Movie Review- CRASH

Crash
Originally uploaded by Phalanx.

Had a chance to see this movie twice over the Memorial Day weekend (a holiday in the US where we celebrate our dead soldiers and other war pubah stuff) -- I had a free pass to see it the second time, and the writer/director was speaking afterwards.

This is a movie I didn't think could get made -- well, not made by an African-American filmmaker (Spike Lee tried to do subject matter like this when $$$$$ wasn't the only game in town, and people in the Black Community didn't want to just laugh or what gangsta violence). Incidently there is a fascinating article in the current Brad Pitt issue of GQ outlining problems with interracial fucking in Hollywood product. I bring this up -- as a round about way of getting back to CRASH -- because the first trully offending scene in the movie is when Matt Dillon's character - enraged by a Black women ignoring his pleas - takes out his anger when he sees what he thinks is a white woman give a Black man a dick-suck while driving.

That's still THE NUMBER ONE hot button issue in the Northern hemisphere today -- the Blackman's dick going inside one of the orificies of a non-Black woman.

It's evidence by the traffic coming to this site in response to uber-model Heidi Klum wedding Black soul singer Seal.

CRASH poses difficult questions and reveals a lot about the simmering "fuck you, man!" that is just beneath the surface in Los Angeles, and probably the rest of urban America.

The acting all around was superb - you kind of forget that Matt Dillon was a major actor 10, 15 years ago -- or that Ryan Phillippe could have been an outstanding actor WHO WE SAW A LOT OF, if it wasn't for a few costily missteps; or that Don Cheadle is maybe one of the most versatile actors working in American Cinema; or that Keith David is one of the most under-used talents in a system that cherishes looks over actually ability; or that Larenz Tate has acting chops that haven't been used since MENANCE 2 SOCIETY.

Interestingly, in the expose of the Black woman and the seemingly endemic and unique behavior pattern of constantly challenging their men to act more "manly" when it comes to swallowing horseshit -- whether it's a person of color or not, who is provoking the challenge.

All in all this is a tour de force in acting and storytelling, eschewing the chump-ass Hollywood storytelling techniques that encompass most flims that Hollywood allows to made and/or distributed. See, it's not only a question of what Hollywood will make, but what they will distribute and put their marketing muscle behind.

I don't think I've seen too many commercials for CRASH, but understandably so because how do you really sell a movie that is a collection of stories about race, violence, intolerance and compromising positions? It can be done, considering that the film is making well over $36million (costing only $6, and maybe another $5 to $10 million in adverts).

See this movie, preferably in the theatre, as the movie watching experience is entirely different than watching on video or on an airplane.