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Crash Coarse

Notwithstanding the fact it was voted for by a majority of its peers, Crash was the least deserving winner of the annual industrial distraction known as the Academy Awards.

The further fact that it was the love-child of a Canadian made good in Los Angeles is beside the point. The film, in effect a series of intense, contrived actorial moments designed for maximum drama-school tension and release, was shallow and had a made-for-TV feel. The set up and pay off involving the dummy bullets and the child was particularly lame, a sort of Mad Magazine send-up avant la lettre. It did have moving elements, admittedly but...

Racial tension in Los Angeles is an important navel-gazing issue, and might be one sort of America's fault-line. Brokeback Mountain, Good Night, And Good Luck and Munich were far more profound, and controversial. My own preference was for the deeply-flawed but ultimately daring (in its context) Munich.
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