Mad Atoms

Fun fact: Apparently Crash has been the #1 most-rented movie on Neflix ever since it was released on DVD in 2005. In almost four years, it hasn’t been dethroned once; not even by uberhits like The Dark Knight, WALL-E, Transformers, or Indian Jones and The Kingdom of the Raging Shitfest. Sure, more people saw those four films in the theater, negating the need for a rental, but still… three years! Untouched! 

As a film buff, normally a smaller film maintaining such a Herculean feat over bloated studio pics would leave me overjoyed. It doesn't though. Why? Cause I fucking hate Crash.

To me, Crash is just as bloated and emotionally shallow as Indiana Jones 4, but far more obnoxious. At least I’ve never heard anyone claim Indiana Jones 4 was “moving” or “powerful,” and it certainly didn’t win an Oscar for Best fucking Picture. 

I’m generally a forgiving filmgoer, but Crash’s gross tone of self-importance really bugged the shit out of me. The movie casts itself as a gritty and in-your-face exposé on race in contemporary America, but it isn’t exposing jack. And it’s certainly not gritty. It’s pandering in knowingly fabricated, cheesy moments to elicit easy emotions. 

The film is a farce, and I mean that in the literal sense, as in: “a comic work using buffoonery and absurdity and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.” It's like a Neil Simon play, only pretentious and not as clever.

I actually like Paul Haggis, but Crash isn’t a movie about real characters in real situations plucked from his life. This isn't City of God or Do the Right Thing. This is some upper-middle-class white dude trying to sound profound after a few glasses of wine at a dinner party, talking about things he doesn’t fully understand.  

It doesn’t bother me if you like Crash. That’s your problem. It doesn’t really bother me that it won Best Picture either. Who actually takes the Oscars seriously? But I was hoping/expecting that the movie would just die slowly and forgotten in the cinema graveyard, existing only as a factoid in Oscar history. But no - it has become super popular! It’s quickly on its way to being a fucking film classic!  

Damn you Netflix! Why are you doing this to me? After all our good times together?