Crash fever: catch it!

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/oscars/env-turan5mar05,0,5359042.story

Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times wrote a great column, echoing much of what I've been writing about Crash and Brokeback. Here's a few excerpts:

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.

And later...

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."

Turan and I also agree about Crash.

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.

Also writing for the L.A. Times, James Bates takes a clear-headed look at Crash's Oscar campaign, which smartly focused on L.A. actors.

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/columnists/insider/env-screenscrash7mar07,0,5184709.column?coll=env-home-headlines

On a lighter note, Defamer.com has lots of amusing commentary (and pictures) including this:

Once Jack Nicholson cracked the Seventh Seal and read the words that ushered in Armageddon (we can’t even bring ourselves to retype them), things seemed pretty bleak. But while we merely sat and waited for the Four Horsemen of the Hacky Apocalypse to gallop through our party and slaughter us like stuck pigs while we waited in the bathroom line, others were less passive.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11686950/page/3/

More snarkiness—Dave White blogging for MSNBC (about Crash's win in the editing category):

Ziyi Zhang presents for Editing. “Crash” wins. I feel a thousand needles stabbing me in the eyes. Have I mentioned lately in this blog that I hate this stupid movie? That it's the worst of the nominated films? Did I say that yet? Is Roger Ebert reading this? I hope so. He loves “Crash”... Well guess what Rog? It's still awful and you're still wrong.

And later, here's what he had to say when Nicholson called out the Best Picture award:

I'm not shocked that “Crash” wins. Welcome to the People's Choice Awards folks! From now on only heavy-handed, didactic, lunkheaded lowest common denominator nonsense is allowed to win. The beginning of a new era!