by wordspeak » Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:23 am
AM-NY Review (not posted yet online)<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.amny.com/">www.amny.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>***1/2 9/11: THE PRESS FOR TRUTH<br>Documentary by Ray Nowosielski<br><br>By Jay Carr<br> The anti-Bush backlash will be stoked by "9/11: The Press for <br>Truth." Ray Nowosielski's documentary tranchantly makes the point that the Bush regime has a lot to answer for, starting with why it didn't take seriously the many pre-9/11 warnings of an imminent terrorist attack involving aircraft. It adds that the 9/11 Commission investigation was stonewalled by<br>the administration, that it wasn't until public pressure generated by <br>the 9/11 widows nicknamed The Jersey Girls that administration officials grudgingly testified, and then minimally, with Bush and Dick Cheney agreeing to do so only behind closed doors and not under oath.<br><br> Was there a cover-up? The film asks, riding the book "The Terror <br>Timeline" by Paul Thompson, who shames most other so-called journalism <br>by digging into available material and asking pointed questions. One of <br>the most explosive has to do with the assertion that the money for the <br>9/11 hijackers was funnelled through the head of Pakistani intelligence, <br>and that<br>this was covered up, as was Osama bin Laden's escape into Pakistan when <br>Tora Bora was surrounded on only three sides and an air corridor to <br>Pakistan was left open. It's hard to dispute the film's conclusion that <br>without candor, without answers, without accountability, our <br>understanding of 9/11 remains frustratingly incomplete, whether by <br>administration design or not.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=2479">www.slantmagazine.com/fil...sp?ID=2479</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>*9/11: Press for Truth*<br>Directed by: Ray Nowosielski<br>Screenplay by: Kyle F. Hence and Ray Nowosielski<br>Distributor: The Disinformation Company<br>Runtime: 85 min<br>Rating: NR<br>Year: 2006<br><br>/Al Franken: God Spoke/ <br><<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=2472>">www.slantmagazine.com/fil...p?ID=2472></a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> may or may <br>not give Ann Coulter a headache, but /9/11: Press for Truth/ will give <br>her a fucking migraine. Ray Nowosielski's film begins as a portrait of <br>the Jersey Girls, a group of four 9/11 widows---Kristen Breitweiser, <br>Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken, and Mindy Kleinberg---instrumental in <br>drumming up support from both sides of the political aisle for what <br>would eventually become the 9/11 Commission. Despite Coulter's vulgar <br>accusations that these bipartisan women enjoyed the deaths of their <br>husbands, it's clear that that the only satisfaction these obviously <br>pained women seek is an acknowledgement of blame from our government for <br>insufficiently acting on its pre-9/11 intelligence. With the help of <br>Paul Thompson, author of the comprehensive /The Terror Timeline/, and an <br>arsenal of media footage at his disposal, Nowosielski catalogs <br>frustration after frustration, effortlessly illuminating that 9/11 was <br>more than just a "failure of imagination." But the title of the film <br>refers not only to the Jersey Girls' vigilant demand for truth but to <br>the media's own refusal to push for truth after 9/11 for fear of <br>retribution from higher powers. This is where the film reveals its <br>complexity, except Nowosielski makes the mistake of indulging trite <br>scare-mongering tactics, from his use of scary-movie music on the <br>soundtrack to frequent cutaways to a CGI wall of television sets <br>ostensibly meant to evoke the media's Orwellian control of our <br>(dis)information. These lapses make a smart documentary appear awfully <br>unbecoming.<br><br>Ed Gonzalez <javascript:noSpam('ed','slantmagazine.com')><br>© slant magazine, 2006.<br> <p></p><i></i>