"World Trade Center" The Movie (A Think)

I'll never forget the time that a student of mine, a seventh grader, asked if I ever thought that there would ever be 9/11 Day Sales. I asked him what he was talking about and why he even asked the question. He explained that the United States has Veterans Day Sales, Pearl Harbor Day Sales, adn Memorial Day Sales, why not "9/11 Day Sales?" As I read a review in the New York Times of Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center," which opens today, I thought of my student's question.

The review states:

It was impossible to banish the thought, even in the midst of that day’s horror and confusion, that the attacks themselves represented a movie scenario made grotesquely literal. What other frame of reference did we have for burning skyscrapers and commandeered airplanes? And then our eyes and minds were so quickly saturated with the actual, endlessly replayed images — the second plane’s impact; the plumes of smoke coming from the tops of the twin towers; the panicked citizens covered in ash — that the very notion of a cinematic reconstruction seemed worse than redundant. Nobody needed to be told that this was not a movie. And at the same time nobody could doubt that, someday, it would be.

Some lesson ideas:
1. Ask why anybody would want to make a movie about 9/11. (Push students to consider more reasons than just to make money.) (This question can lead to a consideration of why anybody would want to make a movie (or write) about anything.)
2. Ask why anybody would want to see a movie about 9/11. (This question can lead to a consideration of why anybody would want to see a movie (or read) about anything.)
3. Ask students to consider if there are some topics that its simply inappropriate to make a movie or write about?
4. Ask students if there are some topics that its inappropriate to make money from? (Remember that Oliver Stone will likely profit from "World Trade Center.")
5. If its ok to make a movie or write about anything but its not ok to make a proft by making a movie about anything than what are directors and producers t0 do if they want to make a movie about something from which it is not ok to profit?
6. Encourage students to make a video (or write a newspaper article) of their own in which they explore other peoples opinions on the questions raised above and their own questions, in light of the movie "World Trade Center." (Yesterday, Kathy Schrock highlighted two free software programs that make movie-making easier, on her blog.)