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LA Observed passed along this press release from the Mayor's office announcing the transformation of the city of Los Angeles into a publicity instrument for the release of Crash's director's cut DVD:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles City Council and Police Chief William Bratton will honor Lionsgate, Paul Haggis, the producers, cast and crew of three-time Academy Award winning Best Picture "Crash" in a City Hall ceremony on April 4, 2006, at 10 AM. This honor coincides with the DVD release of Crash Director's Cut Edition.

During the ceremony the Mayor and Council will designate April 4th as "Crash / FilmL.A. Day" in the City of Los Angeles in recognition of the award winning film, shot almost entirely within the City of Los Angeles.

"Our City is proud of Lionsgate and the cast and crew of Crash for this powerful film, which was shot almost entirely on the streets of Los Angeles," said Mayor Villaraigosa. "In the most diverse City in the world, we live and work side by side with people from different backgrounds, but we seldom talk about — and learn — from our differences. Art is meant to provoke, Crash certainly has and will continue to do so for years to come."

Perhaps even more disquieting than the notion that Lionsgate somehow didn't allow Haggis to fully realize his heavy-handed vision in the version that won Best Picture (we hear that in the Director's Cut, the entire movie will be split-screened with a continuous loop of the Rodney King video) is the thought of what Crash Day might entail—if the movie's vision of LA is important and accurate enough to merit this kind of recognition, a Very Special Day of staged carjackings, racially motivated traffic-stop fondlings, and redemptive, colorblind car-fire rescues seems completely unnecessary, even if there's a new DVD that needs promoting.