Ouch

It’s hard to be a contender for “most apparently unwatchable movie released this week” when yet another attempt to turn a video game into a movie hits the screens, but the latest attempt to make a dumbed-down middlebrow Short Cuts about an Important Social Topic — this one about immigration — sure seems to be giving it the ol’ college try:

Crossing Over is an L.A.-based ensemble social-problem melodrama for people who thought Crash was a bit too subtle.

[…]

The most memorable scene is also among the most maladroit ever committed to film, a liquor-store robbery that begins with people getting splattered over the walls and builds to an earnest dialogue about the “sublime promise” on the faces of immigrants about to take the oath of citizenship. The scene is a career-killer. The whole movie is, in a way.

And yet, I also believe Edelstein when he says that “it’s better than Crash.” It’s always worth remembering that, overrated as Slumdog is, the Academy has done far, far, far worse. I mean, when you have history behind you like 1)Masturbates With Camera winning over GoodFellas, and 2)MWC not even being the worst movie nominated…I’d have to say that giving a Best Picture to an entertaining movie that peters out after an hour is one of Oscar’s better years.