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Crash, and other stories
May. 31st, 2005 07:07 pm"Crash" is a really, really good movie. It is a little *too* perfect for W131 at times, what with everyone spouting off about Racial Issues and having Significant Discussions or Confrontations every fifteen minutes... but it handles the subject matter suprisingly well, and I think it's a credit to the movie that it avoids the soapboxing of movies like _Traffic_. There's no one character or speech here that seems to embody the "right" (aka the author's) perspective. It's not an easy movie to describe, so I'll just say go see it. It's good.
Oh: for the writers who read this I'll add that this film does something you don't often see, let alone see done well: it takes several scenes to the brink of tragedy, pushes them over, and then bungee-cords them back into the realm of not-quite-as-depressing. And it does this without cheapening the scene or making the audience feel cheated.
Seeing this movie downtown was a weird experience. I was in the late show in a movie theater which has seen its share of stabbings. There were a bunch of drunk / strung-out guys in the back row who apparently thought the movie was an interactive experience and kept loudly offering advice to the characters onscreen. And, because we were watching a film about urban violence sparked by random encounters, it took most of the movie before someone went out to complain. (Not me either. I was busy trying to ignore them like the rest of the cowards.) The guys shut up once spoken to (I think they were just a bunch of high school grads up for the long weekend), but the comments made by the people leaving the theater were along the lines of, "they sounded American so I guessed they had guns," and "I looked round, saw they were black, and decided to keep out of it." It was disturbing: one one hand the movie proved its point about snap judgments and stereotypes, but on the other hand, the movie was also busy engendering those sterotypes.
Could think deep thoughts here but won't -- on a more positive note, I ended up having random meetings with friends I hadn't expected to see, and we all ended up sharing pitchers of sangria at one of the last free bar tables dt. And sangria on a summer night, when it's warm enough to sit outside and watch the crowds of clubbers and prom-goers go by, is awesome.
In other news: if you're tired of grad school but can't design an ipod playlist, have no fear! You can still make yourself into a human billboard.
Oh: for the writers who read this I'll add that this film does something you don't often see, let alone see done well: it takes several scenes to the brink of tragedy, pushes them over, and then bungee-cords them back into the realm of not-quite-as-depressing. And it does this without cheapening the scene or making the audience feel cheated.
Seeing this movie downtown was a weird experience. I was in the late show in a movie theater which has seen its share of stabbings. There were a bunch of drunk / strung-out guys in the back row who apparently thought the movie was an interactive experience and kept loudly offering advice to the characters onscreen. And, because we were watching a film about urban violence sparked by random encounters, it took most of the movie before someone went out to complain. (Not me either. I was busy trying to ignore them like the rest of the cowards.) The guys shut up once spoken to (I think they were just a bunch of high school grads up for the long weekend), but the comments made by the people leaving the theater were along the lines of, "they sounded American so I guessed they had guns," and "I looked round, saw they were black, and decided to keep out of it." It was disturbing: one one hand the movie proved its point about snap judgments and stereotypes, but on the other hand, the movie was also busy engendering those sterotypes.
Could think deep thoughts here but won't -- on a more positive note, I ended up having random meetings with friends I hadn't expected to see, and we all ended up sharing pitchers of sangria at one of the last free bar tables dt. And sangria on a summer night, when it's warm enough to sit outside and watch the crowds of clubbers and prom-goers go by, is awesome.
In other news: if you're tired of grad school but can't design an ipod playlist, have no fear! You can still make yourself into a human billboard.
