When You Wake I Will Drive You Into Town

Have you ever had one of those movies that every one of your friends has seen before you? And as the weeks drag on after the movie premieres or is released on DVD, people are constantly talking about said movie? It doesn't help that my current "that movie" was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture.

To answer your query, the movie I am speaking of is Crash. About a week ago, Erin Dimas and I were talking about movies and she asked me if I had seen Crash. When I told her that I had not, she told me that she would let me borrow her copy. Since she she brought it up to the SA Office, it has been sitting here on the corner of my desk up until this very moment. I'm pretty sure that it not really even a movie anymore. It has now become something of a conversation piece. It is my way of becoming all things to all people.

You see, when you have not seen a movie that everyone else has seen, it is somehow always the subject of conversation. People walk into my office, look at my desk, and immediately begin asking me about the movie. I walk into my apartment and my roommate and his girlfriend are talking about the movie. "Justin, have you seen Crash?" I answer with a simple no, but how do I tell them that this has become an oddly enjoyable game. I wonder how much the movie will be built up in my mind before I just take the DVD out of the box and use it to kill someone much like Oddjob in the James Bond series.

At this point, there is no way the movie could possibly live up to the comparisons that have been made by the myriad of people that have come into my office and offered their best impressions of Ebert and Roeper. I mean, even the cover of the DVD has a review from David Denby of The New Yorker stating that it is "easily the strongest American film since Mystic River." I loved Mystic River. This movie could be Citizen Kane and I would be disappointed.

My parents did this one time to some of our friends with the movie A Christmas Story. This is back before the current days where the film is whored out by Ted Turner for 24-hours each Christmas, where it was still a bit of a cult classic. My parents constantly told this couple about how funny the movie was and I'm pretty sure that my Dad enjoys it because he did a lot of the same things as Ralphie when he was growing up in Indiana. I'm not even sure how many times I have heard my Mom quote the lines about Ralphie's position as an aficionado of soap, but it's somewhere in the 1000's.

Anyhow...these people came over to watch the movie one night during the holiday season and were utterly disappointed. They looked at my parents during the movie like I look at some of my friends who tell jokes that have a "you had to be there" requirement, but the difference was they were there. My parents were apopoleptic. How could anyone not love that movie Justin? That movie is great!

I'm not saying that it is fate, but I can see myself heading the same direction as our friends with Crash. Sometimes you just know too much for your own good.