Letters to the Editor
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sopranos ad needs to be moved
I can't read much of this article because the ad is off set.
thanks
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Hit 'Refresh'.
Worked for me.
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Exactly
"Maybe it seems that way to the Times, but the trades and other insiders have been guessing for a long time that "Crash" would carry the greater appeal to Academy voters. Why, you ask? The award for best instant analysis goes to the Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan, who saw the "Crash" victory coming, writing: "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.'" He adds that Academy voters picked "Crash" because, perversely, "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."
Exactly.
Ken Kaplan
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Anti Crash Rage
The angry response to Crash's win for best picture is fascinating to me. Since Crash's release to home video it is the film I've heard most often recommended in video stores, the library where I work and rental places just between people, frequently strangers, browsing the aisles. Many of these people feel that the film helped them to perceive other people in different ways, that it affected them profoundly and many of them talk about how they have watched it many times to catch new details and nuances that help them to understand it better. I've rarely heard this kind of excitement for a fairly obscure art house film with this little press or theater box office. The range of people who were excited about it was impressive from conservative seniors to high school students who usually watch action films.
This film has reached people and created dialogue where subtler films have failed. When I compare this grass roots enthusiasm to the angry dismissal of many critics (with many notable exceptions including The New Yorker and Roger Ebert)it almost makes the criticisms of an out of touch liberal press more credible and the middlebrow approach of Oscar voters seem like a more reliable barometer of quality.
As for myself, I usually dislike didactic films but I found Crash tremendously entertaining. I found the film's use of reconnecting characters fascinating and the device partially prepares the audience for a magic reality suspension of disbelief. This film is original--it feels like no other film this year. In a time when the country is extremely divided and both sides of almost any debate are tending towards dismissive stereotypes of each other, Crash is a film about bridging those differences and it does so in an artful,accessible and outrageously entertaining manner. This makes it an important film and worth recognizing.