79th Acadamy Awards is a pile of crap

Hairy Lime said:
As for the Crash/Babel debate. I think many of you who didn't like either film missed the subtleties in both.
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I must have missed it because my memory of crash is that it had all the subtlety of being hit over the head with a frying pan.
 
It's been a long time since I saw Crash - opening weekend - and it's been almost as long since I debated the film on an internet message board, but here it goes ... a few snippets from previous debates I've had on this film:

I found the contrivances and improbabilities to be a big part of the story ... a thematic cohesiveness that was very well handled. The snow in LA thing ties all of that together. A way of saying ... this stuff just doesn't happen ... but it could. I also didn't feel like the film was about race at all. Race was a window dressing to a larger theme ... nobody knows anyone anymore. I haven't read the script, but the film moved me in ways very few have this year.
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So it doesn't work for everyone. The fact that it does work for a large number of people, speaks to the fact that it doesn't suck. In this way it mirrors another Best Picture nominee, Brokeback Mountain. If you didn't buy the attraction/romance between the cowboys, the movie moved from great to decent. If you don't buy the coincidences and characters in Crash, you'll be similarly disappointed and begin whining about it being overrated. This is a film that made $55M domestic box with almost no marketing campaign. That alone speaks to its emotional impact on viewers. So it didn't move you ... fine ... that doesn't make it a bad film. Or overrated.

Personally, I applaud Haggis for making creative choices that don't jive with typical Hollywood storytelling. He put all of these characters on a map, ran them into each other, and in turn, made each a victim and a perpetuator of intolerance. It was a fun conceit to watch unfold and it worked for me. Throw in some top notch performances and some really gut-wrenching moments and it's a film that has stuck with me even though I saw it only once just after it was released almost a year ago. That's more than I can say about many of the films I saw in theaters last year.
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Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton's set up and pay off were simply incredible. The coincidence of him being her responding officer didn't come across as one of the most egregious coincidences to me, because I assumed officers travel "beats" in their patrol cars, so it makes sense that the same cop might find the same woman in the same neighborhood on consecutive days. However, the interaction between their characters in that scene, virtually all of it without coherent dialogue, was simply mesmerizing and easily forgave any coincidental disappointment.

The scene with the little girl was beautiful as well. I was actually hoping that an explanation was not given for her seemingly miraculous survival from a point blank shooting, but that's because I'm a fan of surrealism in film.

I had two problems, both relatively minor, with the story.

First, the ghetto kid letting the van full of "chinamen" go didn't ring true to me. He'd spent an earlier scene in the movie talking about how he'd never rob a black man. Then he did attempt to rob a black man and that black man taught him a very valuable lesson. However, the lesson he was taught wouldn't necessarily bring him around to passing up $5,000 in cash that he could have earned off of another race.

Second, the Iranian doctor (I'm 99.9% sure she wasn't a nurse, Bill.) being the pathologist at the hospital where Cheadle's brother is brought in seemed like a completely unnecessary coincidence. At the moment I said, "Oh cool", but later I just said "Why bother?"
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My impression as I left the theater all those months ago (going on 2 years now) was that the film used racism as a cover for the way that everyone misses each other ... we don't communicate. We're insulated within our automobiles as we commute, we never give the person who isn't in our social circle enough credit, etc. But the racism was just the guise under which this message was related. It wasn't about race - it was about communication. About connection.
 
"Personally, I applaud Haggis for making creative choices that don't jive with typical Hollywood storytelling. He put all of these characters on a map, ran them into each other, and in turn, made each a victim and a perpetuator of intolerance."

Creating a bunch of different characters and having them run into eachother is not a new or creative concept, especially to Hollywood. Nor is melodrama.

Also this explanation of what Haggis' storytelling concept is one of the major problems I had with this film. He created characters for the sake of making them plot catalysts. rather than complex real characters.

"He made each a victim and a perpetuator of violence". This is all too obvious. When I watched the movie it was so transparent that I could start to feel Haggis' fingerprints while watching. It was all so forced by plot, rather than real discovery or observation.

I feel that if this movie was recut to show the individual stories isolated in linear progression, that it would reveal how thin the substance is.. Instead he weaved all the elements together and added melodramatic music to try to thematically link them, add missing dimensions, and drive home his "message" since there would be nothing profound if they were isolated into short linear stories. Not that I felt there was anything profound happening in the finished, edited form either!

As far as race being window dressing. I agree, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I think this film is about as deep as its trailer.
 
You say melodrama like it's a bad thing. Not my preferred genre/style to be sure, but it's an acceptable narrative form.

I think part of the problem is that people view Crash as a realist film and it's not. It's an experimental narrative much more than a realist narrative. With independent financing and a $6.5M budget it succeeded far more than most indie flicks in that price range.

Is it perfect? No.

Is it Best Picture worthy? Probably not.

It is "crap"? Nah.
 
Of course Scorsese desereved and oscar finally, but give him some kind of life time achievemnt award not best picture when this was not his best flim (The Academy knew they screwed up for not giving him an award for his previous flims)! Departed did have the "A list" of actors which the Academy often likes so it was no surprise to me that it won just disapointing. Pans and Children of Men should of had nominations for best picture and director.
 
I LOVE Scorsese. He's one of my favorite directors and I think he should have won an oscar for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas...but I was very surprised that The Departed was even nominated for the oscars. I even re-saw the film 2 more times. I just don't see what is the big deal about it...it doesn't even look like a Scorsese vintage. I was very disappointed and I think it's pathetic that the academy made such a clear attempt to finally acknowledge Scorsese's talent with this shallow super commercial cop flick...when Spielberg, Coppola and Lucas walked on stage did anyone really have any doubts who was going to win? I bet Eastwood and all the other contenders were sitting on his chair thinking "Oh, s#%*, there goes the oscar".
 
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