Crash Learning

Paul Haggis's critically-acclaimed Crash (2004) is just as ham-fisted a meditation on race-relations as John Singleton's critically-panned Higher Learning (1995).

It's a fact! Someone had to say it.

You know what THAT means...?

RACISM!!!

Both movies show absurd depictions of racism, making the Avenue Q argument that everyone's a little bit racist (but especially cops). They both end up with cartoon powder-keg versions of the real world where every interaction between people of different hues becomes the potential spark for a full-blown race war. Both bludgeon the viewer with a didactic mallet. At least Higher Learning is funnier.

I'm looking forward to one final visit to Bodymore, Murdaland:

New Yorker article on the final season of THE WIRE.

(Thanks to ds for the heads-up.)