WOW. What an incredible movie. One of the best of the year.
I took my mom and my aunt out to dinner for their birthday on Friday night, and my mom suggesting subsequently seeing a movie about which Joel Siegel gave favorable comments, which turned out to be Crash.
Incredible.
Crash is a story composed of several interlocking vignettes of various groups of people in L.A. of various races and backgrounds: White, Iranian, Latino, Black, etc., and how their chance interactions with one another are influenced by how they view one another through the prism of their own racist preconceptions. This is not a PC, ABC Afterschool Special exploration of the theme, or even one with any heavy-handed Trek-like proseletyzing or Trademark Happy Ending. The characters are brutally realistic and honest in their expressions of their racist views, their dialogue is raw yet not gratuitous, and while they are all affected one way or another by the story's end, it's isn't all for the better.
The story is well-written in terms of the characters' motivations, the setup-and-payoff aspects of some of the vignettes, and even a couple of instances of Narrative Coincidence do not seem too contrived, because their inherent irony is deliberate, and central to the story.
If you see any movie this year, see this one!
This movie is spectacular, my favorite of the summer so far. Some really great performances, a story that brings out the bad sides and biases of almost every character, and at least one big surprise.
I know racism is everywhere but I never liked L.A., and this movie doesn't push me the other way at all.
There was a 1996 film, also titled Crash. It was directed by David Cronenberg, and starred James Spader, Elias Koteas (the guy who shot Dr. House,), Deborah Kara Unger and Holly Hunter. The plot is basically about people who get sexually aroused over car crashes. To say that the film is strange doesn't begin to describe it. More here.
Yeah, I remember when that one came out. Never saw it, but I remember wondering if there were any funny incidents of people intending to rent this film, but ending up with that one instead. 
Bad Company is a title that's been used by a bunch of movies over the decades. I remember one with Ellen Barkin and Laurence Fishburne that came out when I was in college, and then the action movie with Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock came out a few years ago, which we screened a few times. If you do a title search at imdb, you'll see that there's like 10-12 films with that title.
The "Starz" cable channels began running a series based on the 2004 film this month. Dennis Hopper stars. More here.
"The Agony Booth's" Ryan Lohner has another opinion of this pic...ah, let's just say that he really rips it a new one. At least at one point, he does reference Terms of Endearment, my choice for the least deserving Best Picture Oscar winner ever. You can watch the video review here.