CRASH.
Best Picture winner at the 78th Academy Awards.
Man, do I HATE this movie.
Before this picture was released in the theatres, my publicist wanted me to attend a screening of a movie directed by the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby. I loved Million Dollar Baby and I was excited to see the film.
I arrived at the Universal Screening room with 5 other friends and waited for the film to start.
Well, the film started.
Then it ended.
And I wanted to kill myself. No, I wanted to kill the filmmaker. Between the 6 of us that saw the movie, half of us absolutely hated the film. The other half absolutely loved the film.
This is what I thought then:
What an insanely amateurish attempt to portray the race relations in contemporary America.
This is what I think now:
What an insanely amateurish attempt to portray the race relations in contemporary America...that's about 10 years too late.
Now don't think for a second that I don't know that I'm in a tremendous minority for my distaste for this film. In fact, in the past year I've only met one other person who didn't like this film and he was my Sound Guy and he just might've been trying to secure his next job. But I've never felt like I saw a completely different film than the rest of the world quite like this. Not because I didn't like the film but because I hated the film. I looooathed the film. I felt that it was "wrought with stinkiousity" (That was for you Mallory!).
First off, let's discuss the genre that this film falls into. If you think Crash is a Drama, you're wrong. Crash is as far from a drama as The Forty Year Old Virgin. Point in fact, Crash is a Melodrama. You don't really find many melodramas in cinema. For very good reason. But there are 2 outlets that they still exist:
1. Lifetime Television
and
2. Afterschool Specials
Guess which category Crash falls into...mmm-hmm. AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL.
Anyone ever see A Body To Die For: The Aaron Henry Story? It stars a very young Ben Affleck (with quite the receding hairline--hmmmm) who starts using steroids to achieve, Yep, you guessed it, A Body To Die For. It's one of the lazier afterschool specials but it stuck in my mind even before I knew that Affleck would turn into Save The World From The Incoming Asteriod Affleck. Let me describe for you the most amazing last ten minutes of an afterschool special that I've ever seen. In the last ten minutes of this afterschool special, Young Affleck starts bleeding from the nose, gets kicked off the football team, curses out his mother (well, television cursing), and beats up his girlfriend. Actually, he didn't beat her up.
He put her through a fucking wall. Literally.
Sounds dramatic and intense, don't it? Maybe on paper but by the time it was shot it was something else. It was HILARIOUS. Now here's the most amazing thing of all:
That was mild compared to Crash.
Every single character in a melodrama has but one purpose. To perpetuate the theme of the movie. That's a problem. Because that's not a character. It's a robot. In a melodrama no one does anything except portray the most intense stereotype ever written. That's pretty lazy.
And amateurish.
And just dead wrong.
Why wrong? Because human beings don't act that way. Even the stupid ones. Or the sneaky ones. Or especially the racist ones. In the year 2006, racism is not that overt. It's subtle. That's why racism still exists. If racism was that overt it would've been stamped out by now. But it's not. It's here to stay. Not because everyone in power is a racist but because racism is much like a mosquito flying around your ankle: You don't know it's there until it bites you.
So there. I hate this movie. Me and the other 4 people in the world.
--Tenspeed
posted by Tenspeed & Brownshoe @ 9:52 PM
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