Crash - I didn't see the point

I watch a lot of movies. I especially make it a point to watch movies that win awards like Academy award, Golden Globe, Sundance--usually in that order. I want to know what the hype is about. I view watching movies as somewhat of a cultural experience; no different than reading a book or going to a museum. It's just another medium for information dissemination; telling of a story. There are lessons to be learned: history lessons, cultural lessons, moral lessons. And sometimes, good ones lead you to philosophize, think, discuss. With that said, I decided to rent "Crash" which won the Best Picture Academy award in 2005. That movie never really interested me so I waited this long to finally see it. It turns out, I wasn't really missing out. It should not have won the Best Picture Award. Brokeback Mountain should have won. But the Academy played it safe. People are just not ready for that kind of progressive move.

I didn't really see the point of rehashing stories of racism in LA. Yes, there is racism; but must we be hit with it 20 times for 2 whole hours? The characters do nothing but spew out racist rants for the whole movie. I just didn't see the point of telling a story this negative. Yes, racism is ugly, let's get on with our lives. I just didn't think any of the characters had any redeeming qualities (except the Latino locksmith). There was just too little character development for each character, except Matt Dillon's (The accident scene I must admit was quite moving). I guess that's hard to do when it's an ensemble cast of about 20.

People have said, but it's realism. I don't think so. I think the characters were too stereotyped regarding their racism. The characters were nothing else but racists and evil. They had no other identities. Each character's line was to be as racist as possible. No one is really that in-your-face racist. It was so much so that it got ridiculous and cliched. Isn't there an in-between or secretly or in-shame or trying-not-to-be? And I prefer to see people happier than how they are presented in the movie. Even if people have racist moments in their lives, I don't think it's a major part of their lives. Most people are not sitting there spewing racist rants or hating other races all day. In the movie, everybody hates everybody and it's simply not realistic.

The movie was just very unpleasant. And I didn't see the point of it taking the audience on this journey. And it's not because I'm in denial about racism, but it's like with anything else in life, would you rather focus on the good things that people do or the bad things? Racism is just a fraction of many many social problems that we have today. I honestly don't think most people are as racist as they were portrayed in the film. Being aware of race and being a racist is totally different. And I think most people are the former.

The movie is supposed to be a morality tale, but I didn't really think it delivered. This was a story that the audience didn't really benefit from being told. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. I just simply didn't care to rehash and dissect race issues.

The screenplay was written by Paul Haggis who in the previous year wrote "Million Dollar Baby." Now that movie was excellent! It definitely deserved the Oscar.