Smash cut to every Sinclair 10 o’clock news anchor: “An old film has sparked a new viral challenge, and parents… you’re going to want to hide the car keys.”
I wrote an essay on the film as an adaptation at university, back when you rented films from Blockbuster. The guys there thought I was super kinky as I think I had it rented for 3 weeks. Great film. The scene where Arquette’s pins rip the Benz’s leather? Chefs kiss.
I'm a Gen X/Millennial cusper currently catching up on major director and auteur fimographies, and Crash is one of my huge Cronenberg blind spots. Carpenter (no blind spots there) is hands-down my favorite director, so I'm game to explore Jamelle's query, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.
Gotta be honest, I just glanced at this thread and thought you were talking about Crash (2004), which made me have a minor memory crisis as I kept thinking, "Wait, I thought he had good movie taste?"
i'm 22 and watched it for the first time a couple months ago, i liked it a lot. i'd heard of it just as the "car fucking" movie before, i was rly interested in it especially w the class dynamics between vaughan and james' cars and lifestyles. it's on my long not-in-order "favs of all time" list now
My wife was doing a puzzle while I was watching Lynch's Inland Empire, and she had a similar response when she happened to look up during one of the rabbit scenes
True story: I watched the movie when it came out in Toronto. People were fine with all the sex UNTIL the two men kissed. Then a few people left the theatre.
That was my moviegoing experience with that film as well! That was the “breaking point” for people expecting a (cis-het) porno when the theaters restricted the audience to “adults only.”
Every overblown Message Movie should get a psychosexual counterpart with the same name. Why just “Crash”? Like please let Cronenberg do his own “Three Billboards.”
When I was in high school in the 90s, I didn't have cable. I asked a girl to record episodes of South Park to VHS for me. She recorded the first 10 minutes of the Christmas Poo episode, then immediately cut to all the sex scenes from Crash. I never got the hint...
Granted this was a critical studies class for college seniors but we all enjoyed it, though there was definitely a case of the just-laugh-at-it syndrome people have for any kind of strange cinema.
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I recall a witty film critic writing “when Holly Hunter flashes her tit, I assume that’s Canadian for ‘do you have insurance?’”
https://366weirdmovies.com/apocrypha-candidate-crash-1996/
Thankfully, false alarm!
(I acknowledge Cronenberg’s genius and simply do not enjoy being Confronted like that)
Though, now I'd also like to know how a zoomer would react to Crash (2004).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PtCuTKtBwI