My husband found out conclusively that in this economy it has to be easier to buy illicit crops or contraband than to buy green coffee. In fact it seems there is more trust afforded to underhanded people you know than to trust strangers thinking they are out to rob you.
It was a rough day one of those days when your search and your tasks are trampled by individuals who are eager to assert themselves by disempowering others. "It’s not done" It can’t be done" "I have policies to follow because people have robbed us." So we all get treated liked criminals, thieves and corrupt individuals.
How could the coffee sales people at the public relations office deny a Dad with his two sons some green coffee. what did they expect? What horrible secret could have been uncovered.
So I got a movie to commiserate with… I got Crash. I was ready to see vignettes of other people’s lives, people having good and bad moments, a mixed bag of events and small victories.
I was ready to evaluate the movie as a bit contrived, with its own prejudices and ignorance as it tries to capture reality and depth. The message everybody is a mixed bag of good and bad comes at the expense of there is no plain good people. THus rather than building social trust through humanizing the other the movie reinforces what it is trying to combat – ok so maybe we move from having tunnel vision and being blind to seeing people but our "seeing them" reinforces that we cannot trust "them." All in all, however, I enjoyed the story-telling.
Now that was my evaluation, but little did I expect for my husband to actually walk out frustrated with the misrepresentations and shallow stereotypes used. His criticism like mine was in the lack of realistic rendering of the individuals cast, but it bothered him to no end. To him Hollywood’s sermononizing on race relations was too much for him to handle.
Discussing our disillusionment with the Oscar winning movie, we went on to forget about our difficult day by walking down memory lane and rembering the movies we did like. In no particular order these are some of our favorite movies.
- The Sixth Sense – neat story-telling
- Unbreakable – intriguing story
- The Usual Suspects – suspense good story
- The Mission – sweeping drama beautiful