Just went to a sneak preview of The Guys the other night, which is a movie about a fire captain who has to write four eulogies of his guys after Sept. 11. Sigourney Weaver plays the writer who helps him write them, and Anthony LaPaglia plays the fire captain. It's a sensitive, well-acted, well-handled film, taken from a play that Weaver's husband produced in NY a few months after the attacks. The husband, whose name I've forgotten, was also the director/producer of the film.
Highly recommend seeing this. No action scenes, no repeated footage of the planes hitting the towers. Just the fire chief telling the writer about each guy in turn. I think it's a fitting memorial and a good story, handled exactly the way that it ought to have been.
Weaver and her husband came to the showing and answered questions, and it turns out that the film is mostly documentary--the situation actually did occur, written by Anne somebody at the producer's request. She's the director of the school of journalism at Columbia University and she actually did get asked to help with the eulogies, and so the play is basically her recording the event, with some slight modifications to help illustrate the guys better (making the jokes funnier, etc.). One thing they wanted to make sure to do was to reflect the reality of life in the firehouse, including the humor that was so prevalent, so some of the jokes were included in the telling.
Another thing they said was that in the talks to start the film, the movie people all said, "hey, I know the perfect star to be a cameo for so-and-so," and I'm very glad to say that they held their ground, saying, no, this isn't about having a star play they guys, it's about the fact that these guys are gone, and that we can't get them back, but that we're trying to honor them with the telling of their stories.
So, I have no idea when it'll be released, but it's going to be out soon, I'm sure. Go see it.
