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EW review: 'Crash' shakes things up

By Kirven Blount
Entertainment Weekly

Crash
Larenz Tate and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges in "Crash."

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS

Sandra Bullock
Don Cheadle

(Entertainment Weekly) -- Don't you hate Canadians?

Take this guy Paul Haggis: He sneaks over the border and takes food out of our mouths by stealing TV writing jobs ("thirtysomething," "Diff'rent Strokes," "Walker, Texas Ranger" ...), and now he's trying to teach us lessons about intolerance in America? I mean, seriously, these people are a problem.

And ... cut.

If one thing is made clear by the "Crash" commentary (with the aforementioned Canadian, co-writer Bobby Moresco, and star/producer Don Cheadle) and the behind-the-scenes doc, it's that Haggis is in love with every frame of what he calls a "passion piece." And bully for him: He achieved something admirable in bringing Hollywood storytelling formulas to bear in confronting the mother of all incendiary topics.

The carefully crafted script deals in what Cheadle calls "the things that you don't say," and while Haggis says he wants "to polarize people ... once you get people angry, you get them talking," he does so via a digestible format, with soaring emotional beats, neatly woven threads, and suspiciously convenient encounters between characters.

At the same time, he spurs some of his actors (principally Matt Dillon and Sandra Bullock) to mine emotional reserves no one knew they had. "The hope is that it won't be medicine," says producer Cathy Schulman, that "it'll be an exciting ride," and it certainly is that.

But thanks to Team Haggis' loyalty to the idea that, as Moresco explains, they had to avoid "trying to be politically correct" in discussing race, what they encountered was a slashed budget, pay cuts all around, and the queasy feeling that their baby would never see the screen. Don't you hate studio executives?

EW Grade: A

'Lost: The Complete First Season'

Reviewed by Dalton Ross

Okay, we all know this ABC drama rules, so let's just go straight to the EXTRAS.

The bonus features are as insanely comprehensive as the show is confusing. Not only do cast and crew contribute five commentary tracks (creator J.J. Abrams explains that Matthew Fox's No. 5 tattoo will become "a crucial defining character point" for Jack going forward), but they actually stop the pilot episode occasionally to show behind-the-scenes footage, like a four-ton chunk of flaming airplane engine accidentally falling near actor Dominic Monaghan.

An hour-long series of docs -- including a fascinating one on how they bought a plane, destroyed it, and shipped it over to Hawaii -- covers nearly every aspect of filming the pilot, while a separate doc goes through the entire season. Locke (Terry O'Quinn) teaches Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) how to spot a liar in one of 13 deleted scenes, and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) goes tie shopping in one of two previously unseen flashbacks.

And we could tell you where to find secret audio transmissions from Danielle, as well as an alternate title sequence, but c'mon -- what fun would that be?


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