Test: Can you find something -- a shot or a cut or a line -- in this trailer for "Crash" -- The Dramatic New Original Series Only On Starz -- that isn't a howler of a cliché? Ready? Let's see, it begins with someone who sounds suspiciously like the late Don LaFontaine intoning:
"Everyone's chasing something. And when they find it, they want more."
(Imagine that prefaced by: "In a world where...")
And then (just like the movie) characters define themselves in didactic speeches. Maybe it's Brechtian. Sometimes they actually look into the camera and tell you who they are and what they "want." Those parts may have been shot just for the trailer, but the effect is very like the Academy Award-winning movie:
"I don't break the rules. I, uh, bend 'em."
"I deserve their respect. As a cop. And as a woman."
"With that much cash you can buy your American Dream."
"I'm willing to cross a line."
"I need to bury my past... before it buries me."
"I have everything I need. And nothing I want."
"Don't you worry about my husband. I'll handle him."
"I have risked everything for a chance at a new life."
"That guy was stinking rich!"
"Since when do we rob our own?"
"To the future!"
"Chill, man, chill!"
"You're crazy, man!"
"From the producers of the Academy Award-winning film... comes the explosive new drama... that will take you to the edge... and, when you least expect it... Push... You... Over."
October 17. Be there.
NOTE: For those who may be wondering about the title of this post: Like new Shimmer (and, for that matter, Ol' Fisherman's Sticky Pads and Vaunnies Mustardayonnaiseand Stenson's Mayostard and Mundees Mustmayostardaionnaise), "Crash" now has two uses: It's a movie AND a TV show!
(tip: Ali Arikan)
"Here, I'll put some on your mop, and some on your butterscotch pudding!"
Good to see that the translation to the small screen has lost none of the subtlety of the original.
Scanners Community Challenge: Re-edit this sublime trailer to make it look like a screwball comedy. Extra points for using Judas Priest's Hell Bent for Leather on the soundtrack.
When are we going to get the series inspired by David Cronenberg's 'Crash'?
I predict this will be as big a hit as the "Barbershop" TV show. Bigger even!
Seeing this just reminds me of how Brokeback Mountain got robbed at the Oscar for this message-driven drivel. (And I know that makes me a hypocrite for supporting Oliver Stone but hey F. Scott Fitzgerald said a great mind has to be able to hold two opposing ideas in it's head at the same time:like the L.A. police department is racist and O.J. did it)
Remember back when Dennis Hopper was in good movies like "Blue Velvet" and "True Romance?" And good television shows like the first season of "24"? Those were the days.
P.S. Love the Mr. Show references Jim!
Sometimes I wonder how these writers find work. Don't the producers ever look over the script and say "Are you serious? I paid you good money to write this."
I ghost write for a living. I make about seven bucks a page, but even so, I like to think I have too much integrity to write nothing but uninspired cliches.
And here I thought I that they were trying to compete with Cinemax by turning Cronenberg's "Crash" into a series.
LOL, I actually liked a couple of these:
"With that much cash you can buy your American Dream."
"I need to bury my past... before it buries me."
Maybe I'm naive, but I've never heard those before. Cliche? Doesn't feel that way to me. Maybe it's not realistic dialogue, but that doesn't mean it's a "howler of a cliche," per se.
Also, would anybody here like to guess what I stuck up my butt today?
"I'm spreading Mayostard, Mustardayonnaise...and time!"
It's nice to see that "Crash" is going to be the "Law & Order"/"SVU"/"ER"/"The Sopranos"/"Boomtown" hybrid that we've been looking for.
Damn, I briefly got slightly optimistic about this series when I saw the writing staff. They've got significant contributors from The Wire, The Shield, The Sopranos, and Deadwood on staff. So much for that.
lol dennis hopper.
that is all.
-joe
"I make this sound almost like episodic TV."
Reading this in Roger's review for the movie, it was hard not to think this is probably where the producers got the idea for the show. If it was, they didn't finish the paragraph:
"...Haggis writes with such directness and such a good ear for everyday speech that the characters seem real and plausible after only a few words. His cast is uniformly strong; the actors sidestep cliches and make their characters particular."
It's supposed to be a comedy, right? Do they really intend for me to take Dennis Hopper's lines seriously? Or that "William Tell" shot? They can't possibly expect me to take that seriously. Right? There can't be a room full of sentient beings on this planet that think this looks like high drama, right?
Wow. M&Ms, now in red! Exciting, real, true, stories. Jezus, what is this dreck!
Geez, you make it sound almost as bad as the movie. Give it a chance before you put it in such wretched company. :)
And Scum, the world's first combined hair oil, foot ointment, and salad dressing.
"I deserve their respect. As a cop. And as a woman."
from the archives of Sarah Palin?
At least there's an actual Asian character this time.
"To the future!"
Christopher Lloyd's in this???
wow, um, I don't even know what to say. I thought the movie Crash was laugh out loud terrible in its over-simplification of race issues in LA and America and it had some of the hammiest performances I've ever seen. Sandra Bullock chews the scenery like nothing I've seen before "you are my best friend" that it's come to this is truly suprising since the whole point was to make all the cliche stories come to a contrived ending.