Ticketverse Trades #12: Happy Accidents

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Ticketmaster

In the past, I have done glossary posts, based in part on the comic book industry's "trade paperback" concept, called Ticketverse Trades. As seems appropriate to recent numerology, this is the twelfth such post. But we're doing something a little different this time (and possibly for the last time?). Instead of a quick introduction and a series of links, I decided that, since I have the entire original post of SW@ Ticket #45: Happy Accidents kicking around my hard drive (and I think it's still on Yahoo! Groups somewhere, too), I would just paste that in here and get a bit more mileage out of that post FROM November 22, 2005, back when I was still a big WWE fanboy, skipping Computer Science classes at SDSU to play King of Fighters in their dungeonous arcade and fool around with the music-mixing software that was installed on the University library computers. As you may recall from the last three or so times I included it in a post, Happy Accidents was a collection of movies, which I regarded very highly at the time, but may have begun to show their age and Academy-pandering nature (especially Crash), and which address the strange things that happen when people and metal crunch together unexpectedly.... No Ticketmaster's Note interjections here, just three, seventeen-year-old movie reviews by an aimless twenty-something version of me who had opinions and spoilers to share, and didn't care whether anyone wanted to hear them (except I'm totally self-conscious and proud of my writing, and it's totally obvious because I put it on the internet and all of my current, self-appointed nicknames end in "master."). So here they are for redundancy, posterity, and posteriority:

First, a crash course in Crash: Sandra Bullock, Hustle & Flow's Terrence Howard, MI2's Thandie Newton, Ludacris, and Matt Dillon (in a kinder, gentler asshole role) play a few of the more important strangers who collide (literally) with each other as well as with just about every racial stereotype you can think of.
Dillon is a corrupt cop who stops Newton and Howard on a Driving Under the Influence While Performing Fellatio charge, sexually assaults Newton, and later has to save her from a burning car just as it is about to explode (in movies, aren't they all?). This was the most profound of the stories (obviously, I couldn't remember any others or I would have had GOM's memory allocation chewed up by now), but not by any means the only one.
Crash is done in the telenovela style, complete with extreme close-ups, selectively bold coloring, intertwining tales, and little touches of failed romance and the supernatural, and of course, the race issue. Not that the many racial references in Crash are unwelcome; just that they are nothing new in the world--racism hasn't changed (as is evident early in the film when Luda and friends accuse Bullock of being prejudicially suspicious of them, and then mug her in accordance with said stereotype).
As I always like to say, the lack of newness didn't put me to sleep, so it's all good. Rent it, buy it, pay for keeps.
B+

On to the cheap version of Crash, titled 11:14 and starring Patrick Swayze and Hilary Swank (there are a few other good, low budget names, but I can't think of them right now). Around 11:14pm, a drunken teenager accidentally cuts off his penis while urinating out the window of a moving car, a badboy gets his head crushed by a tombstone during a impromptu bout of graveyard sex, an overprotective father dumps the body of his daughter's boyfriend from an overpass, a town pump tries to scam money away from her multiple boyfriends, and these and multiple other stories converge in a small-town kind of way that keeps you waiting for something bigger, leaves you disappointed in that regard, and is still somewhat satisfying.
There is no ending to 11:14, but because of the film's small scale, there is actual closure. The film is shorter than one would expect from a film with closure and just long enough that the repetitive story elements are not boring. Worth the $3.95, worth buying, but not for serial viewing.
A

Quote of the Issue #1:
"Tied up and twisted/
The way I'd like to be/
For you, for me,/
come crash into me"
-Dave Matthews Band, "Crash Into Me"

Finally, a selection from my International Cinema class: Run, Lola, Run is a mix of live action (emphasis on the action part) and Home Movies-style animation, abundant linear perspective shots, zoom cuts, geometric set design, recurring imagery, flash photography, French techno music, and (need I say it?) Lola running...a lot. When Lola's boyfriend Manni loses a large sum of money given to him by a mob boss, he must get the money back in the next half hour or go home without a head.
What follows the drop of the phone is Lola's mad dash (in three alternate versions) to get the $10K to Manni by noon before he robs the market across the street. First, Lola arrives late, Manni robs the store, and the police shoot her. Then Lola robs her father's bank and stops Manni, who gets hit by an ambulance. Finally, Manni tracks down the bum who stole his money, Lola wins the same amount at a nearby casino, and the two live happily (and richly) ever after. Overly repetitive but not boring, artistic and energetic, just plain cool. Netflix subscribers be on the lookout.
A-

Quote of the Issue #2:
"Deep inside of a parallel/
universe, it's getting harder and harder to tell/
what came first."
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Parallel Universe"

NOTE: For an English-language, music video take on Run, Lola Run!, check out YellowCard's video for "Ocean Avenue" (can be downloaded from your favorite file-sharing service).

Quote of the Issue #3:
"I thought you'd be bigger."
-Road House

Quote of the Issue #4:
"Road House."
-Peter Griffin, Family Guy

SW@,

Ticketmaster,
out.