Madonna, 2015-09-17 - Rolling Stone, Bitch, She's Madonna: NYC Stop Showcases Genius of Rebel Heart Tour

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bitch-shes-madonna-nyc-stop-showcases-genius-of-rebel-heart-tour-20150917

Bitch, She's Madonna: NYC Stop Showcases Genius of Rebel Heart Tour

Sentimental, unapologetic show comes 30 years after her first MSG performance

By Rob Sheffield | September 17, 2015

Madonna performs in New York City on September 16th, 2015. Matthew Shelter

"You know what they say — it's lonely at the top," Madonna told the crowd near the end of her New York show last night. "But it ain't crowded!" And on the second U.S. show of her hotly awaited new Rebel Heart tour, Our Lady spent three hours proving what a goddess she is, not to mention what an Unapologetic Bitch. Damn right it's not crowded, because there's nobody else near her throne. The whole night was a tour of everything only Madonna can do. She's not the same. She has no shame. She's on fire.

She sang the Edith Piaf ballad "La Vie En Rose" in French, alone on the stage, strumming her ukelele. ("It's en français, though, okay? So try and sing along if you can.") After "Material Girl," she tossed a wedding bouquet to a gay couple up front, then snickered, "Suckers!" She used crucifixes as stripper poles, doing the "Vogue" rap while writhing against a dancer clad in a nun's wimple and feathery hot pants. Her cassocked dancers simulated a group-grope orgy at the Last Supper while the guest of honor chanted "Yeezus loves my pussy best!" And all night long, her banter was the toppest of notch, like when she introduced her gorgeous new acoustic country-hoedown version of "True Blue." "No swear words in this song," she announced. "This is a song about true love. I didn't know what I was talking about when I wrote it." Glad you're the one who brought that up, Madonna.

She hasn't reached so far onstage, musically or emotionally, since her 2001 Drowned World extravaganza. Her last couple of tours had spectacular performances, but dodgy set lists. This time Madonna has much stronger new songs to play with, from Rebel Heart — and she brilliantly revamps the hits. She played a Flying V for a punked-out "Burning Up," dropping to her knees for her guitar solo — the first time she played Madison Square Garden, 30 years ago, she got on her knees in front of the male guitarist while he played a solo, and don't think she doesn't remember these things.

Matthew Shelter

Opening act Amy Schumer helped set the tone — when was the last time you saw a stand-up comedian slay in an arena? Schumer was clearly right at home in a room full of Madonna fans: "I know who's here. It's like taking a warm bath in a tub full of dick that doesn't want you." She talked abut how hot Bradley Cooper's girlfriend is ("She's like a panther fucked a gazelle and they fucked Gisele") and how hot Bradley Cooper is ("you would just grab your ankles and say 'any hole's fine'"). For the encore, she came back out to let Madonna kick her in the ass, right before "Holiday."

But it was Madonna's night. "Body Shop" was a Fifties-style dance routine where she rolled in on the hood of a vintage Chevy, just like Christie Brinkley in Billy Joel's "Keeping the Faith" video," then frolicked in glitter ankle boots with a harem of hot greaser mechanics, all looking like the boy who knocked her up in the "Papa Don't Preach" video. (So true: Italians do it better!) Then she sat her dancers down on a pile of tires and adopted a Dolly Parton twang to tell them, "Like my grandma always said, if it's got tits or tires, it's gonna give you trouble."

"Like a Virgin" was one of the night's peak moments — the song got pimped up with the Egyptian-lover electro-beats from "Music," while she took the stage alone to revamp her cowgirl line-dance moves from the "Don't Tell Me" video. She wore fingerless black gloves, reading her 1984 Boy Toy self, yet she humps the stage with enough verve and wit to make the girl she used to be look like the shy type. She also said, "It's so hot in here," which is Madonna-speak for, "You don't mind if I strip this shirt off, do you?"

She kept getting surprisingly sentimental about playing the Garden, 30 years after her 1985 Virgin Tour. Back then, she always used to ask the crowd, "Will you marry me?" Tonight the girl was in a slightly shadier mood. "I don't know about marriage," she mused, after her bouquet toss. "Do you want to marry me?" When fans screamed, she replied, "No, you probably don't. But maybe it'll be third time lucky." She resurrected long-unheard gems like "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" and "Deeper and Deeper," along with a snippet of "Justify My Love." ("You put this in me, so now what?" — such an underrated but on point Madonna line.)

"Music" began as a jazz-flapper café ballet, with Madonna in Twenties Gatsby drag, before it blew up to hit the electro-sleaze heights. (As it happens, it was 15 years ago this week that Madonna released Music, still her hardest-rocking and most seductive album.) After the devils-and-bullfighters-and-Minotaurs pageant of "Living My Life," she began the gratifyingly long Latin segment with "La Isla Bonita," stretching into a generous and unhurried medley of "Dress You Up," "Into the Groove" and "Lucky Star."

"I'm feeling very nostalgic tonight," she told the crowd. "Do you people understand I played Madison Square Garden 30 years ago?" She kissed a fan in a 1985 Virgin Tour shirt who claimed he was there — for all we know, he might have been the goth club kid doing the cobweb dance in the "Into The Groove" video. It led to the emotional highlight of the night, when she picked up her acoustic guitar for one of her saltiest and best Number One hits, a song she hasn't performed since the Eighties: "Who's that Girl," leading the audience in the question "¿Quien es esa niña?" The question hung in the air. "I still don't know," Madonna said after the song. "I still don't know. I think I'm not supposed to know — maybe that's what life's about, figuring out who the fuck you are."

Matthew Shelter

In her producer Nile Rodgers' essential memoir Le Freak, he tells the story of taking Madonna to Madison Square Garden in 1984 to see Duran Duran, where she sat unnoticed and unrecognized in the audience. Just a few months later, she returned, except this time she was onstage as the headliner. (Duran Duran were back in NYC this week too — and like Madonna, brazen enough to jumpstart an excellent show with an excellent new song, "Paper Gods." The Eighties are the flattest of circles.) But that's why she's Madonna. She might be still figuring out who the fuck she is — but a stage this size is always the place she goes to look for clues.

Set List:
"Iconic"
"Bitch I'm Madonna"
"Burning Up"
"Holy Water"/"Vogue"
"Devil Pray"
"Messiah"
"Body Shop"
"True Blue"
"Deeper and Deeper"
"Heartbreak City"/"Love Don't Live Here Anymore"
"Like a Virgin"
"Justify My Love"/"Sex"
"Living For Love"
"La Isla Bonita"
"Dress You Up"/"Into The Groove"/"Lucky Star"
"Who's That Girl"
"Rebel Heart"
"Illuminati"
"Music"
"Candy Shop"
"Material Girl"
"La Vie en Rose"
"Unapologetic Bitch"

Encore:
"Holiday"

Madonna, 2015-09-17 - The Guardian, Madonna at Madison Square Garden review – 'There is no other performer like her'

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/17/madonna-at-madison-square-garden-review-rebel-heart-tour-no-other-performer-like-her

Madonna at Madison Square Garden review – 'There is no other performer like her'

Madison Square Garden, New York
In the first of two Rebel Heart tour shows at the historic venue, the pop queen brings out Amy Schumer, Game of Thrones, transgender nuns, a ukulele … and her greatest hits


Madonna kicked off her two-night stand at MSG with her Rebel Heart tour.
Photograph: Splash News/Corbis

Madonna’s album Rebel Heart was bedevilled by leaks; she fell flat on her backside at the Brit awards; and her Instagram gaffes have made Jeremy Corbyn look like a Rupert Murdoch-style media mastermind. As she arrives in Madison Square Garden on the fourth date of her 10th tour – the last under her 10-year, $120m contract with Live Nation – she should be up against it. Yet Madonna is always at her best with her back to the wall, when the killer instinct that has sustained her through over 30 years in pop rears to the surface, a visceral refusal to be beaten.

Her choice of support act on this homecoming gig – since New York is the place she remade herself – is very Madonna, all wrong on paper but in practice, right on the money. Amy Schumer takes the stage in front of a massive backdrop of Madonna’s face staring at the heavens and clutching a sword to her breast, the massive machinery of pop music concealed behind it. Swigging from a bottle of champagne, and with nothing but a microphone and a stool, the comic of the moment says that she was asked: “‘Who better than you to open up for Madonna?’” “Uh,” she rhetorically answers. “Any band?”


Amy Schumer
Photograph: Splash News/Corbis

Yet Schumer’s perfect reading of the audience, in which straight men are such a minority as to be non-existent, (“It’s like taking a warm bath in a ton of dick that doesn’t want you”) weapons-grade filth (“We’re here to rethink cum”) and description of the Kardashians as a family who “take the faces they were born with as a light suggestion” reduce the crowd to marshmallow before Madonna has even made an appearance.

Twenty-five years from her apotheosis, 1990’s Blond Ambition tour, Madonna’s vision of the pop concert – in which music is combined with dance, video and costume, in order to reconceptualise familiar hits into an overwhelming sensory bombardment – has now been copied by generations of pop stars. She’s also notorious for stuffing the setlist with new material, thwarting those who would love an oldies show. At first the signs aren’t promising: the show starts with film of Madonna writhing in a sequinned dress in a cage, while her voiceover chunters that creativity is being threatened by corporations (ironic, given that Madonna is a formidable corporation in her own right).

She then descends from the ceiling similarly banged up, while knights in armour march down the stage, which juts almost the length of the arena. It’s Madonna does Game of Thrones. The first song is Iconic, one of the dimmer bulbs from Rebel Heart, followed by Bitch I’m Madonna, a great title in search of a decent song. But when the dancers depart, and Madonna struts down the runway to strap on a flying V, the show has lift-off with Burning Up. One of her earliest records, it amounts to a manifesto (“I’ll do anything, I’m not the same, I have no shame”) and all these years later it still grabs you by the throat. Aged 57, Madonna is still palpably hungry, and her performance has an enduring rawness and truth. Unmediated and undiluted, she’s the ringmaster of her own circus, connecting with her hardcore in a totally instinctive way, regardless of the choreography, pyrotechnics and fancy costumes (created by a battery of top fashion designers – but really, who cares?).

Madonna’s striking ability to imbue songs that might seem throwaway with significance and depth is illustrated four songs in. On record, Holy Water is a mortifying extended metaphor for her, ahem, vaginal secretions. But on stage, it’s a Ken Russell fantasia in which a scene of transgender naughty nuns poledancing (including Madonna climbing some 12 feet into the air to stand on a revolving naked man, one of several moments which involve genuine physical peril) morphs into a genuinely unnerving demonic parody of the Last Supper in which Madonna ends up tied up on the table, legs akimbo.


Madonna performs at Madison Square Garden in New York City on September 16, 2015.
Photograph: Shaun Tandon/AFP/Getty Images

Two more album tracks follow – the dodgy Devil Pray and the lovely Messiah – before the show hits its second section, set in a 50s garage where Madonna and the dancers prance to Body Shop (another number DOA on record) before gathering on a pile of tyres for a ukulele singalong to True Blue. From then on, it’s clear that the Rebel Heart tour connects today’s Madonna with the energy and boldness of her early days – there’s precious little from the many eras in between. HeartBreakCity, performed atop a spiral staircase, morphs into her mid-80s, yearning cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, before she tears into Like a Virgin, given a 21st-century update, but performed solo, with all the allure and aggression with which she infused it when it was first released.

The following section has a Mexican theme, Madonna in full Day of the Dead finery, and of course performing La Isla Bonita, the only song from her past she revisits on almost every tour, along with Dress You Up, Into the Groove and Who’s That Girl? – a song, she says, about “not knowing who the fuck you are”. It’s a moving affirmation of her ongoing, instinctive relationship with her Latino audience.

The title track of Rebel Heart is performed against a morphing backdrop of fan art depicting her many image changes, though the show actually reveals how consistent she has been underneath it all, endowed with an unswerving belief in the transformative power of pop. The final straight is pure pleasure, Madonna in a flapper’s outfit, performing a jazz-era take on Music (in visuals alone – musically it still packs the robotic punch that made it irresistible 15 years ago), then going into a showstopping Material Girl, performed on an upended video screen titled 45 degrees, in which Madonna pushes the top-hatted dancers down the slope, one by one, in a reboot of the famous video.


Amy Schumer and Madonna together on stage
Photograph: Splash News/Corbis

And then there’s a moment of intimacy, Madonna perching at the end of the circular hydraulic platform with her ukulele, announcing that she is going to perform one of her favourite songs. What ensues is an unaccompanied version of Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose, suddenly revealing that after all these years of being dismissed as a singer, Madonna has the pipes. Her rendition bites through the inherent campness of the concept to locate something unarguably moving. Finally, Madonna brings Schumer out again during Unapologetic Bitch, spanking her and then giving her a banana as a reward. Rising to the challenge, Schumer pretends to stick it up her backside, to the delight of the audience.

Holiday, performed with the stars and stripes rampant, is a victory lap. Madonna had said: “I’m feeling pretty nostalgic tonight … I performed here 30 years ago.” Her Madison Square Garden concert seems simultaneously like the latest stage of a 32-year durational performance art piece about stardom and an affirmation that there is simply no other performer like her. Tonight, Madonna kills it.

Madonna, 2015-09-17 - billboard, Madonna Gets Surprisingly Nostalgic at First NYC Tour Stop, Then Kicks Amy Schumer's Ass

http://www.billboard.com/articles/review/6699797/madonna-rebel-heart-nyc-tour-amy-schumer-madison-square-garden

Madonna Gets Surprisingly Nostalgic at First NYC Tour Stop, Then Kicks Amy Schumer's Ass

By Joe Lynch, New York | September 17, 2015 2:49 AM EDT

For an artist who rarely looks back creatively, Madonna was in a particularly wistful mood during her Madison Square Garden concert on Wednesday (Sept. 16) night, the first of three NYC dates on her Rebel Heart Tour.

"I'm feeling very nostalgic tonight," Madonna said (twice, actually). "I played Madison Square Garden 30 years ago. That's crazy." When she trailed off for a moment, you almost thought she was lost in sentimental reverie. But as always, Madonna was laser-focused on the present, even while reminiscing. "You were there?" she asked a fan in the front row who had been talking to her. "Then I gotta give you a kiss." For the record, a Madonna-on-fan kiss is a controlled affair: She kissed her fingers and touched the fan's forehead, like a messiah gracing her faithful follower with one touch.

Nostalgia aside, Madonna's restless creative spirit is on full display on the Rebel Heart Tour. Refusing to coast by playing faithful, familiar live renditions of her hits, Madge recast a number of her classics in different musical molds, with mostly positive results.

Strapping on a guitar, she skuzzed up "Burning Up" to hard rock heights and turned "True Blue" into a ukulele sing-along. For "Like a Virgin," she lost the original instrumentation, her backup dancers and most of her clothes while turning her breakthrough hit into a sparse, Pharrell-esque jam.

In a lengthy nod to her Spanish-speaking audience, Madonna delivered a Latin-tinged medley of "Dress You Up," "Into the Groove" and "Lucky Star." The maracas might have been a little much, but the crisp Spanish guitar successfully made the songs sound newly organic. And while there weren't as many French speakers in attendance at MSG, Madonna nodded to her Gallic fans with a surprisingly full-voiced version of Edith Piaf's "La Vie En Rose." (Was it as good as Lady Gaga's recent live "La Vie en Rose" cover? That's a topic for opposing fan groups to viciously discuss in the comments section.)

Later in the show, Madonna began "Music" as a Jazz Age ballad before kicking the No. 1 hit into banger mode. The presence of "Music" was an effective reminder that while some compulsive naysayers tsk the Queen of Pop for trend chasing with Diplo, she brought techno to the pop mainstream years before EDM was a ubiquitous term.

As always, Madonna will never be everything to everyone. Some were undoubtedly let down to see her make it through the "Vogue" spoken word section during "Holy Water" without segueing into the full song -- and to see the lights come up without any "Like a Prayer."

But the classic tracks Madonna did pull out were judiciously selected, with attention paid to material rarely performed on her live tours. An acoustic "Who's That Girl?" (not seen on a Madonna tour in nearly 30 years), a pumping "Deeper and Deeper" (absent from her setlist for 11 years) and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" (which segued out of new song "HeartBreak City") were all resurrected to huge applause.

Speaking of resurrection, Catholic themes occupied a sizable portion of her stage show, as you would expect -- but always with the Ciccone wink. There was a bacchanalian Last Supper, nuns gyrating on stripper polls and famous faces from Renaissance religious paintings projected onscreen during the aforementioned "Vogue" roll call.

Aside from the stunning Minotaur-filled "Living for Love," the most effective new song in her Rebel Heart Tour arsenal was "Body Shop." While the song was light to the point of forgettable on the album, its low-key, affable sound worked to the choreography's advantage as Madonna teased and flirted her way through a stage filled with tires, muscle cars and muscle men.

"My grandma always said, 'If it's got tits or tires, it's going to give you trouble,'" Madonna said in a faux Southern accent after the song. "Sorry, I know I'm not as funny as Amy Schumer, but I'm trying."

Schumer, incidentally, killed her opening set (last night was her first of three opening slots for Madonna in NYC). Repeatedly mocking the flowering falsehood that it's a new Golden Era for women in Hollywood while still making jokes about the First Lady taking a hot load, Schumer's ability to pivot between the bawdy and the incisive proved the perfect fit for a Madonna opener.

"I thought I was gonna bomb so hard for months," Schumer said when her set was over. "This is the best feeling ever."

That feeling might've been one-upped (or quashed?) later on in the evening when Madonna brought Amy out during "Unapologetic Bitch," bent her over and literally kicked her ass (in addition to pretending to penetrate it). Schumer was ecstatic and surprisingly rhythmic while dancing with Madonna onstage, but the Queen couldn't let her go without some hazing.

Before Schumer left the stage, Madonna put a sock puppet on Amy's hand and made it tell her, "Hi Amy -- I'm a sock, bitch!" Waiting a few beats for an actual joke to follow, Schumer exploded into confused laughter when it became clear that was pretty much all Madge had to offer with the skit. Madonna might be good at changing creative lanes, but her attempt at improv was like switching lanes by means of rolling out of a moving car.

When the show came to a triumphant close with "Holiday," New York's favorite adopted daughter marched around in an American flag cape while her dancers -- dressed for a Gatsby-style rager at this point -- paraded about with jubilant relief. It was clear they felt the rush of owning Madison Square Garden and relished it. Madonna, on the other hand, kept her composure. Clearly, failure to dominate MSG on Wednesday night was never an option for her -- just like failure to dominate New York City was never an option for Madonna more than 30 years ago.

World Trade Center (2006)

Today I went to see the movie: "World Trade Center" and it made a positive and very sad mark on me. Positive because the story was true and it was very good directed. And sad because it was a big tragic that shouldn't never had happened.

I will attach here some of the photos (13) I took on the "site" of the former Twin Towers in NY on the 30th of August 2004.

I decided instead of photos of the movie to add some of my photos to made me remember the time I was there.

I wish in the future to see more movies about the stories of everyone related with this "accident", about the NYPD alive or deceased, the NYFD alive or deceased, the civilians alive or deceased and everyone that made part of this tragedy. But please real and truly stories only.

- 15:05 (WTC)

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"World Trade Center" Imdb Site

Taglines for
World Trade Center (2006)
The World Saw Evil That Day. Two Men Saw Something Else.

Every generation has a defining moment.This was ours.

A True Story Of Courage And Survival.
Plot Summary for
World Trade Center (2006)
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, hope is still alive. Refusing to bow down to terrorism, rescuers and family of the victims press forward. Their mission of rescue and recovery is driven by the faith that under each piece of rubble, a co-worker, a friend a family member may be found. This is the true story of John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, two of the last survivors extracted from Ground Zero and the rescuers who never gave up. It's a story of the true heroes of that fateful time in the history of the United States when buildings would fall and heroes would rise, literally from the ashes to inspire the entire human race.

Summary written by JJ Brent (jjbrentmusic@yahoo.com)

User Comments:

75 out of 122 people found the following comment useful:-
Very Well Done Movie!!! With No Political Agenda..., 11 August/10
Author: dianajay from United States

We weren't sure whether or not we would want to see this movie. Oliver Stone is someone who's movies we don't usually agree with. After reading many of the reviews on this site, we decided to give this movie a chance.

It is a very impressive, well executed movie... with excellent acting, directing and editing!!! It is a movie that will remind you of that day, however, it is a movie about heroes, friendships and triumphs. Yes, there are points in the movie that you will tear up and even cry, yet there is also laughter at some points and there is a lot of positive throughout the movie even though it is was a time of crisis and horror surrounding the situation. The horror of that day does exist in the movie, however it isn't overplayed or too dramatic to watch.... Also, that is not the main part of the movie. The movie is based on the lives to two of the trapped survivors as they tell/recall what happened to them on that day.

The audience sat in awe watching the movie... nobody ever got up to leave their seats... and everyone was amazed at the end of how well the story was told. I've never seen the Theatre so crowded on a weeknight (almost at capacity)... and it was being shown on multiple screens at a big theater.

I do recommend all American's see this movie... as it pays tribute to the heroes and shows some of the good that came from the tragedy.

Trivia for
World Trade Center (2006)
* Oliver Stone used many of the East Coast www.PoliceActors.com members to play cops in the film. All members of PoliceActors.com are active or retired members of a Law Enforcement agency who are also Screen Actors Guild members.

* A billboard for Zoolander (2001) is visible in one shot, as the shadow of a hijacked airliner descends over New York City. That film, released shortly after the 9/11 attacks, had images of the World Trade Center digitally removed.

* Oliver Stone thought of casting Kevin Costner as Sgt. John McLoughlin, his JFK (1991) lead. Costner had narrated the 2006 documentary On Native Soil (2006), about the 9/11 Commission Report's investigation of the causes of the terrorist attacks and what could have been done to prevent them from happening. Paramount Pictures was concerned that Stone and Costner would then delve into another conspiracy theory.

* Oliver Stone thought of casting Kevin Costner as Sgt. John McLoughlin, his JFK (1991) lead. Costner had narrated the 2005 documentary _On Native Soil (2005)_ , about the 9/11 Commission Report's investigation of the causes of the terrorist attacks and what could have been done to prevent them from happening. Paramount Pictures was concerned that Stone and Costner would then delve into another conspiracy theory.

* Three weeks before its August 9 nationwide release, producer Michael Shamberg and director Oliver Stone held private screenings of the finalized film for Port Authority officers and firefighters who risked their lives at the World Trade Center. The screenings were held in local multiplexes in the New Jersey/New York area.

* George Clooney turned down the role of Sgt. John McLoughlin.

* After seeing his performance in the film, Crash (2004/I), Maggie Gyllenhaal recommended Michael Pena for the role of Officer William Jimeno.

* As part of his research, Michael Pena moved into Officer William Jimeno's home in New Jersey.

* Due to her infamous quote that "America is responsible in some way" for the 9/11 attacks, Maggie Gyllenhaal personally offered to withdraw from the project to Officer William Jimeno and his wife Allison Jimeno. They both declined and gave their blessing for Gyllenhaal to take the role.

* John Travolta was in serious consideration for the role of Sgt. John McLoughlin. He declined the offer from Paramount Pictures, citing he had just done a similar role in Ladder). He suggested Nicolas Cage, his Face/Off (1997) costar.

* Hilary Swank was once slated to star as Donna McLoughlin when Kevin Costner was attached to the role of Sgt. John McLoughlin. They had both narrated the documentary, On Native Soil (2006) which investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks. When Costner dropped out of the project, Swank went on to pursue other projects as well.

* Mel Gibson was a hot favorite for the role of Sgt. John McLoughlin. Screenwriter Andrea Berloff had Gibson in mind while penning the screenplay. McLoughlin, a longtime fan of Gibson, enthusiastically gave his approval. And due to his commercially appealing name, Paramount Pictures was very interested in casting him in the part. Although Gibson liked the script very much, he turned it down in order to direct Apocalypto (2006).

* Nicolas Cage was the first actor to be given the script. Producers Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher circulated the Andrea Berloff's screenplay over to Creative Artists Agency, where it was given to Oliver Stone and Cage.

* Test audiences believed that Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), the former Marine, was a Hollywood invention. This is, in fact, a true story that occurred. Karnes later re-enlisted in the Marine Corps and served two tours of duty in Iraq. Also, as reported by the Associated Press on August 14, 2006, the Marine identified only as Sergeant Thomas (who disappeared shortly after 9/11) has been identified as Jason Thomas, a former Marine who grabbed his uniform and immediately drove to Ground Zero to help. Because his identity was unknown at the time of filming, Sgt. Thomas - who is black - was portrayed by William Mapother, a white man. The producers have since apologized to Sgt. Thomas for the miscasting. Thomas has laughed it off and told them not to be concerned, stating, "I don't want to shed any negativity on what they were trying to show."

* In preparing for his portrayal of Sgt. John McLoughlin, Nicolas Cage focused on accurately speaking with a New York accent. And to also capture the fear and claustrophobia of McLoughlin's ordeal, Cage spent hours in a sense-deprivation tank in Venice, California.

* The real-life John McLoughlin and William Jimeno appear in the final scene of the film at the "thank you" cookout.

* Approximately 240 tons of material was used to recreate a fully 3-dimensional Ground Zero in Los Angeles.

* Came to theaters under code name "bluelight".

* Officer Scott Strauss, a first responder with the New York City Emergency Services unit, was offered the chance to play himself in the film. However, Strauss refused to do so and Stephen Dorff was then cast to portray him. Strauss's services as a consultant were retained for the film to which he didn't accept payment.

* Fifty real-life members of PAPD, NYPD and FDNY were flown to Los Angeles to film the chain of men moving stretchers out of the rubble.

>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<>

* SPOILER: Jeanette Pezzulo, the widow of Officer Dominick Pezzulo, demanded that her husband's death be edited in the final version of the film. Jay Hernandez portrays the late Dominick Pezzulo, who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.