Crash

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected.
Review: When I went and saw this movie with my friends we all expected an erotic thriller that barely made it into theatres. What we got was a movie that disgusted us and made us walk out of the movie before it was over.

I found it's plot very poor, and some of the sex scenes completely pointless. In my eyes it was on of the worst movies I have ever seen.

What got us to get up and leave the theatre was the scene in which they were making "love" in the Mercedes ............. I was disgusted, revolted, and very disapointed with Cronenberg for putting this drivel on to the big screen.

If you like to see sex, now I mean A LOT of sex that is completely meaningless (yes I know that they get off by having sex in car wrecks), then go RENT this movie. However if you are like me and enjoy a somewhat intellectual movie, then borrow this one folks

Rating:
Summary: Strangely Compelling Exercise in Sad Violence and Isolation
Review: CRASH Sex and car crashes. And not necessarily in that order.

This is the most recent film by Canadian Director David Cronenburg. Based on a novel by J.G. Ballard, it's a movie that essentially defies description, but the theme in a nutshell is about a small group of people who have become 'locked' in a strange sociopathic state following their near-death experiences in fatal car crashes. As a result, they find the desperate act of auto accidents sexually liberating. Ultimately, it's the only way they can feel alive and achieve orgasm-- by participating in or being closely associated with tragic accidents -- even if that means creating them in elaborately staged scenarios.

Sick as this sounds, it makes sense in the context of the film. Director Cronenburg assembles an odd but top-flight cast here, and I would be curious to see how he pitched the premise of the story to them. James Spader is the focus, playing a director of Television commercials. As the film opens, we find out he's married, but shares a rather distant and detached relationship with his wife. It isn't long before we're witness to a scene where Spader's freeway distractions result in a massive accident where another passenger is propelled into his car. He manages to survive the crash, but oddly enough, becomes involved with the wife (Holly Hunter) of the man he killed. Before long, the two of them are seeking out and having sex in their damaged-beyond-repair cars. This leads them to a physical therapist and part-time performance artist, who is obsessed with celebrity car accidents and what he terms 'body modification'. With the aid of a stuntman friend, it's not long before famous celebrity car deaths are being staged like great performance art on darkened back-lots and Montreal sidestreets.

All of this does sound sick beyond belief, and I suppose it is. But while I was watching this, I realized that Cronenburg's methods here aren't really much different than the methods used by the big auto manufacturers to sell their products -- it's all just in the timing. Sure, automobiles can be alluring while all shiny and new, but the act of consummation is all in perception, and these characters just happen to need the adrenaline rush provided from a near-death experience. It's also an interesting look at characters that maybe should've died in their accidents and didn't, and how they never really feel comfortable returning back into the world of the living and healthy. For some reason they feel unable to connect, and the result is a life that is lived in a dream-like state, where art and death and culture all simply become means to an end that seems to have cruelly alluded them.

There is sex here, and almost all of it in trashed, mangled and bloody cars, as the characters float from one unhappy encounter to another. They cling to each other in some desperate attempt to make sense of their shattered lives, but ultimately, all become victims of their own demented dreams. I won't admit to liking this film, but I do think it tapped into some strange part of my brain that I'd rather not exercise, and for that I'm grateful in a uncomfortable way. I would have loved to have seen what a director like John Waters could've done with this script. As a child, he claims he used to beg his parents to take him to the auto scrap yard where he could play in the trashed automobiles. In his own cheerfully demented way, Waters could've made this film a unique and funny experience (I always thought he should adapt those awful driving instruction films like 'Flesh, Metal and Glass' to feature-length status.) However, a subject this gruesome in the hands of Cronenburg becomes a painful and eerie experience. I'll never look at my car the same again. And maybe that's for the best.

Rating:
Summary: Do you like James Spader, Holly Hunter, and cars?
Review: The term psycho pathology is used in this film, i dont have a clue what it means, but just imagine a film where there is wacky stuff going on. In one scene holly hunter is on top of james sapder in the back seat. She goes something like, are you finished and he goes im ok. now i dont know if you like girls, but if you do, please get this movie

Rating:
Summary: EROS - TANATOS
Review: Freud would be delighted with this film. The proximity of death and sex in this experiment invites us to consider our ultimate motivations. Cars and crashes are only used as fetiches or instruments in this very sincere demonstration of the fine divisory line between destruction and creation. Cronenberg did it again although I would agree with other viewers that his masterpiece is Naked lunch. Deborah Kara Unger performed beautifully, her character as a lifeless - even some nihilistic aroma can be observed - but efervescent woman is accomplished very well.

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: This is a very unusual film. The basic plot involves a group of people who are turned on by car crashes thus allowing a series of sex scenes invovling scrapes, bruises, leg braces, scars, etc. If you are disgusted by the thought of that description, don't see this movie because you would probably (a) not understand the film or (b) be completely disgusted by its graphic sex, violence, and car crash related gore.

The film is very well made. Throughout most of the film, a dark atmosphere is kept giving the film a sort of surrealistic and noirish quality. The actors take the film very seriously and never play it for humor or take the film's subject matter lightly.

By taking a sexual fetish (car crashes) that nobody has, the director (David Cronenberg) has allowed himself the freedom to explore the realities of such a fetish. Had he chosen to direct a film about something that people actually are turned on by, he could have disappointed many by inaccurately portraying this.

This film is not for everyone. Some may consider this merely an excuse to show graphic sex scenes boardering on pornography (the reason why the film is rated NC-17 - the R rated version was created for Blockbuster since they do not carry NC-17 rated films). As realistic as the sex may appear in some scenes, it is soft core, just like any other R rated film.

If you can appreciate this film, you will see nearly flawless acting from James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Elias Koteas. The film is expertly directed by a master (Cronenberg, director of such masterpieces as "Naked Lunch" and "Dead Ringers"), and based on a novel that has become over time a cult/underground favorite by J. G. Ballard. If you have an open mind, see this film and appreciate it, otherwise seek out any of Cronenberg's other films (except "M. Butterfly").

Rating:
Summary: An Ambitious and Disturbing Film!!!
Review: Cronenberg can be admired by taking his visions to the screen, while he is a bold and original director, his material is surely tough to swallow. His films are not for everyone, and this film is packed with explicit sex, weird fetish desires, and a story line that doesn't really make sense. But this is all just an excuse so that Cronenberg can pin desperate characters and delve into their twisted psyche. James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas and especially Deborah Unger are all devastating in their roles, and deserve to be recognized for taking on such dangerously audacious roles. Jarring, graphic and sometimes violent, an audacious and thoroughly original piece of filmmaking. Extras: this film was quietly praised at Cannes and was given a special award for 'Audacity'. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film a 7!

Rating:
Summary: Unerotic Dullness
Review: What annoys me about this movie is not it's constant porno like sex, or it's dull,undeveloped one dimentional playing card like characters but the lack of regard for human life or suffering. It's irratating. There is no point to this movie whatsoever than to show how strange people can be and to make me never want to drive a car ever in fear of such lunatics.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: If ANYONE could make J.G. Ballard's novel about "sex and car crashes" halfway convincing, it would be Cronenberg, who is a director par excellence when it comes to exploring the detritus lurking beneath bodies and souls. Not to be TOO literate, but when I heard that a movie was being made from this novel, I read it and decided that there was no way the details of this weird world could be effectively translated to the screen (and Ballard's book is even no masterpiece, though it is compelling in a very specific way) and sure enough the movie is lacking; where the novel takes some pains to go into meaning behind this odd perversion and its descriptions of worship and devotion to scars, carnage, and chaos, a movie can't detail that literary quality unless you put it in the mouths of the characters; too much of that and you don't have a very interesting movie. So what it boils down to is just a kinky movie where people have these strange, unfathomable desires (and didn't the studio essentially distill this movie down that way in its advertisements?). I'm not one of those people who need everything explained, but given the subject matter, the mind tries to make sense of it somehow, and there's nothing there, really. It's kind of a numbing experience, and very didactic and serious (I didn't find it very humorous, even in a black way). If you're into that, I guess this is the movie for you. The director's "Naked Lunch" suffers from the same weight of "greatness." I have no problem with the actors, and the film looks absolutely fantastic, but it's a long haul, especially you rent it just for the sex (which is not bad, considering...); other movies don't include philosophy lessons! But, by this time, why watch Cronenberg films if you're not ready for his literacy and erudition? Count me as a fan, but this is a misstep. Proceed to "eXistenZ"; it's a much better-integrated mixture of similar themes (and humor!), with no intimidating novel hanging above its head.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I've got mixed feelings about this film. I admire David Cronenberg for daring to make a film with such controversial subject matter. I feel that the moral-majority reaction to the picture (general feelings of revulsion; the 'Daily Mirror' newspaper's attempts to get 'Crash' banned in the UK) were an overreaction. On the surface, the movie is an effective rendering of the original novel, surviving the director transplanting the story from London (where the action centres on the Western Avenue and Heathrow Airport) to his native Canada. But I also think the film, with its deadpan mood and washed-out, darkened colours, is a little boring on the whole (the same criticism can be levelled at the book, really). And I just couldn't enjoy Deborah Kara Unger's panting (sorry, 'acting') AT ALL - I thought she was ridiculous! So, as I said, mixed feelings. I must have had a hundred different conversations about this film, though, so I'd say that's a pretty good reason for getting this video! Plus it's certainly stronger and more consistent than Cronenberg's recent 'eXistenZ'.

Rating:
Summary: 4 STARS JUST BECAUSE IT'S CRONENBERG!
Review: Ok, I am an admirer of Cronenberg's work; have been since the day I saw VIDEODROME. The man has brains and guts. I agree, CRASH is not his best work. DEAD RINGERS and NAKED LUNCH are what most of us consider his masterpieces. I read all the reviews, and all I can say is...what's with all these wimps whining about their tender little normalcies being stomped on? Nobody put a gun to your head to make you buy this movie. If your tender little intellects can't handle stuff like this you should've gone on to the letter "D" for Disney.

Now - for those who did like CRASH,I have a recommendation. PARIS FRANCE. It's a little Canadian production featuring no big stars. It is, however, rather well-acted. As with CRASH, it disturbed a few fellows in the audience enough to make them get up and leave (I always get a chuckle out of that). So, check out my review of PARIS FRANCE...you may want to rent it first just to make sure you don't waste your money on something you won't want to keep. Myself...I can't wait until it comes out on DVD.