The Cinephile’s Journey: Crash

Recommendation: 4/5 Stars

The Cinephile’s Journey is an attempt to watch and review every film that has won The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oscar for Best Picture.

Plot: “Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption.”

Review: Looking at a few movie review websites, no Best Picture winner divides like Crash. Reading thoughtful reviews from my fellow critics, I see countless conversations around the trivialization of racial and class divides. I also see talk concerned with an overly simplistic plot and moments of levity that land in awkward moments in the film. Before offering my thoughts on this movie, as part of an attempt to watch and review all Best Picture winners, I want to say these opinions have given me pause and much to consider. Watching this movie as a white man and then reading the opinions from different minority groups opened my eyes to a new world. As you read on, please know I am still wrestling with those opinions and my discomfort.

For three years, I called Los Angeles home. Living there changed the way I absorbed this film and my experience with it. The differences between my initial viewing and the latest are many. Most present for me is that I now possess a better understanding of the complex threads holding together…