OK, what the hell is "Crash" about?

The first I've even heard of it is tonight. :shrug:

:wtf:'s the deal?

(I'm not watching the Oscars, too much homework :()

:eyes:

terrific ensemble cast

lots of interlocking stories

excellent movie about racism (and LA--duh)

Ok, ok, it's not really.

But I just read a "spoiler" about "Crash," and that's what it sounds like to me.

Or go to the library and check it out. It's been at the video store for months.

Maybe someone can explain why this wasn't up last year.

They showed it for a film festival in Canada in 2004 but didn't release it official until 2005

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/releaseinfo

I was checking IMDB, but couldn't find that info.

Cheers...

Really awesome. I'm surprised it won, though.

Basically ties together a number of separate stories that focus on race relations around Los Angeles.

because I haven't seen the others. But "Crash" is very well done, rather dark and intense, addresses a lot of uncomfortable issues.

I've seen it for rent but never brought it home. I guess I'll have to take a look at it someday.

:hi:

:hi:

I may take the rest of the night off after a few more post. I feel a little crispy around the edges at the moment.
I bit off a big chunk of real life today: www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x4841896

How are your studies going?

Starting Wednesday, I'm taking an indefinate length hiatus from DU, this place is consuming my life...I need to reevaluate. :(

and about how no one is fully good nor completely bad,
stereotypes are often partially true
great dialogue, great acting, very original, I couldn't take my eyes off it when I watched on DVD

With the scare quotes always intact. It is a faux version of the "gritty realism" it says is everywhere in Los Angeles. Hackneyed, overwrought direction, some very good acting, unrealistic sentimentality, cinematic drek.

It is a movie that tells you rather than shows you and its heavy-handed didacticism quickly grows tiresome.

I found it entirely manipulative as it wore on. Not an awful film, just obvious.

latent racism...and the little girl....

million story threads involving different characters, that are all intertwined by a few events that occur. The one common theme in all the story threads is racial tension and racism between different groups in L.A.

I was disappointed. I thought parts were very good but it felt contrived to me. The one really strong part is where Terence Howard plays a man, a TV producer, (black man with a black wife) who is pulled over by a racist cop (Matt Dillon) for no apparent reason. During their encounter, the cop feels up his wife in front of him, it's essentially an act of rape.. he does nothing, knowing that he and his wife will likely be beaten or killed if he acts. This scene, and the subsequent fallout in the relationship between husband and wife, is very well done.

But much of the rest felt contrived to me.

For example, Don Cheadle (director) played a detective in the film, with a Hispanic girlfriend. He says some stupid gratuitous racist against Hispanics shit to her early in the film, that felt totally gratuitous to me, just to inject the "racial antagonism" element into their particular story. I thought it unnecessarily made the Cheadle character act like a dick which I didn't think was very consistent with the nature of the character, it was just done to "fit in" with the common theme of racial antagonism, and rang false to me. My humble opinion.

In comparison to the greater cultural issues at play today, I think Crash falls flat thematically. Racism, etc. are always important issues, but there are larger and more important themes at play in the Best Picture pool this year. It fits better in 1990 and not 2005. I'm very disappointed that it won Best Picture. Versus Good Night and Good Luck? Brokeback Mountain?

It was a TERRIBLE choice. :(