Category Archives: Movies

I don’t watch many movies, but I have seen a handful from Christmas till now which I will recap. Due to my Irish Writers English class, I just saw three fantastic movies about Ireland and the Irish. In the Name of the Father, with Daniel Day-Lewis, tells the story of some young guys wrongly imprisoned for an IRA bombing. Surprisingly relevant to current events with terrorism, jailing people without charges, judicial system, etc. Omagh re-creates the tragic Real IRA bombing of 1998 in Omagh, Ireland, and follows the story of a father trying to track down the bombers. Good stuff. In America shows an Irish family immigrate to New York City, try to adjust to American ways, and struggle to stay together while mourning the death of a family member who was killed in Ireland falling down stairs.

Outside of the Irish canon, I’ve seen The War Room (fantastic political documentary of Clinton’s 1992 campaign), Wedding Crashers (hilarious and raunchy), March of the Penguins (watch half it), and 25th Hour (pass).

I feel like I’ve thought about race every day for the past year. Everyday there’s a little something which puts it on the radar screen. Maybe the racist joke by a friend which is hilarious but wrong. Maybe the not-so-subtle discrimination from which I benefit. Maybe the affirmative action from which I hurt. Or maybe it’s movies like Crash, or American History X which I saw tonight.

After I posted about Crash a few weeks ago a friend recommended American History X. I only watch movies if it comes highly recommended (but it doesn’t matter how much you recommend a TV show – I will never watch TV live). American History X shook me up like Crash did. This time it showed the extreme side of racism: neo-Nazis and how one man’s prison time changed his outlook. What I liked about Crash was that you left feeling like the problem exists on a very everyday level, on the corner of any street. American History X lets the viewer feel like it’s a problem that only exists on the fringes, but it is instructive and moving nonetheless.

I don’t watch TV and I don’t usually watch movies, unless it comes highly recommended That was the case with Crash, so this evening I walked up the street to the University of California, San Francisco medical center where, in their theater, they were showing Crash for free as part of their psychiatry department’s series on diversity.

The movie totally blew me away, shook me up, and got me thinking. Stop what you’re doing and add it to your Netflix queue or go find another way to see it.

Its premise is race relations in LA. Quality acting. Awesome film work. And a really important issue conveyed with provocative passion.

Walking home in the cool, foggy San Francisco night, my Mom and I stopped at an Irainian restaurant to to pick up some shishkababs to go. We felt like we had walked right back into the movie – we had to pronounce our order extra carefully for the non native to understand us. There was an Asian couple in the Middle Eastern restaurant. And a white woman talking on the phone the whole time while her husband sat silently. All the plot developments in the movie played out five minutes later in real life. That’s the best part of being in a major metropolis.

Go watch Crash, and let me know what you think.