Trash...Uhm, sorry, Crash

[Rod Hagen]

What happens when Oprah and the writers from Sesame Street make a movie about race? Grand Canyon. Oops, sorry again, I mean Crash!

 

It's trite. It makes viewers feel smart and progressive. The film's conceit is that many of us aren't actually prejudiced, just really annoyed at the minor, infuriating, difficulties of daily life, so we "externalize"? Uh, no, we're just prejudiced. Simple as that.

 

It takes place on the same streets Academy members are driven down every day, so it's familiar.

 

Mysterious Skin is 20 times the film Crash is. But America isn't ready for Mysterious Skin. I absolutely accept that. America was ready for Brokeback, the best movie of the last 10 years and I think (like Citizen Kane, which also didn't win) it will endure long after this Magnolia-wanna-be is forgotten.

 

Still, Crash shouldn't have won. Sucks.

[Rod Hagen]

This is from today's LATimes 3/06/06 Calendar Section:

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-et-notebook6mar06,0,6536312.story?coll=cl-calendar

 

***

 

THE ENVELOPE--LA Times

 

'Brokeback' dreams crash and burn as the academy's voters play it safe

 

 

By Kenneth Turan, Times Staff Writer

 

 

SOMETIMES you win by losing, and nothing has proved what a powerful, taboo-breaking, necessary film "Brokeback Mountain" was more than its loss Sunday night to "Crash" in the Oscar best picture category.

 

Despite all the magazine covers it graced, despite all the red-state theaters it made good money in, despite (or maybe because of) all the jokes late-night talk show hosts made about it, you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable.

 

 

More than any other of the nominated films, "Brokeback Mountain" was the one people told me they really didn't feel like seeing, didn't really get, didn't understand the fuss over. Did I really like it, they wanted to know. Yes, I really did.

 

In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed "Brokeback Mountain."

 

For Hollywood, as a whole laundry list of people announced from the podium Sunday night and a lengthy montage of clips tried to emphasize, is a liberal place, a place that prides itself on its progressive agenda. If this were a year when voters had no other palatable options, they might have taken a deep breath and voted for "Brokeback." This year, however, "Crash" was poised to be the spoiler.

 

I do not for one minute question the sincerity and integrity of the people who made "Crash," and I do not question their commitment to wanting a more equal society. But I do question the film they've made. It may be true, as producer Cathy Schulman said in accepting the Oscar for best picture, that this was "one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American history," but "Crash" is not an example of that.

 

I don't care how much trouble "Crash" had getting financing or getting people on board; the reality of this film, the reason it won the best picture Oscar, is that it is, at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long. And something more.

 

For "Crash's" biggest asset is its ability to give people a carload of those standard Hollywood satisfactions, but make them think they are seeing something groundbreaking and daring. It is, in some ways, a feel-good film about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul, when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed.

 

So for people who were discomfited by "Brokeback Mountain" but wanted to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and feel as if they were good, productive liberals, "Crash" provided the perfect safe harbor. They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what "Brokeback" had to offer. And that's exactly what they did.

 

"Brokeback," it is worth noting, was in some ways the tamest of the discomforting films available to Oscar voters in various categories. Steven Spielberg's "Munich"; the Palestinian territories' "Paradise Now," one of the best foreign language nominees; and the documentary nominee "Darwin's Nightmare" offered scenarios that truly shook up people's normal ways of seeing the world. None of them won a thing.

 

Hollywood, of course, is under no obligation to be a progressive force in the world. It is in the business of entertainment, in the business of making the most dollars it can. Yes, on Oscar night it likes to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, but as Sunday night's ceremony proved, it is easier to congratulate yourself for a job well done in the past than to actually do that job in the present.

 

***

 

http://www.RodHagen.com

310.360.9890

Fun, Fit, Friendly Fucker in West Hollywood.

-Rod Hagen

[buckyball]

Very well put. I totally agree that while Crash will have a brief moment of glory as a result of the win, Brokeback will stand the test of time and be remembered long after the afterglow of best picture fades. That being said, I wish it had won.

 

Crash is the type of film that makes me watch foreign films instead of American films. Many films made in Hollywood tend to hit you with a sledgehammer with their message or emotional build up that is usually contrived (you know the type, you can sense the emotional moments coming because they leave huge "signs" telling you to get ready for a big scene). Brokeback is much like a foreign film, subtle, thoughtful, and devastating at the end. Much like many real life situations, there is no closure or emotional satisfaction at the end so it seems real and very relatable if a bit devastating. Well, that's what I think at least.

[Guest DickHo]

Ditto. I hated Crash: it is trite and a cliche.

[larbord]

Thanks for reprinting the article Rod. That was exactly how I felt about the "Crash" win - playing it safe. I found the movie to be an extremely heavy-handed, cliche-ridden piece of work. The characters only existed to get the makers point across, and boy, did they make sure that point got across.

 

Brokeback will definately have a much greater and longer lasting effect on our culture. :+

[bigguyinpasadena]

And the Log Cabin Repugs have voiced their displeasure that a film featuring guys just like them did not get the nod while a film about race relations did.

Give it a rest-hardly worthy of two threads.

[VaHawk]

>And the Log Cabin Repugs have voiced their displeasure that a

>film featuring guys just like them did not get the nod while a

>film about race relations did.

 

Are your conversations in person as trite, boring and tiresome as your postings? Do you paint everyone whose opinion is not the same as yours, with as wide of a brush of ridicule and intolerance, as you paint gay Republicans?

 

"Give it a rest-hardly worthy of two threads."

 

Seemed to be worthy enough that you felt the need to post in both threads, though, didn't it? :7

[JamesK840]

>Very well put. I totally agree that while Crash will have a

>brief moment of glory as a result of the win, Brokeback will

>stand the test of time and be remembered long after the

>afterglow of best picture fades.

 

The thing is, that's happened MANY times now. Why are so many so eager to get their panties in a bunch over a simple industry award?

 

Consider this fact about the AFI top 100 movies list:

Thirty-three of the films (one-third) were Academy Awards' Best Picture Winners. Seventy-five of the films (three-fourths) were Academy Awards' Best Picture Nominees. (Forty-two of the seventy-five nominated films lost the Best Picture race.)

 

That means 25 weren't even nominated (though some were obviously before the advent of the Oscar...).

 

I mean, Citizen fucking Kane didn't win and it's the quintessential movie one goes over in detail in any film school.

[buckyball]

One of my personal all time favorites is "The Lion in Winter" with Kate Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, a young Anthony Hopkins and a young Timothy Dalton. It didn't win Best Picture either but I still watch the film every chance I get (I have it on DVD).

[JT Brooklyn]

Now that the Dust has settled..It is the opinion of some that Plain and Simple.. "LA Voted for LA" ...Which I totally agree with!

But JTB... did call it on Seymour! :7