Crash (2004): ...And Burn

The Other Films (Revisited)
Crash (2004)
dir: Paul Haggis

Original Review (Circa 2006)
Originally Posted to Livejournal and IMDB

I wrote this as a two part review. Part two has spoilers.

Part 1
No, this isn't that one about the sex with car accidents. This is the one about racism in L.A. You know, the one where everybody is a racist, and race is the topic on everybody's mind at all times. Race.

Its like the movie has a form of Tourette's Syndrome where race is the constant theme. Race. Racist. Racism. Race Relations. Relay race.

Paul Haggis made a movie which took the structure of Magnolia, which was used to show the disconnect of people who are tangentially connected, and then screwed it into a 1'53" mental vomit about racism in America. RACE. In the 24 hour period we have 7 stories running parallel all connected and about race. The first hour, people say ridiculous stuff and do absurd things in an effort to be real about racism in America.

For example, the story with Ludicrous and Larenz Tate provides the comic relief. Too bad, the first half of their story is lifted straight from The Bonnie Situation in Pulp Fiction. RACISM. Their section is the Quentin Tarantino section where, instead of being cool and talking about foot massages and religion, the characters talk about race and racism. CONSTANTLY.

The other good thing about it is the Mexican story when the Mexican guy is talking to his daughter. He gives her his invisible impenetrable cloak to protect her from bullets. Decent writing, but that's only because the writers have had daughters and know what they would say in his place.

The rest of the stories are extremely ludicrous. The Hindi does not act in any semblance of realism. The scene where he's trying to get the lock fixed and the Mexican tells him he needs a new door is abbreviated and stupid. Why would anybody act like that? Is it realistic? NOOO. It reminds me more of the convenience store clerk from The Doom Generation. "Six Dollar Sixty Six Cents girly." If i ever watch the second half of the movie, I hope his head is shot off and his bodiless head starts coughing up relish.

I haven't mentioned race in over a paragraph. RACE. RACISM. RACE FOR THE SUN. Better. Then, there is the black guy who wants to be white, Matt Dillon who has a chip on his shoulder against blacks, Ryan Phillippe who looks beautiful and does nothing, and various other bad actors acting badly with bad dialog. When Matt Dillon molests the black producers wife, could I help it if I was cracking up? When Philippe is second guessing his writing up of his partner for racism, can I help but crack up? The movie is so funny when it is being racist. Racist. RACIST I tell you.

Now, mind you, this movie was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing, besides a nod to Matt Dillon who actually did attempt to do a decent job. Who was paid off for that one, I have no clue.

Don't see it unless you feel like being preached at about the racism in society through a bad and unrealistic script from 2 white men over fifty who have no semblance of reality or interaction with real society in any way shape or form.

Grade: D-

...

Part 2
The second half of Crash takes any and all story lines in the first half...and spews them back out in a sort of redemptive, conclusionary, the world is a big coincidence kind of way. And it is in fact one of the worst ways to do it.

Take 1999's Magnolia. People weren't conveniently tied together over and over again. They were just connected in a strange way that happens more often than you think. You know somebody who knows somebody who did something that you knew somebody else was also involved in. Crash takes this wrapping into a serious extreme.

The stories are lined up so everybody meets again. Are there only 5 on the LAPD force? Aren't these people working weird shifts? Dillon and Philippe were a late shift then an early one the next day? And, why did Tate have to be the murdered hitchhiker? Wouldn't it have had more emotional tension, as well as realism, if it had been somebody we had not been following all day long? Like Phillippe just picks up a random hitchhiker and then freaks out. Everybody'd be freaking out.

Eventually, in the second half, the touching invisible cloak scene is used to get the Hindi to shoot the daughter. It ticked me off and made me feel dirty. Not that the Hindi shot the daughter, but that they created a beautiful touching scene and then had it be the direct cause of people tearing up. It really ticked me off. At the writers, not the scene.

The whole movie is fake and totally uncalled for. The coincidences are far too many and they require an extreme suspension of disbelief. Unlike Magnolia which was connected mildly, this had connections upon connections upon connections which were just so over-the-top. The only good part in the second half was when Sandra Bullock falls down the stairs. She doesn't die though. She should have. I cheered when she fell.

The worst part about the movie is it pulls a Magnolia. Not just in structure, but it has a montage over the song "In the Deep" where you see everybody being depressed. Magnolia took this and had post-modern commentary on it by having all of the characters singing along to Aimee Mann's Wise Up. Unfortunately, Magnolia came out in 1999, while Crash came out in 2005. Its hard to make commentary on a movie which won't be made for another 6 years, but it happened. Somehow.

Utter waste of my time.

First half: D-; Second half: lowest grade ever; Overall: F---

My Generation (2000): The Kids Aren't Alright

The Other Films (Classic)
original review: 2003

My Generation (2000)
dir: Barbara Kopple

Pre-note: I feel I am a Generation X kid who was born too late...

Film analyzation:
The movie was OK. The director definately felt she was closer to Generation X than Generation Why. This is pointed out by the fact that the first 80 minutes of the movie are dedicated to a comparison of Woodstock 94 and 69. Sure, they were closer to each other than 99 was, but 99 deserves the same amount of treatment. Obviously 99 was an add-on.

Another detraction was the violence of 99 was completely down-played for its size. But, thats the nature of the beast. You have to downplay something.

Cultural analyzation:
Being true to my subculture professor, I am regarding Woodstock 69 as a mainstream event. Moby had no idea what he was talking about when he was quoted in this movie by saying that the hippy subculture had something to rebel against, meaning Vietnam. The hippy culture was a rebellion of disillusionment against the establishment, as all subcultures before and after it should be. (side note: subcultures are now being commercially created, IMO). My professor established a difference between the hippies and the protestors, mainly saying that the hippies were too wasted to care about events.

Either way, Woodstock 69 was a mainstream event in the end. It was a bunch of people perverting and stretching the ideals of hippy culture to fit their own idea of what fun is, and how it relates to them. I'm not saying that hippy culture wasn't there (some of them probably were), but that more than a few were corproate lackeys even at that point. I mean a migration of 500,000 people from San Diego to New York is a bit hard to believe.

Woodstock 94 was played out the same way. The bands, like the ones in 69, were just subculture enough to be counter yet mainstream enough to attract everybody's attention. Perry Ferrell had already started Lollapalooza, and was already in the band Porno For Pyros (to put it in time reference frame). Many of the bands were of the grunge/alternative station. NIN also played.

Woodstock 99 was a completely mainstream event. The only subculture that may have been truely represented was the techno/rave culture. But, nobody cared about the techno tent that was there. The main acts were all the mainstream bullshit that you heard on the radio and turned off faster than you could hit a fly in 99. Some of them you can still turn off today. Green Day, Limp Bizkit, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, etc. To say that corporate sponsorship was revealed in all of its full glory is to put it bluntly.

Basic comparisons:
69 & 94 - Mud people; 99 - sewage people (near the portopotties too, blech)
69 & 94 - Ultra planning gone awry; 99 - Ultra planning succeeding to bad ends
69 - Angry bands like The Who and Hendrix; 94 - NIN, Metallica, Porno for Pyros; 99 - DMX, Limp bizkit;
69, 94, & 99 - kids disillusioned about the societies before them
69 & 99 - Fires set to food vendors;
Major 99 differences - new rules, ATM lines, outrageous prices, sturdy fences, lack of water, air force place (new venue), heat (no storms), Woodstock Visa

Sexism was a major part at all 3 Woodstocks. Woodstock 69 had footage of men asking women to strip, 94 and 99 had all of this too. 99 also had sexual crimes against women.

69 was out for pure fun. They didn't care about the world changers. The people who were there wanted to be a part of something, and that's all. 94 was a bunch of jaded kids looking for something to do. They found a community which they could be a part of, and it promptly self-destructed in a couple of years. The difference being shown in 99 by the completely different line-up, the ultra-commercialism, and the happily stupid people. The riots were a big fuck you to the corporate stooges ripping off the kids of america.

Don't get me wrong 69 and 94 were definitely trying to make a profit (neither did). But, 99 should have been seen as a major difference when a producer guy gets up on stage and says "this is not a free concert like the previous 2 have been. I'm glad word has gotten out that if you don't have a ticket ($150 incidentally) then don't come." GACK. Talk about subverting the whole cultural idea of what Woodstock means. It was INTENDED as a commercial event, but ACTUALLY MEANS a subcultural community.

Whats next? We're in 2003, one year from the next Woodstock anniversary if there will be one. What wil be coming up next? A rap festival since that's what is "in" now. Hippy bands were "in" in 69, alternative was "in" in 94, angry commercial music was "in" in 99, now rap is "in" in 2003. Unless something else makes it big, its going to be another bad music festival.

Present Day Note:
This little social commentary is highly amusing in the present day with $300 festivals, and incidents like the gate trampling at <a href="http://www.fuse.tv/2014/03/miami-mayor-ban-ultra-music-festival">Ultra Music Festival</a>

What Is It? (2005): Horror of the other

The Other Films Classic
(revisited)
What is it? (2005)
dir: Crispin Glover

Original Review (circa 2005)
The mere mention of Crispin Glover is enough to send some geek's panties in a bunch. His landmark appearance in Back to the Future as George McFly has sealed him into the American conscience forever. More recently, he has been trying to get back into the culty subconscious with Bartleby and Willard.

This time, however, Crispin has made a 76-minute, cheap dada film. At times it reminded me of genius, while overall it almost insulted me, but not because of its content. Content?

What Is It? is a movie where, in one half of the movie, all of the actors have Down's Syndrome, giving it a freakshow feel to it. The other half of the movie includes Crispin Glover, Adam Parfrey, and a guy with cerebral palsy. This all had the feel of what John Waters was attempting to do with Desperate Living, and simultaneously feeling more successful and failing miserably.

The half with the Down's Syndrome actors also features many many killed snails. It is about a guy who has snails, and ends up killing one. He is also tormented by a bunch of other people, and a grasshopper. He falls in love with 2 girls, one of which he has sex with in a graveyard. He also has a falling out with a friend who teases him.

In a weird semi-interior set, Crispin Glover is the director of this show. He is something like the control of the guy's mind, and the cerebral palsy guy is something like the sexuality. Well, he at least gets masturbated in explicit scenes. There is other "shocking" imagery made humorous, like Nazi Swaztikas crossed with Shirley Temple, and minstrels in black face saying they're Michael Jackson.

In the outside world, the tormentor is still dealing with his love of killing snails and being beaten by the other people. They beat him with rocks, and such. Later, they beat the minstrel after putting him on trial.

Back to the interior, Crispin Glover is still the ruler of his set, and tries to control everybody, but fails miserably.

What Is It? makes less sense than Dr. Caligari, and has more than a passing style stolen from it. The claustrophobic mental space feels very much like the way the no-wall sets of Dr. Caligari felt claustrophobic. They also had some dialogue that was absolute nonsense. And, it was all wrapped up with absurdist imagery for humor.

The problem is, about 20 minutes into the movie...maybe a little more...What Is It? runs out of imagery. For the next 56 minutes, we keep running on the same sets of images, only introducing new imagery in the form of an absurdist puppet show. The movie seems little more than a movie which attempts to push the envelope in offensive and taboo imagery. It tries to mock and confuse the audience. But, the issue is that it only has enough different imagery for a 40 minute movie.

Even worse than that, the cinematography, set design, and everything else felt very very cheap and almost unplanned. It felt like "OK, this is the way we can do it and get it out of the way." It didn't feel interesting, and was quite...boring. Dr. Caligari, on the other hand, had amazing cinematography and framing. The difference between the two is quite astounding.

Revisited
What Is It? is the first movie in a trilogy by Crispin Glover, who has only completed the first two movies, with the second being It is Fine. Everything is Fine! Having seen the second movie, It is Fine deals more with genre filmmaking and ripping apart expectations.  The only thing really linking the two are Crispin Glover and the actor with CP, who also wrote the screenplay for It is Fine.

What is It? will always suffer from the lack of original imagery to fill the running time.  In fact, I still believe in most of the review I wrote with little exception except for my take on the movie's nihilism and lack of meaning itself.  With a little bit more world view, one realizes Glover is using horrific imagery to create an absurdist normalization of horror movie tropes.  People with Down's Syndrome are automatically the other of society, and normally they would be the horror movie villains. Indeed, Glover is having them kill snails with impunity.

At the same time, Glover is attempting (though I still believe he was failing) in trying to show that the actual horror is selling out, and commercialization of the image.  This is why he had absurdist puppet shows with laundry boxes.  This is why he had Shirley Temple the Nazi, or the minstrel form of Michael Jackson.  It is all about crossing the horror with the commercialization.  In more recent times, he would be able to get away with showing images of Sandra Bullock with her Nazi boyfriend surrounded by satanic imagery.  It really doesn't add up to much except that Crispin Glover hates having to hock his image.

Ultimately, the Down's Syndrome people are the heroes and victims of the semi-existent horror imagery.  The villains are the society that sells people and makes everything into a taboo.  Because, by othering everything, including minstrels and Nazis, we are also othering those like the actors with Down's Syndrome.  This is an inversion of the usual imagery, which is why it seems so shocking. Well, that and the killing of snails.

It's still a movie whose intent is to shock, and it isn't shocking because it intends to.  Other people might be shocked by the loads of taboo imagery contained within, but the internet has been jading us. As an absurdist film, What is It? fails to keep things interesting for its relatively short running time, which is one of the worst things a film can do.

Available only as roadshow whenever Crispin Glover tours with it.

War of the Worlds (2005): 9/11's not so subtle metaphor!

The Other Films Classic

War of the Worlds (2005)

dir: Steven Spielberg

THUD! Did you hear that? THUD THUD!! OW! That hurt? What was that? 

That was the anvil hitting you across the head in the form of Spielberg's latest blunt object, War of the Worlds. A message movie where he tries to cram every single little bit of message as he can into one movie. Here's a list of messages:


1) The World Trade Center Bombings was horrible.
2) War is horrible.
3) If you can escape your father's clutches, you can survive a giant explosion without injury.
4) If you can trust your kids, they will be safe.
5) Charleton Heston is a great inspiration to psychos everywhere.
6) John Williams is as subtle as...well...as Steven Spielberg.
7) Boston has extremely strong windows!
8) Video cameras can survive EMPs, especially in the service of "cool" camera shots.


Before I go bitching about the movie much more, I should state two things. I rather enjoyed myself through half the movie, and that will be coming up later. And, I have a bias against Spielberg, so this isn't an unbiased review.

Yes, my friends, War of the Worlds was Spielberg's 9/11 movie as a metaphor. When giant alien machines unearth themselves, they wreak havoc on Jersey, NYC, and various other places around the world. Of course, Tom Cruise, the movie's heroine, is a self-centered, divorced, father who is charge of his two kids, a 10-year-old know-it-all girl, Brilliance, and a 15-year-old surly boy, Sulk. Well, Brilliance and Sulk aren't really their names, but they'll do for now.

Tom's ex-wife has gone with Tim to visit her parents up in Boston, and felt that Brill and Sulk should stay in Jersey with their father. Tom, however, doesn't have food in the house, and doesn't have much time for the kids until they're under attack, at which point he starts becoming a protective Father Knows Best, who doesn't trust his kids to make a decision of their own if they tried.

Meanwhile, the Aliens land and use their machines to exterminate the human race, namely because they're...envious? Ah well, it doesn't matter as the initial and final explanation are all short, and to some throw-away point. Why? It doesn't matter because this is Spielberg's WTC movie!

Yes, folks, as soon as the Aliens attack, we see people taking pictures of the machines, getting vaporized, and other sorts of awesome effects laden imagery. It is in the initial attack scenes (save the usage of the fucking video camera not 20 seconds after the EMP happened), that Spielberg almost shines. He mixes his obvious imagery with a semi-knowledge of B-movies to achieve fun and exciting imagery mach 2.0. And, then, it all starts to go haywire.

Tom and his kids steal a van (which was recently repaired with a new solenoid), and go through many journeys to get to Boston so the family could be together. 

There aren't any real impressive scenes, and some are so stubbornly blindingly bad that I have to go through them. Tom and his kids reach their mother's Jersey home, where they hide in the basement during an attack. The aliens are about ready to blow more shit up with Tom and the kids are in the cellar. Sulk then pulls Tom and Brilliance into a lower cellar...which still has windows! The windows in the main cellar burst out with a huge explosion, but the windows on the side of the house are relatively undamaged, and the cellar is pitch black while the flames are all around. OK, then.

People are posting signs looking for their loved ones *THUD*, just like on 9/11. Except...everybody is leaving their home! How will they be contacting you? If you see my daughter, Please call my non-working cell phone/land line/mail me. *roll eyes* Ah well, we needed to be hit on the head.

Sulk decides he wants to be all he can be and joint he army to fight back. Tom leaves Brilliance by a tree to go chasing after Sulk and bring him along. As Tom and Sulk argue over whether Sulk is a man or not, Brilliance starts getting almost abducted by a helpful crazy couple. Tom sees Brilliance get almost taken, but still has the time for a long-ass good-bye, farewell, you're-a-man-now, scene. And, then, Sulk blows up, as obviated by the big explosion.

Tom and Brilliance go through a forest, which didn't look too destroyed, but clothes start falling from the sky. From where? I dunno, as there were no people to explode. Then, Tom Cruise made his potatoes into a forest and said, "This means something."

Charelton Tim Robbins makes a cameo as silly crazy person who wants to fight back. He is cleaning his gun in a motion that strongly looks like jacking somebody off during one of the heartwrenching scenes. I think it was heartwrenching. I was too busy laughing my ass off through it. Seriously, I was in tears I was laughing so hard. And, then, as the laughing fit from the jacking off motion dies down, Tom sings Deuce Coupe to Brilliance, with much owed to Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding. My sides hurt after that.

At this point, we really start doing stuff just so the camera could look cool. Charleton Tim and Tom start running through CharletonTim's basement frenetically, removing blocks from the window so the camera could look through, then replacing the blocks. And, the dumbest aliens in the galaxy use their camera to go searching for the inhabitants of this domicile, and are foiled by a mirror. We think that the aliens are a bit narcissistic and watched their camera in the mirror. As if mirrors weren't invented by that race.

Soon, the cute ewoksaliens come exploring around the basement, and playing with things,

Tom eventually arrives in Boston with the kid, after he exploded an alien (bad pie), where all the windows are still intact. Even in buildings with much destruction by passed out alien machines, the windows were still in tact. However, it is all a dream because Sulk didn't really die, but Tim, not CharletonTim, did. Or at least he wasn't shown much because it is all about Tom and his ex-wife and their kids, including not-burnt-up Sulk and Brilliance. In a quick 10 second wrap-up by Morgan Freeman, we find out that the aliens were killed by single-celled organisms, viruses or bacteria of some sort. Way to go Morgan! (Didn't the narration remind you of the narration to BASEketball by CHARLETON HESTON!!)

So, other than the initial destruction, and a couple of the other scenes, the movie is pretty Spielbergian. And, very Spielberg from 25 years ago. Without the total and utter destruction, the movie would have sucked. 

BTW, The Aliens were made of people