  (2014)

I guess the current, slowly-dwindling trend of adapting sci-fi/dystopian/fantasy teen literature to film can be most clearly traced to the HARRY POTTER film series.  That was the fantasy phase of the overarching young adult adaptations movement.  Then came the supernatural phase with THE TWILIGHT SAGA, introducing vampires and werewolves and shifting the demographic to insecure women everywhere.  We're now in the dystopian phase, spurred on by THE HUNGER GAMES, a feminist response to TWILIGHT sexism and the best film series of this trend so far.  Each of these three flagships, HARRY POTTER, TWILIGHT and THE HUNGER GAMES have had droves of imitators, none too successful at the box office, and not much better in terms of filmmaking.  Such is the case of THE MAZE RUNNER, a dystopian sci-fi adventure that starts out appearing to be a cut above other HUNGER GAMES imitators, at least on par with last year's ENDER'S GAME, but gradually falls apart piece by piece.
Based on James Dashner's 2009 novel of the same name, THE MAZE RUNNER blends elements of The Hunger Games, Ender's Game and Lord of the Flies with about a dozen cliches as Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) awakens inside an iron cage that delivers him into the center of a gigantic labyrinth, but has no memory of who he was, how he got there or what was outside the Maze.  A small community of boys deposited in the Maze under similar circumstances over the course of the past three years is led by Alby (Aml Ameen), who maintains order at the safe haven in the Maze's center known as the Glade.  Every day, those selected as "Maze Runners" chart the Maze in an effort to locate an escape, but they must return before the Maze closes off at sundown each day, or else become the prey of the Maze's monstrous inhabitants, the Greavers.  Unlike most of the young men of the Glade, Thomas is much too curious about what lies within the Maze, and he comes under suspicion when misfortune strikes repeatedly soon after his arrival, with the Greavers attacking Maze Runners during the middle of the day. Adding to the confusion is the arrival of a young woman to the Glade, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), who like them, has lost her memory, except that she knows Thomas, albeit without knowing how she knows him.
The feature directorial debut of graphics designer Wes Ball, it has a strong visual aesthetic for the most part, especially the Maze itself of course, draped in vegetation and shifting walls.  The production values are plenty strong for the relatively small $34 million budget, although Ball isn't able to do anything special with the action scenes.  The young actors do well all around, some of them recognizable from their childhood acting, such as Thomas Brodie-Sangster who played Liam Neeson's son in LOVE ACTUALLY and the stink-faced Will Poulter from THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER, but none of the characters are particularly interesting beneath the shallow surface.  Poulter plays the same type of bully who shows up in nearly all these young adult lit adaptations, and the kind his face limits him to, and O'Brien's Thomas has nothing to make him into a compelling lead.  Most of the time his actions come off as irritatingly unjustified, without personal or logical reason, just stirring the pot for its own sake and coming out lucky.  Perhaps the most obvious symptom of just how dull these characters truly are is how once a young lady is introduced to their pubescent male society, there's absolutely no acknowledgement of the new dynamic this adds, whether sexual or otherwise.  Who cares?  She's practically a red herring and a waste of time.
There's little resolution, barely any explanation and next to nothing there to whet the appetite for a continuation.  The more we get to know about this world and its characters, as little as that is, the less is there to care about.

Netflix Pick: UNITED 93

UNITED 93  (DRAMA/SUSPENSE, 2006) 
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Starring: J.J. Johnson, Gary Commock, Polly Adams, Opal Alladin, Starla Benford, Trish Gates, Nancy McDoniel, David Alan Basche, Richard Bekins, Susan Blommaert
Rated R for language, and some intense sequences of terror and violence.
111 minutes

Released four years, seven months and seventeen days after the September 11 attacks of 2001, UNITED 93 was the first Hollywood studio film to give a narrative account of those events, courting controversy from the ignorant who perceived the film as exploitation, and those who were overwhelmed by the intensity and closeness of the events depicted.  It was the first, and to date, it remains the best film based on or directly involving those events.  It premiered at New York City's Tribeca Film Festival, and 10% of the opening weekend gross went to the Flight 93 National Memorial Fund.  Prior to shooting, Academy Award-nominated director Paul Greengrass (fresh off THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) acquired the blessing of the immediate families of each victim in the 40 passengers and crew who lost their lives on Flight 93.  Attention to detail was meticulous, collaborating with some of the victims' families, and following the available records as closely as possible (a transcript of the cockpit recording was made available after the film had wrapped, raising some doubts about the order of events).
On that morning when a passenger airliner crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, followed by an airliner into the South Tower just seventeen minutes later, and a third airliner crashed into the Pentagon thirty-seven minutes after that, there was a fourth hijacked airliner that attained a status unique among the attacks.  United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, California began its journey from the Newark International Airport at 8:42 AM, getting a late start on the attackers' schedule as the flight was scheduled to take off at 8:00 AM.  Four minutes after Flight 93 was in the air, Flight 11 was flown into the WTC North Tower, and Flight 175 had just been hijacked and was minutes away from hitting the South Tower.  At 9:28 AM, four men began hijacking Flight 93, at which point passengers began calling their families and learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center which had already taken place, and they connected the dots.  We have limited information about what happened aboard Flight 93 that morning, but it is clear that the collective thirty-three passengers and seven-person crew managed to fight back, forcing the hijackers to roll the plane and crashing in a field in Pennsylvania at 10:03 AM.  We do not know the exact intended target of the Flight 93 hijackers; initial assessments believed it to be the White House, but later statements by alleged organizers of the attacks identified the U.S. Capitol as the intended target.  The ultimate decision, between a set of options, was given to the hijackers' discretion.  A confirmed 2,977 victims (and 19 hijackers) were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, but there's no way to know how many lives the the 40 victims aboard Flight 93 saved at the expense of their own.
Greengrass' directorial style is ideal for this kind of film, with a penchant for loose scripting and heavy improvisation, documentary-style filming and procedural structuring, all of which combines to create an intensely visceral experience that feels as authentic as any film could.  There are no movie stars in UNITED 93, no distractions; we don't even know the names of most of the characters.  The four hijackers are presented realistically, as human beings molded in their religious extremism, nervous but dedicated, with a skewed sense of right and wrong, rather than being cheap or simplified stereotypes.  The passengers and crew are multifaceted, each as individuals who feel like real human beings, and when they unite in bravery in the face of their imminent mortality, it is awe-inspiring and devastating.
The world was not ready for UNITED 93 in 2006.  Trailers for the film were pulled from some theaters' shows after receiving complaints from shocked audience members, and there were petitions to Universal (the film's distributor) to pull advertising if not the film entirely.  An appeal was made to the MPAA ratings board after it earned an R rating, while the studio desired a PG-13 instead, but the rating remained unchanged as the film was deemed too intense for a PG-13 rating.  It opened in second place at the box office, behind the crass family-comedy RV of all things, but it achieved a worldwide gross of $76.2 million against a $15 million budget, so the film was financially successful.  It is still the lowest-grossing Hollywood film directed by Greengrass.  As uncomfortable as the film made many people, it was undeniably an incredible achievement, appearing on over 40 major critics' "top ten" lists for 2006, more than any other film that year except for THE DEPARTED and THE QUEEN, and in eight number one spots, more than any other film that year.  It was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Film Editing (two of the most highly-regarded categories), as well as winning many awards from critics and film workers guilds.
Perhaps in the years ahead, UNITED 93 will eventually receive the status it deserves as a classic film about an united act of bravery in the face of bloodiest attack on American soil that we've ever known.