Crash sucked. Nothing to do with Brokeback Mountain

Cafe Society
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I hate the film Crash. It is a terrible movie. I’ve repeatedly seen people on this board express the opinion that people dislike Crash because it was awarded the Oscar over Brokeback Mountain. The latest was in this thread Movie Snobs: What Popular Movies Are Fashionable to Dislike But You Still Do? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
Where RealityChuck writes “Batman and Crash: the criticism of them is generally based on the fact that there is another good film they’re compared to, with the false assumption that they can’t both be good films. Both Batman and The Dark Knight are excellent film, as are Crash and Brokeback Mountain, but many people can’t hold that concept in their heads.”
I’m putting an end to this. I have never seen Brokeback Mountain. I think Crash is a terrible film. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it but some of my major complaints are:

Gee wiz, did you know that people who aren’t white can be racist! Did you know that a racist person can have other redeeming attributes! Thank you Crash, for enlightening me.

That Persian guy who shot the blank, not knowing it was a blank, at the Mexican locksmith, congratulations, that’s attempted murder. You should be arrested. Oh and the Persian girl who gave her dad the blanks not telling him they weren’t real bullets, great way to get your dad killed.

Matt Dillon’s cop character who groped the black women then saved her from the car crash should be fired from being a cop and arrested. You don’t get a free grope because your dad is sick, and this behavior should never be tolerated even a little bit from a police officer.

So join me Dopers! Who here thinks Crash sucked and doesn’t base their opinion on any sort of comparison to Brokeback Moutain? Crash lovers feel free to comment as well. Normally I’d have prejudice against you Crash lovers, but Crash taught me to that you can’t judge individuals based on their group. Unless they’re Chinese, because the Chinese are slave traders who can’t drive.

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I loved Crash and here is why:

I love the movie because if they hadn’t beat me over the head for two straight hours, my skull wouldn’t have gained the titanium-like hardness that it enjoys today. A skull that tests just how strong titanium is, is fare more useful than you could ever imagine, you just need to get creative and think outside of the box.

Now, stop your whining and appreciate what this movie has done to improve your life!

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I love Crash.

J. G. Ballard is a sick fuck and a genius.

Oh … wait … we’re not talking about THAT *Crash *are we?

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Covered_in_Bees! said it better than I could.

Heavy handed dreck. I was expecting so much better. “Look, racism!” seems to sum it up.

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I’ve seen Crash and Brokeback Mountain - I think I must have consciously put the fact that Crash beat BBM for the Oscar out of my head.

It took me about a year to get over BBM - I barely remember what Crash was about.

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Allow me:
RACISM!

EDIT: Instructions, repeat once every 30 to 60 seconds for two hours or until skull is of desired hardness.

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Ha, I wish I would have thought to express my opinion so succinctly. You hit the nail on the head. And what a hard head it was too, after viewing Crash all those times.

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Clearly, I agree.

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Crash?

Burn.

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I never even saw Brokeback and I am willing to concede that it’s a damned shame that *C rash *beat it out. It’s a shame that Crash beat anything.

That said, I can see how there are people who liked it. There are people who like lots of stuff I don’t, hip-hop music, for instance.

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Crash is easily palatable, obvious self-righteous bullshit. It’s the non-thinking man’s thinking movie. It allowed people to “get it” without any real effort, making them feel smart.

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+1000000000. What a horrid piece of whale shit. The fact that the idiot producers/directors insisted on using the same title as an already-existing movie with a cult following of its own just galls me to no end (they really couldn’t come up with a different title?) And ZOMGRACISM - taking a stand against racism is so courageous and unique nowadays. Hardly anyone ever condemns racism, so making a whole movie about how it is wrong is a really monumental step. How brave of them! How daring!

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I vaguely recall that there was something about racism or something in it.

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You do realize it’s possible to like it without adhering to any of those, right?

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Can’t add much except my vote to the consensus: Never saw the gay cowboy movie, and hated Crash. (The racism Crash, of course; I loved the James Spader, Dave Cronenberg Crash.) I hated it because of the heavy-handed obviousness of the overly-trite message and its attempt to make me feel guilty about something or other.

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“He must have fucked a lot of women in that huge car of his. It’s like a bed on wheels. It must smell of semen.”

“It does!”

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The real crime was that Crash beat out Munich for Best Picture. What a crock.

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Heh damn people it is possible to like the story and still think the message was heavy handed. I thought it was an enjoyable movie even if it did make me roll my eyes at a few points. Not great but not worth the outrage people seem to express for it.

Now that new Disney Christmas Carol thing I watched yesterday that’s something to be pissed off about.

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And once again we have people falling all over themselves to show that *they *hate something popular more than anybody else, thereby making them the coolest kid on the playground. Maybe next we can critique Nickelback.
Jeez, people, coudln’t you find something a bit more current to help illustrate your superior tastes?

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Obviously, I wasn’t talking about you personally, but I’ve seen enough of the people who hated Crash simply because it won the Oscar and Brokeback Mountain didn’t. Anne Proulx attack on the film, for one, is the greatest example of sour grapes in the history of film criticism.

The greatness of Crash – and, make no mistake, it’s a great film – is it’s handling the complexity of the racial issues. It’s not about racism per se; it’s about how our preconceptions about race color our judgment. It’s also about how our preconceptions can change.

But it’s mostly a movie about character, not racism. Matt Dillon’s character – supposedly racist at first, turns out not to be; the audience draws a conclusion about him that we slowly discover is just not so. Same for his partner – someone who is strongly against racism ends up having his fears take him over; the point is not that we’re racist, but sometimes it’s a fine line. Watching the two characters change over the course of the film is fascinating; one becomes the other – or at least, what they each perceived the other as being in the beginning.

Another theme is the ubiquity of racism. It’s shows up in all sorts of ways, and though you might dismiss this, the fact remains that there is still tons of it in our society and making a movie to point that out is not automatically useless. Sometimes lessons have to be repeated; the film remains strong because we need to have these things pointed out from time to time.

But the point is not this, but that we don’t really know where people are coming from. And that what appears to be racism is often not.

<sigh> This is the type of thing that I rail against constantly on this board – people who have no imagination and can only perceive a film by how much it matches their (ultimately limited) perceptions. It’s really very sad that people have to take drama so literally; it’s like the old Hymie the Robot on Get Smart. But where he was a comic figure for taking everything literally, people now are proud that they have no dramatic imagination. This is very sad for them.

The scene where he shot that gun is one of the most dramatically compelling scene I’ve seen in years. And I say this even though I knew the gun was loaded with blanks.

But you don’t seem interested in drama or characterization (it’s interesting that none of your criticisms mentioned anything about either, which is odd, since they are what makes any movie good). Just if the movie fits into your own preconception of how things would play out if it were “real.” But it’s not real; it’s drama.

In a way, you’re exactly what the movie is talking about – not racist, but like Damon’s partner who fits Damon into a stereotype and refuses to see anything more.

That’s your loss.