This was the worst movie I've seen in years! I did not think it possible that this film could be worse than Cronenberg's horrible film also called Crash, but it was. Yes, the cinematography was lovely, and Don Cheadle put forth a solid acting performance, but this film was disgustingly insulting. The fact that this film is being lauded is so bizarre to me, the closest thing I can compare this film to in tone is Showgirls, which was made by a director purposely trying to show American culture as revolting, what this movie has as an excuse is beyond me. It was like the filmmakers shit out a giant log of all their boomer guilt, and then coiled it together and called it art. One of the most predictable movies I have seen in ages, with ridiculously over the top foreshadowing, it was almost as vapid and self-indulgent as Elephant. The movie was also the most racist film I've seen since Fight For Your Life from 1977, regardless of whatever intentions they had in mind as a moral. Plus, if you're going to look at racism in America, where are the aboriginal's? This was way more disgusting and insulting to humanity than any of the ultra-violence films people love to complain about as being corrupting forces. As a west-coast Canadian, if this is what America is like these days, I'll stay on my side of the border. Disgusting-boomer-guilt-filth.
"If it were beneficial, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect." -Jesus, from the Gospel Of Thomas
Holy Shit!! Now, I have to defend it, even though I believe it's overwrought, lazy, and completely turns into a masturbatory fantasy. I guess that's what I get for liking Spielberg in his friggin' latter days. Thanks, S, for opening this can of worms! I think this film is GOOD, but it's kinda limited in what it has to say about REAL LIFE. Let 'er rip!
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Posts: 12874 | Location: Behind the Orange Curtain | Registered: 14 May 2004
Mark is right. I'm not a big fan of the film either, but I still liked it a plenty, it seemed a bit heavy-handed and obvious in what it was trying to say, but a good script, direction and cast really help it.
Posts: 7 | Location: California | Registered: 01 October 2005
Welcome, ZBF. Yeah, I know you. I liked the way the film started out because I thought it had some good acting and dialogue. Now, I never really felt it got anywhere near as horrible as Smenkharon did, but everybody feels strongly about certain things, and I certainly respect his opinion. I just felt a bit disappointed by the second half because it got too contrived in its attempt to make social commentary about the fact that things aren't always so "black and white". I still think it's a good movie because it's smart in many ways, but it got a bit too ham-fisted and unrealistic for me to accept as an important statement.
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Posts: 12874 | Location: Behind the Orange Curtain | Registered: 14 May 2004
alright, you want to call it filth, you want to write it off as boomer guilt fine, but I'm a white kid from the South, the shit is real. Everyday I see racist remarks thrownout by my friends, parents, grandparents. I argue with them, but they don't see them as being obvertly racist, but it's just like Matt Dillon's character in the film, and my friend who is from Pakistan gets the shit all the time. Yes the move hits you over the head with the point every five minutes like a kid playing whack-a-mole with a cricket bat, but if it only makes one person reexamine the way they talk to people then I'm all for it.
Personally as a member of an ethnic minority and maybe due to the fact that I am, Crash is among the top best movies for me this year. The articulate, hard-hitting discrimination that scandalizes the screen and briefly removes the blinders that so many in America have opted to keep on make me want to applaud that this movie was made and has received such critical acclaim. The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, LA Weekly, Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times all gave Crash a perfect score for excellence along with very ratings from The Washington Post, USA Today, Rolling Stone and even the most critical were never even close to commenting about this movie being the worst movie. This movie is one that really needs to be seen and appreciated, particularly those who don't have a massive set of rigid denial of what is truly happening in today's American society, something that has been unseen for too long.
Posts: 891 | Location: Utah, United States | Registered: 22 July 2005
Given all the good reviews this film received I was surprised at how much I didn't like it. Too implausible.
That said, I still wouldn't put it on a "10 worst list."
When was the plausibility of a dramatic fictional movie the basis for its greatness? That would be like saying that any science fiction classic, say Alien or Blade Runner were definitely implausible therefore they were terrible. If Crash were billed as a documentary, perhaps, plausibility would be a definite criteria.
Another coincidental phenomena that also has a bearing on this argument is that increasingly strange and unexplanable events that seem to occur by chance or accident, even in my own life, where seemingly two or three different events seem to have been strangely connectly - whether by some divine hand or just by chance, I don't know.
When it comes to Crash, it really isn't all the implausible, taking into account the billions of people, trillions of events that occur on this planet over decades, that somehow events can transpire that overlap and relate to each other and when it comes to discrimination, I'm not all that surprised how Crash has a stinging bite of reality all over it. Even it some of the movie were to be dramatized a bit, this movie really needed to be made and distributed because the hidden, denied existence of discrmination in today's society in American is too important to remain behind closed minds.
Posts: 891 | Location: Utah, United States | Registered: 22 July 2005
When was the plausibility of a dramatic fictional movie the basis for its greatness? That would be like saying that any science fiction classic, say Alien or Blade Runner were definitely implausible therefore they were terrible. If Crash were billed as a documentary, perhaps, plausibility would be a definite criteria.
Another coincidental phenomena that also has a bearing on this argument is that increasingly strange and unexplanable events that seem to occur by chance or accident, even in my own life, where seemingly two or three different events seem to have been strangely connectly - whether by some divine hand or just by chance, I don't know.
When it comes to Crash, it really isn't all the implausible, taking into account the billions of people, trillions of events that occur on this planet over decades, that somehow events can transpire that overlap and relate to each other and when it comes to discrimination, I'm not all that surprised how Crash has a stinging bite of reality all over it. Even it some of the movie were to be dramatized a bit, this movie really needed to be made and distributed because the hidden, denied existence of discrmination in today's society in American is too important to remain behind closed minds.
If I find myself shaking my head or asking lots of questions during a film (but not in the David Lynch sense), I ask myself this; within the world this film creates, do I buy what's going on? In the case of Alien, yes. In the case of Crash, no. And the problem with Crash for me was that the story relied so heavily on coincidences that I didn't buy in the first place.
Also, I felt that writer/director Paul Haggis doesn't have enough faith in his audience to derive his message from watching the film so we're literally assaulted by it.
tabuno, you said "this movie really needed to be made" and I almost agree with you, but since to me this filmed really missed the point I think "a film needed to be made," not this one.
And while I have your attention tabuno, I always enjoy reading your posts. You always make me question something about the film you're discussing. I'm glad you're here.
Posts: 53 | Location: CA | Registered: 03 November 2005
If I find myself shaking my head or asking lots of questions during a film (but not in the David Lynch sense), I ask myself this; within the world this film creates, do I buy what's going on? In the case of Alien, yes. In the case of Crash, no. And the problem with Crash for me was that the story relied so heavily on coincidences that I didn't buy in the first place.
So you don't believe in coincidences? That there are actually cause and effects. Or what about faith-based events that everything happens for a reason? If that's the case, just imagine that the director, Paul Haggis, has orchestrated these events just like God sometimes appears to have done.
Sometimes, it's better not to get so serious looking for how these events can be connected and just experience the movie. I still think you've avoided the notion of coincidences and how many times in your life you have perhaps met the same person in a big city, three or four times in a week by accident or something happened to you that you just can't believe how lucky or unlucky you've been, like you've been on a streak or something.
Having to search for why things happen and how it can happen in a movie like Crash is asking to much. Let me just say, I believe such events that happen in Crash have probably actually happened, not frequently, not even a few times, but statistically possibly one in a 100,000 or one in 250,000 and its that rare event that Mr. Haggis has brought to the screen in order for us to experience discrimination in a way that many people still avoid, deny, and reject. We're still just starting to uncover the surface of discrimination in its raw, hidden form that has gone underground since the Civil Rights laws were passed over a quarter century ago. Our society isn't even ready yet to start experiencing qualitative, substance movies that you are perhaps looking for, if we aren't even yet ready to look at what's really going on just under the surface of our society. You're still ten or more years ahead of us.
Posts: 891 | Location: Utah, United States | Registered: 22 July 2005
I've said it before, but my take on Crash is that it's a good-looking, well-acted film. I'm not going to get into an argument about coincidences because drama is all based on the "coincidences" that the author sets up and carries through on. I also think that racism is unfortunately alive and well in our wonderful country.
All I know about my gut reaction (having seen it twice) is that I thought that the first half of Crash was much more successful in the set-up than in the follow-through. I still recommend the film, and the actual final shot almost implies that everything is being seen/"controlled" by God. At the same time, I reacted quite a few times to some of the "coincidences" and "implausiblities" in the second half in a negative way, while during the first part, they really got me into the movie.
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Posts: 12874 | Location: Behind the Orange Curtain | Registered: 14 May 2004
When was the plausibility of a dramatic fictional movie the basis for its greatness?
Plausibility I guess becomes an issue depending on how you feel about a movie. If you like the movie you tend to overlook things that are implausible. In this case, since I didn't like the film, I found all those coincidences implausible. It also could be just lazy scriptwriting too.
My dad told me that Crash was the best movie he'd seen in 5 years, and I just HAD to see it. I watched it last night and really liked it. It's not as amazing as how it was described to me, but it was good.
Posts: 1115 | Location: new york | Registered: 10 October 2005
I thought Crash was well acted - Terrence Howard was terrific - but, ultimately, the movie falls short big time. The scene where Howard's character feels the snow/ash from the burning car is supposed to depict that if it can snow in L.A. then anything is possible and that we as people can change, proves Haggis is an amateur director.
Actually I think that it might have been ash from the burning car. But I could be wrong.
No way this should be in the worst catagory...personally my favorite of last year. Made you think, which I love in movies, and it ties up all the characters into one amazing movie!
Last Movie Seen: There Will Be Blood 9/10 Now Playing: COD4
Posts: 394 | Location: Minnesota | Registered: 25 June 2004
I think I can best describe this movie by saying that it wasn't an accident.
When you see a beautiful woman, dressed in amazing fashion, and garnering the attention of every man who passes her by, you simply must realize that she knows exactly what she is doing. It simply is not a mistake that she looks that good.
Writers and directors always know how clever they are (or feel that they are) and they also know that 95% of the people who see their movie will be sucked in. They count on it and they also realize that people on sites like this, or in certain publications, will go to great lengths to pick out every flaw in the movie or script.
When I watch a film like The Last Samurai, towards the end, my gut feeling is sorrow. I know that the movie makers planned this and counted on that 95% to be blown away with grief. That’s the beauty of movies and that’s our society. People love movies because they can laugh, cry, anger, or feel an overwhelming sense of joy, and at the end of the day, discard all those false emotions. It’s a commitment free ride and when your guard is down, you too can be swept away.
In a movie like Crash, regardless of the inconsistencies or coincidences, most people will be amazed by the twists and turns and come away from the experience in thought. I consider this to be a good thing. For better or for worse, it does make you think and there is nothing wrong with free thinking.
Overall, I give the movie a B+ and congratulate an actor like Matt Dillon for turning in the best performance of his shabby career.
Posts: 1205 | Location: Hunting in the Korengal | Registered: 04 January 2006
