[Animal Boything]

I talked about Syriana in its own thread... I'm not upset that people liked it, it didn't suck, but I'm upset that people who liked it are trashing a better movie.

To elaborate, the characters in Syriana had all these tacked-on personal tragedies, like a drunk dad or a dead kid, to try to awkwardly insert emotion into a story that was fundamentally about plot and politics, not characters, and it consequently had too many balls in the air and the writing and editing were not deft enough to keep it all interesting or clear. I often asked myself "why is this scene in the film?" and rarely got a good answer. The acting was strong, but to what end?

Crash was first and foremost about character, and while it could be argued that certain elements of the plot or the politics were tacked on, it was only in the interest of keeping the story clear. The result was a lean, effective film full of three-dimensional characters whose personal trials had meaning to the overall story, and performances that were not only strong but built on a solid foundation. The convenient twists of plot were only there to give us insight into the characters without introducing too many new elements, and as a result there were no loose ends and each scene had added meaning. On a certain level it was a parable, and its strange coincidences were not intended as realism. It was concise and flawlessly paced. It explored the theme of prejudice effectively without being ABOUT prejudice. (It was really about alienation and the complexity of human interaction.) So, in conclusion, fuck yall haters.