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You're reading a really old version of matt-thornton's website. For example, if you're looking at the movie reviews... you'll notice that none of them are of recent films. Indeed, I leave them here for posterity's sake, but I doubt very much that they'll get updated anytime soon. So have a giggle.
You might, if you're lucky, find something recent from Matt at his blog matt's debates. Kernow bys vyken.
Crash
the one line review:
you think you know who you are
the overview
There's no doubt that it's brave to make a film with the same name as a movie that caused outright controversy when it was released. This Crash is a film pitched solely around the theme of race and what it means in day to day life. The other was all about having sex with people in car crashes.
the plot:
There are 6 or so different storylines going on at once, surrounding the lives of about 10 different people, each of whom are affected by the race issue in one particular way or another. Either it's the white racist cop (Dillon) who has to save a black woman, or the black cop who is sleeping with a South American or Persian people who get mistakenly blame the burglarly of their shop on the local hispanics... you get my drift.
the verdict:
This film won a gillion awards, and probably rightly so. It is strongly out of the Mulholland Drive/Pulp Fiction school of film-making - the start at the end, jump to the beginning and explain everything whilst 400 different stories subtly interlink with each other.
It's very cleverly written, it all gels together nicely and ultimately it's a very satsifying film. If you're in a bad mood, that is, because make no mistake, this film is very dark, and ultimately quite depressing. I don't think it was the intention , I think you're supposed to have that enlightening moment at the end of the film where you realise how futile rivalry and racism and so on is and everyone lives happily ever after. All it really does it to show that racism and malcontent exists in everyday life, that there are bigoted people, that there's basically nothing anyone can do about it, and you should just get on with life.
The film ends up being a bit of thinker, telling you stuff that you already know. Worth watching. Watch out for the actress who was in Spin City and the annoying kid out of Cruel Intentions. And then rent the other Crash.
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