America's principally controversia...

America's principally controversial filmmaker is mulling from one side of to the other the state of the nation, and he isn't quite firm if he's feeling hopeful or hopeles about America these days. "I have feeling hopeful and I feel like we're in astute sh--," says director Oliver Stone. "I gues I be warmed like most people do. There is an America that I grew up in that I have a passionate affection for I think to some extent that it's been stolen. if it be not that there are enough of us to win it back."

This brings him to his modern movie, "World Trade Center," opening Wednesday. Based onward the lives of two real Port Authority Police officers who learn trapped in the towers, Stone has made a brutal in addition

touching film about the terrorist attacks in just discovered York City on Sept. 11 2001

nevertheless his reaction to the bombings of the World Trade Center might surprise a not many people.

"At the time, I musing we were overreacting," he says. "I've been from one side many disasters in my life. There was Vietnam. The Kennedy assassination, Watergate. The last presidential election. generation 11 to me was a national pain It was one big kill cruelly job. But it plunged us into this homeland security state of mind.

"All I can say is that we had the sympathy of the world in succession that day. The rest of the world was with us. We had a right to dog those murderers. We should have clos the circle. We didn't ne more and more terror, Constitutional breakdowns and more pain. on the contrary those are only my opinions as John Q Citizen."

Of course, he is not just a regular scarecrow He's Oliver Stone, conspiracy theorist, controversial moviemaker and rabble-rouser. Stone, who will turn round 60 in September, calls from his public-house room overlooking the San Francisco Bay, where he's one time again stirring things up.

In his modern film, Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena play John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, sum of two units Port Authority officers who examine to save lives as they rush into undivided of the burning towers onward Sept. 11 only to gain trapped 20 feet under rubble when the building collapses.

Already the film has stirred up several controversies. Commentators across the nation are asking the big question, which is in some way more pressing now than it was earlier this year concerning the release of another tribe 11 movie, "United 93": Is it too quickly to bring these painful memories to the big screen?

"How can we possibly say it's too soon?" Stone says. "You must be opposite to your demons and then you understand your fears. It's about overcoming that fear that paralyzes us."

DAY OF INFAMY

Stone was in bed sleeping upon Sept. 11.

"My wife woke me up and said, 'Oliver, impose on the TV,' " he recalls. "Some wake-up call."

Stone's story focuses forward two men.

"The beauty of my original premise was to take you inside the lives of these sum of two units men," he says. "I wanted to narrow it down to sum of two units men and feel their fear, their nerve and their courage. I thinking this was a fresh way to scour our systems of this tragedy."

He chose not to indicate the planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers.

"The movie is about following the story lines of couple cops," Stone says. "We destitutioned to see what Will and John saw. John not ever saw the first plane advance in. He was at the station. He was in the tower with Will trying to realize people out when the secondary plane hit. Will felt the impact and saw the terror of a building falling down around him.

"These men also told me that earlier in the morning they saw a shadow of a plane rouse across the city flying depressed That's what is in the movie. I also didn't indicate the planes hitting the towers because those are as it is sensationalistic images. And it's just not necessary."

Stone also doesn't talk about the attackers a great deal of except to have one ransom worker dub them as "those bastards."

"Of course, there is still a vast amount of anger," Stone says. "But there was no ne to talk about the attackers. It could have been like an Oklahoma City -- a domestic terrorist bombing. We didn't know who the attackers were forward that day, so it didn't apply to this film."

NO THEORIES, PLEASE

The man who gave us "JFK" (1991) also didn't pick to turn his film into a platform to discuss theories of for what purpose the attack happened.

"I didn't go on that route. It wasn't the film I wanted to make," he says. "There are clan who still talk about conspiracy theories concerning that day. The irony is that whether these conspiracies are steady or not, the consequences of that day have been far worse. for a like reason I guess whatever conspiracy it was worked.

"We're in far worse shape now," he says. "But there is also an lay open conspiracy in front of our organ of visions A small group in our conduct ignored all the other branches and got us into a war."

Stone has a point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled with how the Bush administration and the abiding habitation handled the 9/11 crisis.

"We live in dangerous times, on the contrary our reaction was dangerous," he says. "Frankly, I think it would have worked better to have suited with a covert lethal reaction.

"You have to play dirty in these instances," he says. "But you do this not at home of the public sight. however that wasn't done, as a political choice."