*** Official CRASH Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

BTW, I am saddened to see that one of the best films of the year has a discussion thread with only 20 or so posts.

I sincerely hope that this film finds a greater audience on DVD and that changes.

 

[Holadem]

I am not sure why people expect such movies to provide solutions, to resolve the issues they expose? If a solution to this issue was easy to come by, it wouldn't be an issue...

The movie was not meant to be a moralistic or cautionary tale, but rather a (hopefully) impartial observation of the state of things.

--
H

 

[TonyD]

this movie was brilliant.
easily the best i have seen this year.
the upside down rescue was the most
powerfully emotional scene i
have seen in a long time.
i thought my heart was going
to jump out of my chest at any moment.
after i see a movie like this
i dont want to watch any
other movie for a day or 2 so
i dont lose the feeling.


i cant believe this topic died down so quickly.
i can keep my feelings from the
movie in my mind as long as i can.

 

[Holadem]

Meanwhile the Doom thread is on it's second page. I used to think our membership was more discerning than this, but my faith is starting to erode.

--
H

 

[Mark Palermo]

Then again, Doom is a better movie.

 

[Holadem]

I rest my case.

--
H - thanks!

 

[Tino]

You said it Holadem!

Crash is the best film I have seen so far this year.

Doom is one of the worst.

It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

 

[Raasean Asaad]

damn sure is boggling mine !

 

[BrettB]

I agree with Neil. Even my wife and mother who liked it better than I felt it was a downer. There were small bits of positivity but the overriding feeling I had as the credits rolled was that everyone is screwed up and the future doesn't look much better.

 

[TonyD]

while everyone in this movie
may well be "screwed up"
there was plenty of optimism
in the movie too.
moments of redemption were
here especially in the scene
with the rescue in the car.

meanwhile dillon's character's home life
is still screwed up,
he certainly became a different person
in my eyes after the car accident.

the man with the gun seemed
to learn a remarkable lesson
from his nearly fatal mistake.

this wasnt a feel good movie
and it wasnt meant to be.

often in life things are a downer and so it was in this movie.

thats what i likeed about it.
no straightforward happy endings.

 

[Tino]

That's the great thing about Crash.

It's open to interpretation and promotes discussion.

 

[Kain_C]

(Moderator's note: The following was moved from the "worst of 2005" thread.)

Lots of hatred for Crash. Very surprising. But I think a point is being missed; there is a such thing as using exaggeration to make a point and many, many movies that attempt to make certain statements use exaggeration to do this. Crash is no different. To the guy who said the movie was unrealistic: while the scenarions are unusual, they are by no means implausible and it's safe to say odder things have happened.

I don't see how the film is smug either; it's very well made with an emphasis on visuals and motion if I remember correctly. It's very similiar to a Soderbergh film or even to a Mann film, visually.

Suffice to say, I greatly enjoyed Crash. One of the best of the year.

 

[Kyle_D]

Smugness has nothing to do with the way the film is shot or made. I'd agree, it's a very well-made film. My use of "smug" referred to a self-satisfied attitude that is pervasive throughout the film.

 

[Eric Peterson]

Well said Kyle.

You sum up my thoughts about Crash perfectly. There was a spectacular movie somewhere in there, but the gross exaggerations turned it into a self-parody. The bigotry was so far over the top that it was not all that far from being a "Blazing Saddles" set in modern LA.:frowning:

I was shocked by how high this film was rated by Ebert & Roeper. Generally, I agree with them more than not. In this case we vary greatly though.

I love message movies, but this movie sent it's message out in such a ridiculous manner that it will ultimately serve no purpose. That makes me sad.:frowning:

 

[Kain_C]

I figured that wasn't what you meant. But what I meant is that often times I see people blasting a movie for it's more artistic approach at direction and cinematography. They say the film is smug for presenting itself in such a deliberate way, as if trying to impress the audience instead of telling a story. I kinda sequed there instead of addressing your point directly. Sorry about that.

 

[Kyle_D]

It absolutely does. The scene where the shop owner goes to shoot the locksmith uses prejudice as a mere pretense for giving the shop owner motivation, but eventually the scene devolves completely into cheap suspense over whether or not the locksmith's cute-as-a-button little girl is going to be killed. Throughout the film, Haggis uses racism and prejudice as a coathanger, on which he can get a free pass for hanging all his "clever" and heinously manipulative screenwriting contrivances.

 

[Kain_C]

I've already said everything I wanted to say, but I need to add that I had a smiley beside my "no way" statement because I acknowledge that is DOES exploit racism. It was sarcasm.

I guess smileys don't show up on everyone's browser.

 

[Kyle_D]

Gotcha, Kain.

I think I've said everything I have to say about Crash as well. For sure it's a great movie to debate, I just can't call it a great movie

 

[Matt Stone]

Racism aspect aside, my problem with Crash was the in-organic nature of the relationships in the film. Dialog and interaction seemed stilted, as if the characters were only motivated by the constraints of the screenplay. Crash really stands out as un-natural to me compared to other vignette oriented films like Traffic or even Magnolia. There were definitely some good performances in it, but to me it was a rare case of the individual parts of the film being a lot better than the whole thing put together. I gave it a 4/5 when I first saw the film, but after the revisit, I'd probably bump it down to a 3.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

I absolutely loved this movie. I have seen a lot of these kinds of movies. I don’t know how to call them but you know, movies that don’t have a particular story or ending and are mostly about a feeling or the way of life. They always have the hero or the good guys that suffer from the environment and the bad guys. The brilliant thing in this movie was that there was no bad guy/good guy, everyone was the bad guy!

It’s not positive? It’s actually the most positive movie I have seen. How many times things have gone wrong in a short period in your life? You get filled up and suddenly you through it out on a poor fellow that crosses your path. The premise is very simple. We have effects on each other lives and sometimes things go wrong little by little on a crescendo that lead to a disaster. We have to learn to know when to stop, when to break the crescendo, not to let it eat us.