Motor Vehicle Accident
By accident of fate, I watched Crash for the third time last night. I've been trying to figure out why this movie won best picture for a while now. I watched it with Eve, who hadn't seen it and wanted to know why some people loved it and others hated it. I explained that people loved it because Crash is the best tricks from Aristotle's Poetics writ large, and multiplied over and over (since it doesn't have an individual hero.) Halfway through, Eve turned to me and said "No. No, you don't do that. See, Oedipus is one guy, and that works. You can't have three Oedipuses [Oedipi?]."
I agree. I told her that I liked it better when it was with Danny Glover and Steve Martin and was called Grand Canyon. But really, that's not fair: though it takes thematic elements of Grand Canyon, the real rip-off victim stylistically, is Magnolia. And yeah, that's a cheap and obvious shot, but it goes deeper. Waaaay deeper.
It took me until the third viewing of Crash to realize that the similarities go beyond both movies being about a bunch of people in LA in messed up situations surrounding murder, all intersecting over the course of one day. That's not the only reason Crash and Magnolia have something in common. The third time I watched it, I realized that during the sequence at the end where it cycles through shots of all the characters, they are playing a song which is more than reminiscent of Aimee Mann's "Wise Up" (down to the very same piano riff!). At this point I said to Eve, "Don't worry, it's not going to rain locusts now." But I had forgotten. The coup de grace: instead of FROGS raining down, it SNOWS. Motherfuck. They completely ripped Magnolia off.
I agree. I told her that I liked it better when it was with Danny Glover and Steve Martin and was called Grand Canyon. But really, that's not fair: though it takes thematic elements of Grand Canyon, the real rip-off victim stylistically, is Magnolia. And yeah, that's a cheap and obvious shot, but it goes deeper. Waaaay deeper.
It took me until the third viewing of Crash to realize that the similarities go beyond both movies being about a bunch of people in LA in messed up situations surrounding murder, all intersecting over the course of one day. That's not the only reason Crash and Magnolia have something in common. The third time I watched it, I realized that during the sequence at the end where it cycles through shots of all the characters, they are playing a song which is more than reminiscent of Aimee Mann's "Wise Up" (down to the very same piano riff!). At this point I said to Eve, "Don't worry, it's not going to rain locusts now." But I had forgotten. The coup de grace: instead of FROGS raining down, it SNOWS. Motherfuck. They completely ripped Magnolia off.