How come United 93 (2006) wasn't a bigger hit?

No.

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I think it's the other way around. It'd feel more exploitative if they were using noticeable camera effects or trying to add to the drama in other especially artificial ways. Greengrass was very smart about it.

Oh well I was just thinking in little ways. For example, when they shoot the pilots flying the planes, they shoot them from behind, to the side almost. What's wrong with more frontal face shots of the pilots? Why be so voyeuristic, like someone is watching through a camera sort of deal? Doesn't that come off as kind of pretentious for a real life tragedy movie?

Just some thoughts - I saw this in the theater when it came out. I was anticipating seeing it and it's one of the few movies I went to alone which seemed somehow fitting due to the subject matter - this was not a "good time" movie to share as a social outing.

It wasn't a bad movie, quite well made in fact, but I don't know... it just didn't have the impact I was expecting.

What may account for this: I had seen a docudrama on TV made about the doomed flight which was pretty good, so while watching that I kept thinking if they made a full movie that was all drama and not a documentary it would be even better.

After the movie came out, I ended up feeling like the docudrama was actually better than the movie! Maybe because the docudrama provided more information about the passengers that couldn't be transmitted via exposition in the movie? So you felt like you knew who these people were a little better? I don't know.

Also regarding the shaky cam... maybe the movie was too realistic and should have focused more on the story than on trying to put the viewer in the plane? I don't know... been a while since I saw it.

Oh okay, which docudrama was that or what do you remember about it?

Because that's exactly what the handheld style is supposed to feel like. It's supposed to be less polished, and more voyeuristic, to emulate the feeling of being there. So this is basically the same question over again.

Oh okay. Well how come other movies based off disasters don't have to be handheld and no one calls them out on being exploitative though, like World Trade Center (2006) for example?

What do you mean "have to be"? Nobody said it had to be. It's a stylistic decision, and people can make good or bad stylistic decisions. A better question is why you would expect different filmmakers to make the same kinds of films, just because they're about the same event. Similar to many other questions about why X and Y are not the same, when there's no particular reason to expect them be. People are different, and make different choices, is the answer to most of these questions.

BTW, it seems Greengrass made the better choice, given how well his film was received compared to the

I wish I could tell you, I.P.

In the years following 9/11 I pretty much watched every documentary or "docu-drama" that was on TV. Don't know which network broadcast it, but it was a United 93 documentary interspersed with dramatic reenactments throughout based on what information was known. Somehow I felt the build up to the climax (the passengers rushing the cockpit) was somehow more intense in the TV show than the movie.

As said, maybe the reason for that was the docu. provided more factual info in it's documentary portions. Or maybe because the dramatic portions weren't spaced like in the movie - they were interrupted by documentary portions. Or maybe it was because I watched the docu. closer in time to the actual events, making it more "raw" in my mind and this was the first reenactment of the events (while, by the time I saw the movie, I was more than familiar with the events)?

Oh maybe it was Flight 93 (2006), which I saw on TV too back then?

Yeah I guess it doesn't have to be, but I guess I just feel that shaky cam style with zooms, belongs more in an action thriller like the born movies, than a true story drama I guess. It would be like if John Woo decided to make a 9/11 movie, but he decided to bring on his intense slow motion effects. But then again, maybe that would work dramatically in it's own way too.

Quite possibly. Unless there were other docudramas made about that specific story before the feature film came out.

Oh okay. It turns out the full movie is on youtube. Is this the one?