Censorship - "Crash" Tonight

[woodgnome]

yes, for the first time since it's original release and it was was better than i remembered.

when a film deals with an extreme premise such as this (auto-eroticism redefined, you might say), there's alway the danger of proceedings lapsing into absurdity (james spader fucking roseanne arquette's leg wound!). on the whole though, i thought it succeeded in sustaining the intense, hallucinatory quality of ballard's prose amazingly well (see 'empire of the sun', for how not to do it).

having read the book before seeing the film, i was disappointed that it was reset from west london to the usa. fortunately, david cronenberg is one of contemporary cinema's most uncompromising directors and things were handled with the utmost integrity.

it was refreshing to see a group of north american actors (especially the 'name' ones) committed to a project that must have scared a lot of their peers shitless. koteas. unger, arquette, holly hunter and james spader all deserve plaudits just for taking up the challenge, as well as rising to it.

it's a shame it couldn't go as far as 'ai no corrida' in terms of graphically depicting the numerous sex scenes but then 'ai no corrida' is virtually unique in fusing explicit sex with bona fide "art house" film values.

it's interesting that films such as "bais? moi" (rape me) and "romance" are now emerging. perhaps things are moving in the direction of a more radically explicit cinema, for the first time since the early 70's. alexander walker seems to think so. let's hope the rancid old bugger is right for once.

[btw, it was great to hear kermode name checking the aforementioned toe-rags - they richly deserve their place in the critics hall of infamy.]

[Caractacus]

So long as people keep buying newspapers that are more interested in who Ulrika/Sven are shagging and whether one manufactured pop "product" from a crap ITV show is better than another, this will continue. Remember all the fuss about paparazzi photographers when the sainted Di was killed, and all the tabloids who vowed they wouldn't use their pictures again? Guess what. Are they using paparazzi pix? I think they are.
The media is selling a product, and will think things are fine as they are so long as circulation figures are high. That's our fault. We'd apparently rather read about a minor league celeb than about the potential disaster in the Middle East or the problems in health/transport/crime in this country.

This just in: Second rate soap star in blah-de-blah (pages 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)
Thousands die in earthquake in country we've never heard of (one par buried at bottom of page 14, if it's lucky).

[buttsie village idiot]

But Woodgnome thay don't make them like they use to rings loud and clear,

Man city allways had more balls than Man U,Man U has nearly always had the class but what do you remember most balls.,

Vinnie Jones connected to Gazza's privare jewels pure class

cheers
B...Oz

[BIGGUS DICKUS]

The arrogance of Tookey and Walker,of course its o.k. for them to watch stuff like Crash they wont be affected,can't let the plebs do likewise though.Got to keep the plebs in their place.

[BIGGUS DICKUS]

Film reviewers should'nt pass moral judgements on any film,they should tell the public whether a film is any good or bad.People like Tookey and Walker have their own political agenda.Flett wrote:
>
> For those students of our archaic censorship laws, David
> CDronenberg's "Crash" is on at 11.35 p.m. today, on Channel 4.
> You may recall that when it was released in 1996, serious
> efforts were made to stop its release in the U.K., on the
> grounds that it would lead to "copy-cat" incidents.
> The movie is pretty pathetic, but it does give an good
> insight into the workings of the minds of those folks who
> would wish to prevent the masses seeing what they want to
> see. Having watched it, I certainly didn't feel like
> pranging the car just to see if I could get my end away with
> some sicko female.

[jj]

..but we gave up wearing 12" shorts in the 70s.
Ouch.

[Dr No]

Er, what?... Have I inadvertantly wanderd onto 'The Sports Page?'

Dr No - Says no to tirsome Sports talk.

[Cable Guy]

Yeah i agree totaly but sales of every single news paper apart from the Guardian show that year on year sales are falling and i don't mean just slightly i mean they are plumating like a ten ton weight.

[richard b]

I did watch it!

I had seen it on video several years ago

Totally agree with woodgnome

o/t Debra Kara Unger looks sensational