There are whispers that Paul Haggis' Crash might take Best Picture from Ang Lee's gentle-spirited presumptive frontrunner Brokeback Mountain. I really hope it doesn't, because if it does, I'll be so angry that I'll have to retire my long-term posture of benign condescension towards the Oscars and start hating them on general principle.
I realize the Academy has been making lot of wafer-bland Best Picture choices since the '90s (American Beauty, Shakespeare in Love, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago), honoring films that are slick and entertaining and perfunctorily "smart" but not the least bit resonant, films that don't hold a candle to at least 10 or 15 English language films from that same year that didn't win, and that certainly cannot stand proudly alongside such previous Best Picture winners as The Deer Hunter, All About Eve, On the Waterfront, Gone with the Wind, The Last Emperor, Amadeus, the first two Godfather movies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and even The Silence of the Lambs and on and on and on. But compared to Crash, the recent batch of Best Picture winners looks positively brilliant. If Haggis' movie wins, it won't just take home a statuette, it'll claim a new title: the most indefensible Best Picture winner since 1956's tax shelter spectacle Around the World in 80 Days.
Yes, I admit, the movie's more primally exciting than, say, American Beauty or A Beautiful Mind or The English Patient, and more superficially "edgy." But it's also dumber and meaner and uglier, an Importance Machine that rolls over you like a tank. And it's lazy and simplistically cynical about its central subject, race, in that it promulgates a false idea of how Americans express racial attitudes in public. Cowritten by Haggis and Robert Moresco, Crash directly contradicts what we know about how race plays out in the U.S. today, not just in Los Angeles, but all over. In the name of Big Drama, it ignores the chilling effect of political correctness, which compels everyone who's not a fringe-dwelling hatemonger or a person pushed to the edge of his or her rope to express racist thoughts in code.
Ignoring this psychological given, Crash is set in Archie Bunker World, a nostalgic land where race is at the forefront of every consciousness during every minute of every day, where elaborately worded slurs are loaded into everyone's speech centers like bullets in a gun, ready to be fired at the instant that disrespect is given. The characters are anachronistic cartoons posing as symbols of contemporary distress. They seem to have time-warped in from the Nixon era, when the country's pop culture purveyors decided to roll up their sleeves and get all this race stuff out in the open and show we were all secure enough to call each other bad names and then laugh about it and move on. That was a nervous, belligerent response, an overcompensation that came from sitting on this stuff for hundreds of years and seeing it explode into riots and shootouts. But the contrived frankness served a valuable function at the time; it was a little taste of the poisons lurking beneath the American façade, a rhetorical inoculation designed to toughen up the body politic. And it's over now. We're still a racist country, but we're a hell of a lot more sophisticated about it, and the inability or unwillingess of Crash to admit this makes it both stupid and pernicious.
Racism expresses itself more subtly and insidiously now than it did in Archie Bunker's day. Neither the public nor the private language are the same; political correctness constrains people of Boomer age or older, while the younger generations are likely to view the multicultural future not with dread, or even idealism, but simply as a given. Notwithstanding the efforts of button-pushers like Bill O'Reilly and Al Sharpton, the Nixon mode of Racially Charged Public Theater hasn't made dramatic sense since Spike Lee's late '80s and early '90s race dramas, which were also obsessed with Getting Stuff Out in the Open in the bluntest manner imaginable. (Lee only got away with it because his movies were set in New York, which is more socially advanced than the rest of the country in some ways, but laughably backward in others.)
Haggis doesn't care about such distinctions because deep down he doesn't actually want to say something useful about the modern state of race relations. He just wants to be able to play with racially charged material and be acclaimed for his bravery. The up-to-the-minute realities of American racism are too subtle and elusive for Haggis and his cowriter to grasp, and require too much care to dramatize. Even if Haggis acknowledged the need for subtlety, he'd probably ignore it anyway, because it would clash with his preferred directorial mode, monumental primitivism. This filmmaker wants blood and thunder in CinemaScope and Dolby Digital. He wants to shake you up. So he lays bare the American psyche circa 1971, dresses it in 2005 fashions and hopes we're too stunned and moved to notice that he's lied to us.
"I can't talk to you right now, ma," says Don Cheadle's cop, pausing mid-coitus to take a phone call. "I'm fucking a white woman." "Holy shit," another character exclaims. "We ran over a Chinaman!" "I can't look at you," Matt Dillon's cop tells a black female paper-pusher, making like Peter Boyle's character from the 1970 white-man-on-a-rampage melodrama Joe, "…without thinking of the five or six qualified white men who could have had your job." Dyno-miiiiiiite!
Beneath our politically correct facades, Haggis says, we're all secretly as racist as Archie Bunker or George Jefferson, and we can't stop obsessing over skin color, ethnicity, religion, national origin and so forth. Say what? Over a decade and a half ago, when Spike Lee seized headlines with a series of incendiary films about race in America, astute critics were already questioning the truth of Lee's belief that this is how people think and talk about race, in New York or anywhere. The passage of time has made Lee's presumption even more ludicrous. Racism is still everywhere, but with infrequent exceptions, it cools its temper for survival's sake, inflicts its damage through evasion and omission, and otherwise keeps its true face hidden.
Haggis' depiction of a world where everyone's thoughts and words are filtered through a kind of racist translator chip—like a Spike Lee slur montage padded out to feature length—and then spat into casual conversation is ungenerous, because it depicts every character as an actual or potential acid-spitting bigot, and it's untrue to life, because it ignores the American impulse to at least pretend one isn't a racist for fear of being ostracized by one's peers. (That why hardcore big city bigots keep their voices down when discussing race in public; they don't want to get their asses kicked.)
Haggis' depiction of modern race consciousness is so wrongheaded in so many ways that the film's critical and financial success might actually inflict damage on the culture, by making apoplectic, paranoid racism seem like the norm and encouraging audience members (particularly the young) to think Haggis is tearing off society's mask and showing how things really are, all of which will allow those same ticket buyers to feel superior to the people in the movie and think themselves incapable of "real" racism, the type depicted in Crash. Quentin Tarantino was deservedly criticized for his no-big-deal early-'90s deployment of racist slurs, in otherwise unreal movies that had no defensible reason to include them. But at least his characters used the words in a jocular way that said, "Look, they're just words." That's a questionable assertion, but it's preferable to Haggis' apparent belief that slurs express the truth of individuals' feelings, and by extension society's feelings, and that people in all walks of life carry them around in their heads just in case they need to use them.
Having established that deep down, we're all racist, Haggis then muffs the questions of what that fact might mean and whether racist thoughts are ever justified. The DA and his wife (Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser), for instance, were right to be racist, since they get carjacked by the young black men (Ludacris and Larenz Tate) they suspect of being dangerous. The latino locksmith (Michael Pena) betrays no racist tendencies when dealing with the volatile Iranian-American shopkeeper, but fate proves him naive when the shopkeeper tragically misunderstands something he said, blames him for the racist vandalizing of his shop, and comes after the locksmith later with a gun. Even one of the young carjackers is later proved justified in fearing white people because he will be senselessly killed by one.
But wait, Crash cries, hold on: bile-spewing racists are people too, as evidenced by racist cop Matt Dillon's relationship with his kindly, dying dad and his willingess to save the life of the African-American TV director's wife (Thandie Newton) after groping her at at a traffic stop. "We're all racist," the movie proclaims, "except when we're not." Whatchoo talking about, Willis?
Haggis and the film's defenders can pretend this is evidence of complexity and contradiction all they want; it's really just evidence of Haggis' version of Powerful Dramaturgy, which mixes the schematic earnestness of an old afterschool special and the Zen pulp grandiosity of Michael Mann in full-on existential dread mode, complete with pulsing synth music, massive telephoto closeups and time-suspending action montages. This movie should have been called Mess.
But despite its pretensions to muscular lyricism, Crash doesn't even deserve the top prize when judged as pure filmmaking. It's nowhere near as brutishly powerful as Mel Gibson's roundly sneered-at 1995 winner Braveheart—in my view, not really a historical movie as Oscar typically defines it, but the first atavistic action film to win Best Picture; the sort of movie Cornel Wilde would have directed if during the 1960s he'd been given tens of millions of dollars to throw around. Nor is Crash as good as The English Patient, a classy timewaster that almost nobody wants to watch twice. It's a message picture conceived at the same jacked-up visual and emotional pitch as a Super Bowl ad or action film trailer; it's Stanley Kramer in a 'roid rage. Unlike other recent Best Picture contenders, Crash isn't slick, clever and safe, it's hot, stupid and dangerous, and slick and "powerful" in that peculiarly West Coast way that used to be showcased on Six Feet Under. The characters chatter bitterly, like drunk screenwriters trying to one-up each other with demonstrations of hardboiled cynicism about life but then rallying at the last minute to exhort each other to go forth into the world and Make a Difference. (Translation: "Get Attention.")
Amazingly, this movie has been embraced by some of the country's most prominent critics. "Along the way, these people say exactly what they are thinking, without the filters of political correctness," writes Roger Ebert, flattering Haggis by presuming that Crash is set in an alternative universe where people verbalize thoughts that would otherwise stay hidden, rather than calling the script what it is: a shortcut to dramatic power that evades the modern reality of its subject. "It shows the way we all leap to conclusions based on race—yes, all of us, of all races, and however fair-minded we may try to be—and we pay a price for that," Ebert writes. "If there is hope in the story, it comes because as the characters crash into one another, they learn things, mostly about themselves. Almost all of them are still alive at the end, and are better people because of what has happened to them. Not happier, not calmer, not even wiser, but better."
Gag.
Variety's Todd McCarthy summed up the movie's moral and aesthetic confusion, praising its "…collection of powerful individual scenes" but noting that it "…seems to promote an ideology of victimhood, and shoves race-based thinking to the fore of every human exchange. In his earnest attempt to speak plainly about how racial stereotypes and ingrained prejudices play an often insidious part in everyone's daily lives, Haggis protests too much, and in the process contracts the scope of his film."
Which, ironically, is precisely why entertainment industry dumbasses who live in monocultural bubbles and experience race relations via news reports if they experience it at all would deem Crash a work of searing truth. If this movie wins Best Picture, the statutette should be headless.
shit, man; tell us how you really feel…
I found this interview with Haggis and co-write Bobby Moresco very interesting.
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=77837603&selectedItemId=2760906&s=143441
Specifically Haggis' descriptions of his "oh shit" approach to screenwriting.
Fantastic post, Matt.
I haven't yet read anything that nails this movie's simplistic crudeness (masquerading as responsible high-mindedness) so well.
And I hadn't thought of its "anachronistic" quality, but that's spot-on too.
Woah… nice takedown bro.
I can't muster up that much hatred for the film itself, which struck me as well-acted but hopelessly cloddish and contrived when I saw it last May… sort of like a whole movie made out of those awful "Maggie's family scenes" that marred MILLION DOLLAR BABY.
But the strange cult that has sprung up around the picture since its release is indeed terrifying. (These people are so devoted they make you seem blase about THE NEW WORLD.) There seems to be a weird notion, espoused the likes of Ebert and Oprah, that the simple act of watching CRASH will somehow make you a better person. (I had folks trying to rent my movie theater in order to show the DVD to everybody they know, and I hear this happened in a lot of other markets, too.)
It is a bizarre phenomenon, not just for all the reasons you've already nailed, but especially since the opening night crowd I saw the picture with seemed content to sit back and giggle at all the racial slurs.
But yeah, I agree that the cult is going to carry it all the way to the Best Picture trophy. Blame Oprah, I guess. She's a powerful lady.
Oh well, in the end what good are the Oscars really, besides a great excuse to get drunk and yell at the television?
Worst…film…ever…
Matt, dude, you never lived in Los Angeles, did you? I am not surprised that this movie has come to the forefront, although I cannot comment on its quality or lack of same because I still haven't seen it. Everything I'm picking up from the coverage of CRASH is that it feeds impeccably into the self-hating Angeleno culture wherein everything is inherently racist and yet no one really tries to make a difference about it. Academy voters are frequently bottom-feeders and this movie was more or less accidentally made to their specification, is my take.
I DID see BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN though, and don't really understand what all the fuss is about; it basically hits the same note over and over again for two plus hours, although it does so with considerable aplomb. But I don't see CRASH as the surprise winner. Just my pair o'pennies.
Thank you thank you oh god thank you, Matt. What a terrible movie — I don't think I've seen such a collection of unbelievable character behavior since Saw. Thandie Newton's wife is the worst; there was a great opportunity there — to see how her character might sublimate her anger and pain, and how that would affect her relationship with her husband. But no, she just unsympathetically upbraids him, killing any potential drama or artistry. (Hey Haggis: people yelling at each other isn't drama.)
If this lame excuse for a multi-character drama wins on the same night that Robert Altman, a real artist, gets an honorary (i.e., sorry we fucked up) Oscar… yeah, I may boycott it for the rest of my life.
You guys should have all been boycotting since Howard won for Beautiful Mind. That's when I stopped watching and caring. On the other hand, it has become almost as popular to hate on Crash as to love it. My take: compromised, yes, but a step in the right direction. I was actually quite moved by it believe it or not.
You know, I really didn't like Crash at all, but there's a part of me that can't help but think that the very fact that racist attitudes in America have become so coded and subtle on a societal level lends some value to a movie like Crash, which wants so badly to rip the scab off all over again, a value that exists apart from the success or failure of the film as either a work of art or a social commentary. It has started a conversation — the wrong conversation, according to a friend of mine, but I'm not sure that's true either. Perhaps "society," whatever that means, doesn't express racism as it once did, but individual people most certainly do, and if you don't believe that, well, I don't know what to tell you. Political correctness may have snuffed out such speech for a time, but anti-political correctness, among other things, has revived it in a way that allows people to contextualize racist sentiments under the guise of free speech, individual expression, and all that other nudge nudge, wink wink garbage. Spouting off ignorant sentiments becomes a badge of honor. Haggis may be wrong in the idea that slurs express a person's true feelings in some absolute sense, but it's equally wrong to suggest that slurs DON'T express some truth. The same thing that got Tarantino in trouble is repeated, in word (and spirit) by millions of our accepting kids all the time. Is that racist? Or are they really living in a more enlightened world? It's a hard case for me to make, and, really, not even one I necessarily want to make, because really, truly, I do not like this movie. I started out as dismissive and derisive toward Crash as anyone. But I've also observed the effect it's had on friends, family. These are not people patting themselves on the back for their enlightenment. These are people shaken by this film and moved to some level of self reflection. Can you separate a film from the reaction it provokes? Are we to dismiss such reactions as shallow or misguided? Who knows. I'm just asking.
Good grief. First of all, have you sat through The Deer Hunter recently? It's nearly unwatchable. While Crash is certainly not perfect — none of their top 5 would be my top 5, if somehow it did win to say it would be the worst since Around the World in 80 Days leaves out a lot of really crappy winners. (I'm excluding OK winners — just ones that were actually bad.)
Patton: If it didn't have George C. Scott's performance, it wouldn't be much of a movie at all.
The French Connection: It doesn't hold up well at all.
Rocky: Less for Rocky itself than the fact it defeated All the President's Men, Network and Taxi Driver — that is indefensible.
The Deer Hunter: Did I mention how bad that is?
Chariots of Fire: Noble intentions do not a good movie make.
Out of Africa: Wake me when it's over.
Platoon: It's nearly impossible to watch this one with a straight face now.
Rain Man: Much worse than Crash. Yeah. Much worse.
Dances With Wolves: Re-read Pauline Kael's great takedown of this one, which slayed GoodFellas.
Braveheart: Ugh.
Titanic: It would work if it were a silent movie. Unfortunately, we have to sit through the dialogue.
Gladiator: To me, that's the biggest indefensible win of recent years.
A Beautiful Mind: Flawed, but not nearly as bad as some make it out to be but certainly Crash is better.
To me Crash, is the film Lawrence Kasdan's joke of a movie Grand Canyon aspired to be. Flawed to be sure, and too carefully constructed to cover all the bases, but those same criticisms could be leveled at Brokeback Mountain and Munich especially as well. Crash is probably too ambitious for its own good, but in its own way it's sort of refreshing to see someone even try to be ambitious.
I watch "The Deer Hunter" twice a year. I think it's one of the great movies of the 70s, great enough to forgive its huge flaws. No awards-baiting Hollywood movie is as honest about the intensity of male friendships. The vulnerability shown by all those men (and the women, particularly Streep) has ensured that the movie doesn't fade with time. It's the real precursor to "Brokeback Mountain," a Douglas Sirk picture for straight guys.
And I'd rather sit through "Braveheart," "Oliver," "Out of Africa" or almost any other Best Picture winner before I'd sit through "Crash" again. It's like "Short Cuts" as directed by Maury Povich.
I wish you were wrong about "Platoon," though. That Stone won for that and "Born on the Fourth" rather than "JFK" and "Nixon" — the Everest and K2 of his career — tells you all you need to know about the Academy's ability to recognize greatness.
Racism is still everywhere, but with infrequent exceptions, it cools its temper for survival's sake, inflicts its damage through evasion and omission, and otherwise keeps its true face hidden.
Let me take you to some of the places I've been recently! Bet I can change your mind. I had people calling me Hispanic racial slurs, and I ain't even Spanish! If you're going to slur me, please get it right, racists!
A few years ago, there was a screwy little movie called White Man's Burden, which starred Harry Belafonte and John Travolta. I thought the concept was fantastic, but the execution was far more misguided and worse than Crash. I sat there thinking "the guy who made this movie has no fucking idea about the dynamic between Blacks and Whites." It was such a wasted opportunity of satire. It made me want to rewrite the movie.
I don't come at Crash with the hatred that some people have. I think I can say the same about those who vehemently hate it as those who think it's some kind of cure for racism: both of these reactions are extreme and not worth being aggravated over it.
I'm more of Sean Burns' opinion: It is "well-acted but hopelessly cloddish and contrived." Haggis' kitchen sink approach to racism is hilariously convoluted–these people keep running into each other in a place as big and spread out as LA?–but at the same time, I've had some very interesting conversations about it. As a movie with SOMETHING TO SAY, it is a failure, but at least it is inspiring conversation. It can't be dismissed for that reason alone.
Haggis wants us to watch his film and say "hey, these racist motherfuckers are humans just like me!" But in writing so many characters and so many situations that rely on coincidence, he removes all semblance of realism. How can you identify with any of these people? If anything, nobody is as one-dimensional as these people, which defeats the "purpose."
The reason why straight men are so fucking scared of Brokeback Mountain is that they might actually see some of themselves in Ennis and Jack. It has nothing to do with the sex scene, which isn't even remotely as graphic as I was told. To mainstream culture, gay people aren't supposed to be like "normal" people; it's why Queer Eye is such a hit. It's raging, over the top caricature, and therefore safe. I think that's why there are so many uber-lovers of Crash. These people aren't real, therefore it's comfortable to come out thinking you're not a racist because you don't act as they do, and that you learned a lesson. Compare that to Brokeback Mountain, where the two men are fleshed out human beings with all too identifiably human complexity.
I don't need a movie to teach me about racism. In almost forty years, life has taught me plenty, and will keep teaching me until I'm under a cover of dirt that complements my complexion. So I'm more worked up about Crash's lousy screenplay than I am about what it's supposedly telling me.
And I still don't believe it's going to win Best Picture.
Odie says: "These people aren't real, therefore it's comfortable to come out thinking you're not a racist because you don't act as they do, and that you learned a lesson."
Exactly what I was trying to get at. By making every character an over the top racist, or someone with the potential to immediately become one, the movie encourages viewers to think of the most obvious sorts of racism as the only kind, and let themselves off the hook for the subtler, more pervasive types of racism that are practiced all over this country, racism that's a hell of a lot more insidious than somebody calling you a bad name.
I'm telling you, man, this is the best picture of 1971.
And 2005.
For one simple reason: The movie industry is run by cowards who would rather the public know that they're concerned about the most overt, old fashioned sorts of racism (a safe position) than for them to think they're comfortable with gay people in general and gay marriage specifically (which is still a controversial viewpoint, as the results of the 2004 election will attest).
Mr. Copeland, I'll agree with you on Platoon, Braveheart, Out of Africa and Gladiator (though I did enjoy Gladiator for what it was–trash.) And the only good things I can say about The French Connection is that it has one hell of a chase sequence, and Eddie Murphy did one hell of a parody of the bar scene in 48 Hours.
I think Rocky's OK, but the other four movies are far better choices (mine would have been President's Men for Best Picture and Scorsese for director).
Aren't we criticizing the Oscars for not doing something they were never designed to do in the first place? Aren't most awards (the Emmys, the Grammys, the Tonys, the Odies–oh wait, those are only given to me) rarely given to the most daring, original, or different choices? The Oscars were more a fun popularity contest designed to piss you off than an actual representation of true movie greatness. Sure, they've gotten it right a few times (All About Eve, for example), but why are we feigning shock at the possibility that the Oscars will yet again make a safe choice? Come on, people.
And Matt, if Crash wins best picture (and I lose our Oscar bet), I will buy you a lobster to go with your steak dinner. Note: this lobster will be fished out of the East River.
I'm not feigning shock. My position has always been that the Oscars are a popularity contest and an industry recruiting tool, with a bit of fashionable social awareness tossed into the mix. But when I sense that a really bullshit and in some ways dangerous movie is about to get the top honor, it bothers me. I don't see this as a harmless film at all. I think it congratulates people for not holding attitudes they would not hold anyway, or that they would not at the very least express out in the open. It's presenting us with a cast full of monstrously fucked up bigots and saying, "Don't be like them." A movie like this, however well meaning, can, if it becomes a hit, set race relations back rather than pushing it forward. That's why it vexes me so.
East River lobster is yummy. The menu calls it "pre-browned."
I also thought Crash was crap, and if anyone asks me why, I can now say mattzoellerseitz.blogspot.com
Don't films like that make you despise your career? Glad I'm not a critic. One should rather think happy thoughts, like politics.
Oh crap. Hell and damn.
Very nicely written, Matt.
"Along the way, these people say exactly what they are thinking, without the filters of political correctness," writes Roger Ebert. . . . a man who otherwise suggests it is indefensible to read such things into film. "What's there is there," he would say. "When a character goes offscreen, you have no right to assume he went to the bathroom or anything else unless it is explicit."
He is incorrect in his statements re: Crash. The characters are not "thinking." The characters don't exist. The actors are speaking the words of the screenwriter, who put them in for some effect or other. The criticism here goes to the illegitimacy of the means and the questionable validity of the effect.
You actually got me to write a whole post on the topic of Oscar betrayal ot my blog if anyone wants to take a look. http://eddieonfilm.blogspot.com.
Doesn't anyone understand that, um, you know, that movies like Crash and American Beauty and Chicago are the best that the people who live and work in "Hollywood" (actually a fifteen-mile stretch of California real estate that starts in Malibu and Ends in Beverly Hills) can do? These people are trying, they really are. You try and make an "intelligent" movie in between lunching at The Ivy and vacationing in Lake Como. These are not exactly the most ambition people in the world, unless your definition of ambitious includes the need to be noticed at Urth Cafe on Melrose. Hollywood is Politics for Stupid People. All Paul Haggis ever wanted was a Range Rover. Do you understand how much a Range Rover costs? You're not going to be able to afford a Range Rover if you make Killer of Sheep. Crash is actually a perfect choice for Best Reason To Eat Milk Duds and Popcorn At The Same Time. And by the way, if you've ever met a Studio Exec or an Agent you would know that they do speak exactly like the characters in Crash. They are the most outwardly racist, sexist and xenophopic people (mostly men, except for the women, who have to pretend to act like the like acting like men if they want a job other than $20-an-hour Personal Asst./Fluffer at William Morris), like, ever. They are vile people and it makes sense that they would honor a vile movie. These are not subtle people. As a matter of fact, they detest subtlety. They don't understand it because they don't know how to read it. And, not to mention, that they actually don't know how to read. Literally. The average Agent at CAA had the reading comprehension of a Sixth Grade public school student in Modesto. Please, Matt, you have to understand, Hollywood is never going to give you what you want. You're being nostalgic for a Golden Age that never existed. There are always great movies and there is always trash and it takes a while for the stench of the trash to fade away. Driving Miss Daisy? Ordinary People? The Sting? Silence of the Lambs? Forrest Gump? Hollywood does not make movies for the Average American Neanderthal, which is what they want you to believe. They make movies for themselves, for their friends and their families. These are the stupid people they're trying to reach. They don't care about you. Stop seeing their movies. There are plenty of other movies to see that aren't made in Hollywood. Stop watching the Oscars. It's a closed system. I don't understand why you would watch a movie like Crash and expect to see some resemblance to the world you live in when the world portrayed in the movie is not your world. It belongs to someone else and if you want to be a citizen of that world you better forget about this one.
I guess those two typos in my above comment seriously undermine my argument. Sorry. Or maybe I'm an agent. Hmmm…
I know this is a lodaed question, but why all this hatred for AMERICAN BEAUTY? At the time it came out, I loved it. I still love it, but just not as fervently. It was exactly the perfect movie for that moment in which it appeared.
I was pretty sure it wouldn't take too many years to date itself, which isn't a particularly good sign, but I recently showed it to my 12-going-on-21 year old, and he liked it so much that he showed it to one of his friends over the following weekend. Upon that viewing, the film only seemed dated by the sheer number of things that have ripped it off since its release.
Anyway, maybe I have the mentality and tastes of a 12-year old, but it seemed to me that at the time AB was deserving of Best Picture, so much so that I actually predicted the actual WIN when I saw it, the day it came out.
Was it THE *Best* Picture of the Year? How everyone could ever agree on such an animal for any given year I do not know (which is why it's so easy, I suspect, to hate whatever wins Best Picture).
But it was a movie that spoke to a lot of people, about everyday sort of stuff, in a broad enough manner that it kind of seemed to matter more than most. I like that about it, too.
For the record, I haven't seen CRASH and am in no great hurry to do so.
Excellent screed on CRASH. I thought it was incredibly simple-minded when I saw it upon release, and time hasn't improved my opinion. I just couldn't believe the scene with the young locksmith and his daughter. You could see it coming from the first minute she says she's scared and I said to myself, "I swear, if anything happens to that girl, I am standing up and walking out." Of course, I probably had many better reasons, but as a father, that one especially touched my I'm-being-manipulated button.
So, one Best Picture winner of recent vintage you didn't mention was MILLION DOLLAR BABY, written by Mr. Haggis himself. Did you feel manipulated by that one, as well? I liked it enough at the time, but I've had no desire to revisit it.
Oh, and thank you for defending THE DEER HUNTER. Which I never thought would ever, ever have to be defended.
Matt, and everyone who reads this who doesn't live in Los Angeles,
Actually, we really are like the characters depicted in Crash. We are the City Without Tact. We don't build to a slow boil, we begin at Defcon Five and escalate from there. We don't have time to get angry and defensive and brutal and rude and racist slowly, because we lose so much time sitting in traffic and we have to conserve our breath due to all the smog.
Excellent work. Yours was my reaction when I saw it (well, I wasn't quite that offended by it, but certainly that underwhelmed), and was shocked to discover that the person with whom I saw it (and with whom I rarely disagreed on movies) adored it. But in an atmosphere where most Hollywood movies have absolutely nothing to say, it was inevitable that this self-important sludge would become an awards magnet. Discernment has long ceased to be a quality found amongst Oscar voters. I wouldn't sit through half the winners on a bet.
But you know what really pisses me off? The crap shown on the HD channels. Universal HD is all-shit-all-the-time and much of the other stuff is just a shrug. Why is this amazing technology wasted on junk?
And don't get me started on the Bush Administration.
That Litttle Round-Headed Boy: I don't mind it when a movie manipulates me, as long as the end result gets me closer to some kind of truthful human feeling, some recognizable reality beneath the metaphors and exaggerations.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY disappointed me because it was overlong and pretentious for the sort of film it was. Charles Taylor was right on that one. The portrayal of the boxer's trailer park family was condescending bullshit, out of character with the movie's generally embracing tone, and the hero talked to his priest the way nobody has ever talked to their priest, ever. (I know it's a movie, but come on. Couldn't they at least have made Eastwood an adult learner having a conversation with a theoology professor or something?) It was irritating and not as great as everybody said, but at least it wasn't actively offensive like CRASH. It told little white lies about human nature. CRASH tells whoppers.