kenyadiggit

Steve Lopez:
"The Best Picture Misses the Big Picture"
Points West

March 8, 2006


Standing cautiously but bravely at the intersection of Beverly and Normandie, I could feel the racial tension in the air.

The place was about to blow.
A white woman walked into Video Hot, which is run by Koreans, and an Asian man bought flowers from a Guatemalan woman. Given the boiling hatred that pumps through L.A.'s veins, as depicted in the Oscar-winning movie "Crash," could ethnic violence be far behind?

I used to think we could all get along, more or less. I believed that despite its many flaws and obvious divisions by race and class, Los Angeles was one of the more successfully integrated cities in the world. And so to me, "Crash" felt like an artless, dated and manipulative morality tale on the evils of the sprawling metropolis, shot with a long lens from behind the bars of a gated seaside community. 

Best Picture is a very fitting term. It isn't called the "Good" Picture or the "Great" Picture. It's the "Best" Picture. Meaning it's the best of the choices given, but there are certainly no implications that it's worth a shit otherwise.

I should be thrilled right? Brokeback didn't win. Well...let me just say this:



"I’m sure the filmmakers want it to start a dialogue about race, but this film has about as much racially unifying power as Rodney King."
-- Kevin Carr, 7M PICTURES

"CRASH is about the racism we all carry within us, a fact of which Haggis feels he must remind us in almost every scene, lest we forget without his wise counsel. "
-- Jill Cozzi, MIXED REVIEWS

"Obnoxious, hollow, and not at all as smart or important as it thinks it is."
-- David Cornelius, EFILMCRITIC.COM

"I left the theater feeling like the victim of a hit-and-run civics lesson."
-- Thomas Delapa, BOULDER WEEKLY

"The L.A. of Crash is a distorted scale model of the city that [writer-director Paul] Haggis treats as if it were the city itself."
-- Alan Dale, BLOGCRITICS.ORG

"Contrived, obvious and overstated, Crash is basically just one white man's righteous attempt to make other white people feel as if they've confronted the problem of racism head-on."
-- Peter Debruge, MIAMI HERALD

"The theme is racism. Let me say that again: The theme is racism. I could say it 500 more times because that's how many times the movie says it, in every single scene."
-- David Edelstein, SLATE

"It's a skillful piece of filmmaking and an impressive debut, though it's so relentlessly bleak and downbeat for most of its running time that it can't recover when it tries to go soft in its third act."
-- William Arnold, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

"By attempting to say everything about race, Haggis ultimately says nothing."
-- Josh Bell, LAS VEGAS WEEKLY

"Full of well-observed supporting riffs, Crash might've accumulated more frisson had it cast a clearer eye on how social tension actually plays."
-- Michael Atkinson, VILLAGE VOICE

Crash wants to be taken seriously as a meditation on our anxiety-plagued times, but the coincidences are too pat, the tugs on the heartstrings too insistent."
-- Jami Bernard, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Characters come straight from the assembly line of screenwriting archetypes, and too often they act in ways that archetypes, rather than human beings, do."
-- Ty Burr, BOSTON GLOBE

"Haggis' pedantic tone and obvious characterizations make it seem like he's better off adapting other people's work than creating his own."
-- Marc Mohan, OREGONIAN

"Manipulative and self-defeating, Crash resembles race-baiting PT Anderson fare or if Altman got stuck in the mid-80's."
-- Jimmy O, FILM SNOBS

"What happens between the film's opening and closing car accidents more closely resembles a train wreck."
-- Sean O'Connell, FLIPSIDE MOVIE EMPORIUM

"And so Crash raises the question: If racism is so pervasive in our society, why do we need such an elaborately contrived plot to drive home the message? In other words: How many racists does it take to screw in the point?"
-- Stephanie Zacharek, SALON.COM

"Controversy isn't nearly as intriguing when it is created merely for controversy's sake."
-- Jeff Otto, IGN FILMFORCE

"Almost the entire movie consists of actors screaming at each other in Oscar-bait annoyance."
-- Mark Palermo, COAST (HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA)

"The film's real message isn't anti-racism but pro-screenwriter. 'Look how many coincidences we can pile up!' it seems to say. 'Look at how these stories all interlock!'"
-- Eric D. Snider, ERICDSNIDER.COM

"It's the sort of movie that makes people feel like they've heard an important statement without actually having said anything much."
-- Luke Y. Thompson, LYTRULES.COM

"White guilt run amok."
-- Christopher Smith, BANGOR DAILY NEWS (MAINE)







Agreed.

Sail away where no ball and chain
Can keep us from the roarin' waves
Together undivided but forever we'll be free
So sail away aboard our rig
The moon is full and so are we
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!

So the years rolled by and several died
And left us somewhat reelin'
Johnny strummed his Tommy gun
Left blastin' through the ceiling
So what became of rebels
Who sang for you and me?
Grapplin' with their demons
In the seach for liberty!

Suffers who suffer all
Can swim upon the desert
Where avarice have ravaged all
In spite of good intentions
Don't fill your mouth with gluttony
For pride will surely swell
But nothing's unforgiven in the four corners of hell!

Sail away where no ball and chain
Can keep us from the roarin' waves
Together undivided but forever we'll be free
So sail away aboard our rig
The moon is full and so are we
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!

Envy and its evill twin
It crepy in bed with slander
Idiots they gave advice
But sloth it gave no answer
Anger kills the human soul
With butter tales of lust
While pavlov's Dogs keep chewin'
On the legs they never trust!

Sail away where no ball and chain
Can keep us from the roarin' waves
Together undivided but forever we'll be free
So sail away aboard our rig
The moon is full and so are we
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!

But It's the only life we'll know
Blagards to the bone
So don't wreck yourself
Take an honest grip
For there's more tales beyond the shore

Ah the years rolled by and several died
And left us somewhat reelin'
In and out came crawlin' out
And spewed upon the ceiling
So what became of rebels"
That sang for you and me
Grapplin; with their demons
In the seach for liberty!

Sail away where no ball and chain
Can keep us from the roarin' waves
Together undivided but forever we'll be free
So sail away aboard our rig
The moon is full and so are we
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!

Sail away where no ball and chain
Can keep us from the roarin' waves
Together undivided but forever we'll be free
So sail away aboard our rig
The moon is full and so are we
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!









I saw Micheal Keaton take his shirt off and swing it over his head.



I'm serious.

That's what I endured for the past three hours from my stupid graphic design teacher. Every 10 damn seconds she would ask someone about their copy. And every 10 damn seconds, someone would look around the room in confusion. Because WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL COPY IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN! You've been here for 12 years. We allll know that in that time you have spoken to at least one of us. And we know that you are not stupid, and that you see that we call a "lift" an "elevator" and a "torch" a "flashlight" and "chips" are "fries". If I was visiting your boring uptight little country, I would have the sense to at least attempt to use the common terms. Even IF I decided it would be cute to ask where the restroom was before catching myself, snickering, and correcting with "I mean 'the lou'", it would get old after TWELVE YEARS. I know, goddammit, I KNOW you know that we have no idea what copy means when you say it. I KNOW that you say it a ridiculous amount of times for that very reason. And I KNOW you can't POSSIBLY thing it's cute to shoot us that bewildering look and ask us what we mean when we say phrases like "the cat's out of the bag". You're British. Good. It's cute. Congratulations. ::applause:: You live here. We're not British. Get over it.

Forget the last entry. I don't even know why I tried. Pretending I give a shit about the Oscars this year. I fell asleep two or three times while I wrote that. Sonofabitch, this has to be the worst Academy Awards show in my lifetime. Of the 5 Best Picture nominees, I'm not sure I could actually sit through even an hour of any of them. Capote, yeah, good for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Looks like a boring piece of crap other than that. Munich. Yeah who was in that? LONG and boring piece of crap. Shit, I been sitting here for the past 30 seconds staring blankly and trying to remember the other three nominees, aside from the golden reel I'm obviously saving for last. Oh yeah, Good Luck, and Good Night. This one actually looks like it could be an interesting film. Not entertaining. At all. AT ALL. But maybe interesting. Boring. Long. And interesting. In a History Channel sort of way. Ah yes, Crash. I had to look it up to remember since it's an unmemorable piece of shit. Two hours of afterschool special bullshit. Oh, that's right! In my last post I said I hadn't seen any of the Best Picture nominees. I take that back, I saw Crash. I guess it slipped my mind since i litterally cut out the part of my brain with that memory. It's meant to be a lesson...or something, I dunno. Ok. It's about racism. I'm not sure...exactly what it's intentions are, but it's definitely about racism. It's like a Saved By The Bell episode. All the crap pointed dialogue trying to prove a point, only...without the point. It's two ours of people being completely unrealistically racist towards each other...and then it ends. Oh God, dear God in heaven, the dialogue is so bad. With such aweful crap lines as "I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something..." and "You think you know who you are...you have no idea..."

And one of my personal favorite exchanges:

Graham: Mom, I can't talk to you right now, OK? I'm having sex with a white woman.
[hangs up, and Ria gets out of bed]
Graham: OK, where were we?
Ria: I was white, and you were about to jerk off in the shower.
Graham: Oh, shit. Come on. I would have said you were Mexican, but I don't think it would have pissed her off as much.
Ria: Why do you keep everybody a certain distance, huh? What, you start to feel something and panic?
Graham: Come on, Maria. You're just pissed 'cause I answered the phone.
Ria: That's just where I begin to get pissed. I mean, really, what kind of man speaks to his mother that way?
Graham: Oh, this is about my mother. What do you know about my mother?
Ria: If I was your father, I'd kick your fucking ass.
Graham: OK, I was raised badly. Why don't you take your clothes off, get back into bed, and teach me a lesson?
Ria: You want a lesson? I'll give you a lesson. How 'bout a geography lesson? My father's from Puerto Rico. My mother's from El Salvador. Neither one of those is Mexico.
Graham: Ah. Well then I guess the big mystery is, who gathered all those remarkably different cultures together and taught them all how to park their cars on their lawns?

Oh, ho ho ho...brilliance on celluloid. Halfway through that exchange I got a little nautious and felt myself dozing off. The fact that this amateur crap, in both the filmmaking and the acting, has gotten so much praise and has recieved so many awards proves one thing. We are surrounded by idiots. Gullible idiots that will jump onto the badwagon just because it seems like a "controversial" film. Nevermind the horrible acting, the crap dialogue, and that fact that IT HAS NO POINT!

Broke...back...Mountain. Jesus. Christ. I believe I've ranted plenty more than enough on this film. Looks like no blockparty. Which brings me to the point of this whole rant. The Oscars are on March 5th. Hosted by the wonderfully insightful and ever so funny Jon Stewart (gag). A man who takes himself WAY too seriously thanks to a large group of morons who worship him as a god. Anyway, since I won't be watching the Oscars this year, I thought I might go do something more fun instead. Like getting a piercing. Which brings me to my question. What should I get pierced? I was thinking either my eyelid or my *******.

And on a further note, I'm going to eat forks if Crash wins anything.

Anything.

On the last day of January, the oscar nominations will be announced. If by some strange act of god, brokeback mountain does not get nominated, i'm throwing a party. I know, I know, not only will it be nominated, but it will definitely win best picture. Yes, I know. I've heard. From everywhere. It's a groundbreaking film. It is. It's the first film on record to ever win best picture before the nominations were even announced. Incredible. It's like that part in spaceballs where they watch the video of the film they're in the process of making. Even titanic and return of the king were not definite wins. It's happened before. Racking up right until the end and then, nope, sorry, the oscar goes to the english patient. But this year is different. This year is a give halle berry the oscar for crap performance in a film that got absolutely no other nominations so the black actress community will get off the academy's back year. Don't read me wrong. It's not a racist comment. It's commentary. Totally observational. Like black history month. It's horribly offensive. White history month? Do I want one? No. That's not why it's offensive. It's offensive that we would dare say a group has "1 month" for their history. And the shortest month of the year, no doubt. Single it out. Put it in a spotlight and build a fence around it. That'll help mesh cultures. Definitely not a condescending "what'll shut them up" move, no. I got an idea. Black, white, or other, if you're american, you can join in. Twelve months out of the year we'll have "american history months". And we can all celebrate. Fun, fun, fun. What confuses me oh so much is that the black community jumped on this bandwagon. Saw it as an honor. "We get our own month!" Rather than an offense. "We don't want our own month. We just want to be treated like everyone else." But no. Spending a month each year to remind all white and black americans alike that years and years ago our white ancestors did awful things to our black ancestors is the way to stop racism. Good plan. Perfect way to clean the slate and let us all work together. The academy (yes, back to the original point) is notorious for pulling the "lets shut this group up by giving them an oscar" card. And if they don't? Oppression. Oh, the oppression! You commie bastards! You didn't give it the award because you hate gay people! It's an agenda film. And those are scary. Because you can't fight them. They rolled a 20 on their impervious roll. Regardless of the defense, if-you-do-not-give-this-film-best-picture-you-are-a-bigot. It's not fair. It's like Pollock busting up into a middle school art show and sweepin the ribbons. How do you compete with that? Everyone has already decided that Brokeback Mountain will win best picture. The headlines are not just "brokeback sure bet for oscar nod". Instead they practically read "brokeback to win best picture!" It's gotten to be a joke. So again, I will say, it's definitely not going too far to say it deserves a nomination, if the academy has the balls to not nominate this film come January 31st, I will rent out the catfish town atrium and throw the biggest party baton rouge has ever seen. If it receives a nomination but just fails to win best picture, hell, i'll still at least have a pizza party at chuckee cheese.