In case you haven't noticed, Magnolia is a Short Cuts rip-off no more than Crash is a Magnolia rip-off.
The only similarities I find between Magnolia and Crash is that both explore the theme of "redemption". Crash though is much more about showing the good and the bad in people, the black and the white, if you will. Redemption just happened to be a by-product of that theme.
Other than that, they are completely different stories. That's what I got from it anyway.
You had to see "Crash" to understand racism in America?
Hey, whoa -- why you gotta bring 'racism' into it, man ?!?
I didn't say anything about race!
I thought it was about class war!
sigpic "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves." -Mahatma Gandhi.
it actually might be one of the worst films of the year.
It wasn't the loosely strung together series of unbelievable coincidences masqarading as a plot, or the sociology 101 manifesto as dialogue that made me not like it.
It was the fact that so much effort was put into this and the filmmaker really didn't even have anything to say about anything, other than people can be both great and terrible.
it actually might be one of the worst films of the year.
It wasn't the loosely strung together series of unbelievable coincidences masqarading as a plot, or the sociology 101 manifesto as dialogue that made me not like it.
It was the fact that so much effort was put into this and the filmmaker really didn't even have anything to say about anything, other than people can be both great and terrible.
Quote: Pencey. My problem wasn't with them carjacking the black guy. It was obvious they realized their mistake (carjacking a brother), but felt compelled to follow through with the crime. What didn't ring true to me was that the kindness of a black man led the ghetto kid to be nice to Asians.
Pulling the man from underneath the Navigator? To avoid a murder rap. Dumping him at the hospital. Maybe a stretch. Freeing the 'laotian' cargo after having been offered $500 a head for them? Obviously a choice of not becoming himself a slave trader; and oppression is something his character had been vocalizing against the entire movie. Plausible from that perspective, I think.
Coincidence allows one to present material in a very highly condensed manner. It permitted the inclusion of several characters, as was needed.
Epiphany permits characters to grow and evolve without the usual gradations in their development throughout the course of a story. Thus, most of the characters could be thought to have an arc (they did grow, after all), even if it wasn't presented in its entirety.
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