Does a thread exist for the movie Crash?

Yes.

A mess I'm glad I saw

Nope.

http://www.crashfilm.com/

1. Racism
2. Classism
3. The need to justify actions/decisions one knows are onerous for the sake of "getting by"

very original use of Samuel barber in the trailer.

But, oh, Brendan Fraser!

An odd collection of actors to say the least... methinks a lot of higher profile actors may've passed on this one. Sandra Bullock was crap as usual. Brendan Fraser's character amounted to very little. The rest of the performances were good (some surprisingly, like Luda and even Ryan Phillipe), it's a shame they didn't have better material to work with.

Not a great film, but one I'm not sorry I saw either - it'll at least provoke some reaction in you.

I can't disprove that one. I'm not the biggest Magnolia booster in the world, but I think it makes Crash look like a magpie-ing sham in the comparison.

(Also, the men in Crash are pretty hot overall -- especially Michael Pena and Phillippe -- but that doesn't make me like the movie any more.)

It's not going to stop, 'til you wise up... honky.

Oooh, this means I will like Crash then!!

Shopkeeper's daughter - HAWT: agreed!

...and they're all here on ILX!

Which chick?

Obviously a film like this is a slave to its structure. If you want actual "coincidences," you're going to be disappointed. There aren't any coincidences that would link this group people so fundamentally, especially in L.A.

Mil said above that better actors had passed on the script. Would seem to me quite the opposite. This is the kind of film that actors kill to get cast in.

Moreover, with a production budget of $6.5 million, you can be sure that Sandra Bullock appeared gratis. You may not have liked the Misses Congeniality, but with her ownership stake in those two pictures, she doesn't have to work on anything but scripts she really cares about. Brendan Frasier and Matt Dillon, okay, they're glad to get in anything.

If the budget was really $6.5 mil as reported by the New Yorker, all the actors worked for scale, although probably with back-end participation, should there be any. $6.5 mil isn't enough to have rented the locations and blown up two cars.

And there will be a sizable back-end, unlike Sandra Bullock's back-end. (I thought she looked good, where's the love?) The film's grossed $20 mil so far. Split that 50/50 between exhibitor and the studio and then subtract marketing expenses. Of which there were precious few as has been remarked. Another week in theaters and they've covered costs. DVD and TV/Cable TV/Foreign sales will be pure gravy for the studio/producers/actors with points. And that can account for as much as 85% of the take, by the way.

The sweet bits were a bit sappy for my taste, and yet I found Crash to be very powerful despite an immediate awareness of how manipulative and stylized the structure and execution are. Comments on various groups' parking and driving styles were on target, in as much as one hears exactly those comments in L.A. every day. And L.A. is an extremely balkanized city. Incredibly diverse, but with very defined borders.

I thought it was great.

Like Jimmy the extent of my knowledge about this movie comes from the posters in the subway, so I thought it was a love movie.

I said Crash was great, and I mean it, but oddly, I don't really disagree with the upstream criticisms posted here. It was certainly flawed, but despite some wobbles, the entire effect was simply powerful.

After 15 minutes, I thought, great, just what L.A. needs, a movie to stir up race hate. You really can't think this by the end of the movie, if you haven't walked out.

Every era demonizes certain of humanity's...well, inhuman aspects. And completely ignores, or glorifies others. Currently we tend to say, oh that person is a racist. I scorn and avoid him. The lowest of the low. No possible redeeming features. One hundred years ago, it could have been, in some areas, oh that person is a catholic. Don't talk to him. Don't hire him. That would seem small-minded, or illegal, today, but to ostracize someone for racisit tendencies gives many people a moral hard on.

Crash fuels some interesting discussion in this direction. The Matt Dillon character is a great example. Your first impulse is to hate him for being a corrupt, racist cop. As his storyline progresses, you see that it isn't so simple. Is there a difference for his character between hating blacks and being angry at blacks, even irrationally? I don't know. Maybe he is a corrupt, racist cop. Maybe he's not.

Eric said above: What the movie really labors under is the assumption that all forms of racism involve overt, confrontational name-calling... be it in the guise of rah-rah post-9/11 jingoism or "let's be honest" behind closed doors one-on-ones at City Hall. For me, this is probably the films biggest failing. This is tip-of-the-iceberg racism--it certainly happens, but a lot, obv. is never spoken, only acted on. It weakens the film to a certain extent, but, again, this didn't bother me. Like the "unlikely" Altmanesque structure, I just allow the writer/director this lifeline.

I haven't seen "crash" again since the argument on this thread but I still stand by pretty much everything I've written here.

(IOW, I still have very positive thoughts/associations with this movie and basically think you all are dangerously jaded individuals.)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/819121/arshavin8.jpg

Like, it's sort of insane to me that people complain about how unrealistically this movie portrays race relations in the age of online comments threads.

(Which is not to see that this is an exercise in cinema veritae or anything, just that taking the racial issues in this movie as magnified through the same lens that puts all of these people within one degree of separation with each other seems to be a useful thing to do before analyzing/critiquing the movie and its themes.)

Slumdog is a fine little movie do you guys hate Charles Dickens too

generally I like Dickensian movies to be Dickensian.

lol, why did people hate "Slumdog Millionaire" again?

I have no idea - I thought it was just a goofy Bollywood tribute through the lens of Hollywood. Could've used some bonafide musical numbers though

generally I like Dickensian movies to be Dickensian.

did you miss some cues or something cuz the Dickens stuff seemed REALLY obvious to me

A couple of those sequences reminded me of the ones Deborah Kerr choreographs in An Affair to Remember, especially when she reprimands the negro child.

orphans, star-crossed lovers from childhood, best friend who turns into nemesis, benefactor who turns out to be a monster, rags-to-riches, ridiculous coincidences, cheezy narrative device tying the whole thing together, etc.

xp

I'm curious what other movies one would be accused of being "dangerously jaded" for finding them trite and overly contrived. Higher Learning? Fail-Safe?

"Higher Learning" just sucked; not all the racist Michael Rappaport in the world could save that movie.

also my problem with Crash was just that it was shittily made and head-slappingly obvious while congratulating itself for being "edgy". absolutely horrible dreck.

omg Higher Learning

With Honors

remember the mid nineties college film?

http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/reviews/threesome2.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BZQTQ7FBL.jpg

Hahah look at them back there. "One day...maybe one day...we'll be as famous as Brendan Fraser!"

...who had a part in Crash. Kevin Bacon, etc.

I saw Crash recently. It wasn't good, but I wouldn't call it "vile" either. There were a few solid performances, a few good scenes - I was surprised by the one where Matt Dillon saves Thandie Newton, though maybe I shouldn't have been in retrospect. I can see why it resonated with people.

saved her from what, I ask

sex with Matt Dillon

um, blowing up in a wrecked car...?

(xp: tomayto tomahto)

Car tomato sex with Matt Dillon? Sick.

omg Matt Damon looks like Brent Everett there!

why did i sit through an hour of this last night? why?

(i somehow missed everything in this thread from the last time i posted to it in 2005. i swear i'm not trying to bait dan here.)

Exhuming the corpse

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7611470/mark-lisanti-live-blogs-crash

And again:

http://www.theawl.com/2013/02/crash-the-most-loathsome-best-picture-of-them-all

(Old, but missed this first time around.)

Crash Based on the Screenplay Crash by Haggis

opening to VV review of his new one:

"If a toddler tried to re-create the mystifying behavior of adults, it would look a lot like Paul Haggis's Third Person, a drama where grown-ups scream and cry and kiss for reasons that are confounding even to those who understand speech."

http://www.villagevoice.com/2014-06-18/film/third-person-movie-review/

by far the only human being in Lawrence Wright's Scientology book.

The year’s lowest-grossing release of the year in the UK, released right at the start of the second lockdown, seems fitting:

1 (amazingly) CRASH (total: £7) The new 4K print of Cronenberg's 1996 controversy-magnet opened the very same week as UK cinemas shuttered for Lockdown #2. One determined deviant snuck in and paid to see it anyhow. Let's just hope it wasn't at a drive-in.https://t.co/gryEgaU5yN

— Mike McCahill (@mike_mccahill) December 30, 2020

Covid otm

Right, off to see that 4K restoration of Crash at the only cinema in the country that's showing it. pic.twitter.com/zrUGOZihff

— Alan Maxwell (@anthemsprinter) November 7, 2020

Didn't enjoy this when it came out due to being a tediously uncompromising JGB stan, but I should see it again I guess now it's properly available in the UK. My main issue, which goes for everything else I've seen her in, is that I loathe Holly Hunter's screen presence to the point of getting slightly irate every time she comes on screen.

I would watch Existenz again which I thought was fun at the time, although I doubt it has aged like a good vintage. This one though, bored me so fucking thoroughly rigid I can barely remember a thing about it.

The only negative thing I have to say about Holly Hunter is that it's a bummer she hasn't done any movies co-starring Amanda Plummer

I remember nothing of Cronenburg's "Crash" except Deborah Kara Unger's "do you want to put your penis in his anus" monologue

Love how we've apparently unanimously decided to ignore that other POS movie called Crash which this thread was previously about.

I'm not sure what a Ballard fan would dislike about this adaptation? It's infinitely better than his version of Naked Lunch. Maybe transferring it from 70s London to 90s Toronto?

The presence of Holly Hunter, in my case. Also: James Spader.

You dislike her in Broadcast News?

Anyway Naked Lunch >>>>>>>>> Crash.

My ideal Naked Lunch doesn't contain any Muppets.

I wonder if this film would have been better with the cast from the Haggis film? Matt Dillon as James Ballard, Sandra Bullock as Helen Remington and, er, Brendan Fraser as Robert Vaughan.

Matt Dillon as Helen Remington

Our parents let us watch absolutely anything growing up & we used to rent videos from this guy who had a van full of VHS tapes (I guess from ex-rental bins) - he would come round on Saturday and Tuesday and I think it cost £1 to rent a tape for those few days. We would usually get a couple at a time so we ended up seeing everything (whatever film you selected he would pretty much always say the same thing, “that’s quite good, it’s a thriller”). Anyway we obviously saw a lot of unsavoury shit of the period like eg COPYCAT, another holly hunter vehicle, but I remember we got this - I’d have been 11 or 12, oldest of 4 - and it was the only time, after it had been on a while my dad was like “uhhhm I don’t think you should be watching this”