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Wednesday, October 23, 2019

#30: Parasite (Gisaengchung)

The best plan is no plan at all.

The return of Bong Joon-Ho! At least to Western Audiences like myself. There could very well be other films between "Okja" and this I have not heard of.

I enjoyed "Snowpiercer" but thought "Okja" left something to be desired. But a story about the poor infiltrating the lives of the rich? I love to see it.

It gets a little batshit at the top of the hour before lurking a bit more into "Oh boy, we have to deal with this now." After the Kim family is tangled up with the former housekeeper, who was also hiding secrets under her employer's nose.

You get a serious feel for everyone's personality despite it being a cool 2 hours long with multiple characters, though of course, some get more attention than others.

You notice that Mrs. Park is continually using the family for more and more things she really should hire some handymen to do instead of a lone older woman.  The Park family grows into the obliviousness that many rich people take akin to a drug after being relatively reasonable in the first half.

It's only batshit insane if you've never seen a South Korean movie before, but it's still pretty insane and well worth the watch.

Admire the layers of acting everyone in the Kim family had, I especially admire Park So-Dam as Kim Ki-jung.

This must be a shoe-in for Best International Film.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Trailer Monday: Or, "The Author is recalled As Saying 'Thank God, Those Are My Boys!' " Edition




The long-awaited second trailer to THE RISE OF SKYWALKER and the somewhat-long-awaited by me and another 6 people trailer to BLOODSHOT.


Sunday, October 13, 2019

#29: Little Monsters (2019)

Out of this fall/winter's film (and semi-film) lineup of faves, I had completely forgotten about this one. Of course, I had no idea if it would get a US release.

The hilarity comes from the absurdity of the situation, from usually-child-friendly Josh Gad swearing and mentions of sex addiction to  "There are little kids in the middle of a zombie outbreak".

Which is a great idea, but the wee mites are set dressing for something more interesting that never comes. Much of the movie is situated in one area, there are typical story and character beats.

No one is terrible, the script is underwhelming. I am super interested to know why Lupita Nyong'o picked this project in particular. It's a nice change from her even if it doesn't go all of the way.

I wish it had been a little longer and a little more serious, but it's nice.

Though, there is nothing more on brand at having the US military go into a foriegn land and attempt to kill children.

5 Kung Fu Panda 4

 I'm such a big fan of the first one, but ... They made this out of a studio mandate and completely stripped the character from it. The ...