Network

or... my final term paper.

Here's the link to my final paper: http://theafibest100.blogspot.com/2005/12/66-network-1976.html

This is the email I sent to my professor:

Dr. G

I had never seen this film before I asked to review it for my final paper. I thought that if I asked for a film like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", which I have seen dozens of times (and I even went as Nurse Ratched for Halloween a few times!) I wouldn't be able to view it in the way I wanted to view it for this particular assignment. I am so glad that I did. Upon first viewing I thought "what have I done??" But after watching it many more times, I have come to appreciate it more and more.

One thing I had a bit of trouble with was references. I don't usually like to listen to director's commentary- and I loathe reading uptight critics viewpoints of films because they are usually banal and not well thought out. (Although I have tremendous respect for Roger Ebert and ESPECIALLY Leonard Maltin, the only two real critics as far as I'm concerned.) Mostly I don't like doing this because I feel that I need to form my own opinions on films and many "opinions" are simple regurgitations of other's or director's commentaries.

I have to say that I really enjoyed this class, although I probably would have liked it more had it been a "real" class and not an online one. This is my first ever online class. Nevertheless, it has been a treat.

I am graduating this semester with my AA and have been accepted to UCF (not my first choice, but it's close to Valencia and a girl's gotta eat and pay the bills, y'know?) to get my Bachelor's with a major in Cinema Studies and a minor in Journalism. I hope that I can do you proud when I, myself, become a real critic.

Now that I've said that, here's my blog where I try to dabble in critiquery http://www.thecritiquery.blogspot.com/... Feel free to leave a comment whenever you like. My Comp II professor from a few semesters ago visits quite often, and we rarely see eye-to-eye on films. I love a good thought provoking comment.

So, without further ado, here's my paper. I hope that you enjoy it and that it is what you were looking for.

Susan

Crash

Best picture?? Uhm.... yeah. Not exactly.

What we have here, folks, is a marriage between "Traffic" (not a bad film, but very long) and Spike Lee, with his basic "everyone hates a black man" attitude.

Crash is brought to you by the same writer of "Million Dollar Baby", which I still maintain is a good film, apart from the political views. The thing with MDB, though, is the political views didn't really appear until the last 30 minutes of the film. Crash, however, is political from beginning to end. Granted, in MDB, Paul Haggis throws in the "white trash" stereotype; in "Crash", he throws in every other stereotype known to man. The black man is all about the money. The spoiled rich white girl is suspicious of everyone of color. The Mexican is just trying to make a living. The Persian is a proprietor of a store- how novel. Everyone hates each other because of the stereotypes that have been cast on society.

So why is it Paul Haggis doesn't make it so that these stereotypes are completely false? He lets everyone play right into them. Ludacris and Larenz Tate are the stereotypical black men looking to steal a car, Matt Dillon is a racist cop and Ryan Phillipe is his goody-two-shoes partner who is so enveloped in racism that he begins to doubt himself and becomes one... and who, other than Ryan Phillipe's character didn't know what Larenz Tate was pulling out of his pocket? There were so many stereotypes in this film that I can't even name them all. Everyone is a racist, yet (*cue Dean Martin) everybody loves somebody sometime.......

I don't know.... it all seemed a little too contrived for my taste. The little girl was adorable, and the end of the Ludacris story was pretty touching, and Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton's second meeting was very powerful, but not because he has some sudden change of heart. It was just suspenseful. And it was clear that he felt a little remorse, but not because of what he did, because he might lose his job over it because his partner was a snitch. So all of a sudden, he finally sees her as a person and not a black woman so he helps her? Contrived. And can I just say that had she not been blowing her husband in the car in the first place, who knows what may have happened? But God forbid she allow her husband to take some responsibility for that. She has to be the victim. Granted, what Dillon did was wrong- VERY wrong. But they weren't exactly innocent people. At first it was a case of mistaken identity, but they were breaking the law- did she forget that?

The ending of the film was a little predictable (I mean, who couldn't tell that there was one final connection coming?) but I couldn't relate or connect with a single character in the film. All racism in the film was over the top racism; even Don Cheadle's character tries to get his mother's goat by saying that he's sleeping with a white woman and she's not even white. It was just another one of Haggis's attempts to throw the world's problems in our faces in the vain hope that everyone will change and we will no longer have these problems. John Stewart said it best at the Oscars... (and I'm paraphrasing) "...and we never had a single problem again!!" I mean, come on.

It was really just okay. I wasn't blown away, and the in your face racism was intolerable as far as I'm concerned.