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In the tradition of "Fagnolia" (err, oops, I meant "Magnolia"), here we have another big sap sandwich with a million main characters that ends with a montage to a whiny chick song, only this time most every character is unabashedly racist. The acting is good, yes, everyone did a good job. However, writer/director Paul Haggis likely scored all these big names not due to his "Million Dollar Baby" script, but because everyone felt like they were saying something "important."

This is the movie Sandra Bullock decided to do in order to finally be referred to as "daring," seeing as how some women were out playing AIDS victims or guys with vaginas while she was wrapping "Miss Congeniality." This is the movie that fourteen-year-old white girls will think is "deep." This is the movie that guys will feel "gay" for having seen. This is the movie that gives you the gist within five minutes, then drags it out over another hour and a half.

I may be ignorant, and I do support the opinion that people make decisions based on race more than they may like to admit for the sake of sounding PC, but I'm pretty damn sure that not every single conversation everyone has ends up as a racial debate or bashing. Even a lovers' quarrel about a guy picking up the phone to talk to his mom in the middle of sex ends up in the chick getting mad that he mistook her Salvadorian roots for Mexican. I am not ashamed to admit that I did not understand this.

What can't be denied is that this flick is somewhat entertaining. What's best about it is the audience -- if you see it, see it on the big screen, preferably in a mostly black theater -- the real show is amongst the crowd. When the racist jokes come out, you'll likely find every black person laughing and every white person keeping their mouth shut until they've taken their cue from the black people that it's okay to laugh.

That's what's great about these stupid dramas that "daring" PC white people manage to pump out once every couple of years, preachies like "White Man's Burden" and "Black&White" -- they're comedies that people of all races can laugh at together. Maybe one day, we'll loosen up enough to the point where white people can grow some balls and understand that it's okay to just laugh when they find something funny, not when they're given permission. That kind of self-inflicted repression is what usually seems to breed the fear that creates racism to begin with. Really, what else is more universally hilarious than a Hollywood after-school special? Go see "Crash" on an interracial date. You'll have a ball.

(unbonged, for the sake of not offending anyone in the world)

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