Parasite (new Bong Joon Ho movie)

the image stuck in my head is the dogs eating the meat on the skewer stuck in the corpse

yeah that's a good one

at least what it says about the trauma of capitalism is true. it may not be super challenging or whatever but it's otm, and in the form of a slapstick comedy/thriller. for instance, how the trauma of capitalism perpetuates itself across generations and how it's larger than any bogeyman character. idk these aren't exactly the easiest concepts to present in a mainstream film? but tbh i don't watch very many movies so.

quoting myself upthread but if you want to see some other films in the same vein that are as good/better:

Burning=Shoplifters > La Ceremonie =Parasite >>>>Snowpiercer=Sorry to Bother You

haha thanks though i'm not sure i have it in me to watch a film with similar themes for .. a while

it's also in the form of a 32 oz monster energy drink and it was all too much for me tbh.

haha, yeah that's a fair description.

Its central arguments and symbolism are super on-the-nose, but for me they landed with some oomph because the writing, acting and filmmaking were all sharp and often funny. (Until they weren't.) The long scene where they descend and descend and descend from the rich house to their semi-basement apartment, in a growing flood, only to find their home literally submerged in shit — on the paper that's grindingly obvious, but in the execution it was scary and heartbreaking.

I actually liked this more than Burning — or enjoyed it more, I guess. I liked Burning but it felt a little remote to me, unsurprising given its source material.

i dunno, there's so many moments in Burning that felt like pure honest complex dreams to me. it's a more mystical film i guess, don't think i'd say remote?
my sense is that a lot of folks who fell head over heels for parasite (and why it's so very popular) is that audiences are self-congratulating themselves on appreciating the complex class issues of what amounts to a cartoon. but maybe i'm being snobby i dunno.

i have at least four friends who basically never see movies who were raving to me about how brilliant this was and i feel like a total dorkus malorkus saying "yeah, i love the director and i saw this twice and it was... very good" and then they're all like "WHY DON'T YOU LOVE IT?!?!?" and there's no way to adequately explain that without referencing a lot of his films and other people's films that i know they haven't seen.

maybe the right answer to "why don't you love it" is to give them a thumb drive with Mother and Memories of Murder on it and ask them to check back with me in three months when they get around to watching it to see it they agree?

i was SO taken with those two movies and then host was such a great oddball genre film that i was psyched to go wherever this guy wanted to go and then, well, snowpiercer.
with parasite, i think i've come to the conclusion that Bong is an immense and great stylist but that he's not going to likely level up into something more highbrow and affecting now that he has more money and fame a'la Park Chan Wook or Lynch. Maybe you could make a comparison to Miike? Dunno.

Yeah he's definitely more of a populist/popcorn director than e.g. Lee Chang-dong. But he's an interesting and talented one, I think. I agree that Mother is probably his best movie, and it is surprising in a lot of ways — stylistically and narratively — that Parasite isn't.

i really like him! i'm just in the unpleasant indie fuck position of being unable to avoid saying "his earlier films are much better"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCqjR1gHyIQ
in any case your post made me realize i should see more Chang-dong, so thanks for that! recommendation for the best one to jump into?

Besides Burning I only know Secret Sunshine and Poetry, both good.

will try poetry and report back

mother was the one for me too

it's been a while but i remember thinking it was on par with great hitchcock

I liked this a lot more than Burning but I would never think to compare them.

I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

Count me among those who haven't ever really gotten terribly into this dude's work up until this movie and fully embraced the crossover. Enjoy re-rewatching The Host to the rest of you, tho.

oh hey if you want another class warfare movie from this year (and one that will definitely be in my faves of 2019), try 'The Last Black Man in San Francisco'

Parasite was so good that I don't want to see any other class warfare movie from this or any other year ever again. If anyone puts on The Last Black Man in San Francisco while I'm in the room I'm getting up and leaving.

that's the spirit!

oh hey, here's another one you'll want to leave the room for that I just remembered that's not so much class warfare as an eco-comedy/drama with a lot of bong's penchant for comic bookish magic realism: Woman at War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2v3_jHrvBQ

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/drqrii/im_bong_joon_ho_director_of_parasite_ama/

Parasite is the best move ive seen this year

Snowpiercer was also great craic

this was ridiculously entertaining, and powerful at the end. definitely preferred this to snowpiercer and okja (okja was similarly structured for maximum gut-punch), and the cast was incredibly charming.

i liked snowpiercer a lot, it's dumb but imo dumb things are good

this movie was excellent though. i would like to vigorously disagree with everyone upthread and say the climax is the best part

besides the ghost scene

i've avoided seeing Okja because he is sure as shit gonna make me feel for the big hippo thing and then kill it. i've played the last guardian; can't fool me again

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, October 27, 2019 8:41 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

has anyone informed you that doesn't happen

though the ending *is* depressing in a fundamentally similar way

the flooding scene in this movie made me wanna die

okja is really bad imho but this is incredible, best dark comedy since get out

“Fundamentally similar” is close enough for me thanks

i did not enjoy okja but i'm glad i got to see that jake gyllenhaal performance anyway

Sister sitting on top of the toilet smoking in the flooding bathroom was an incredible shot, imo

is there a thread for the lighthouse yet?

arr it be The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) - Pattinson, Dafoe, sea shanties

saw this in the theater tonight. really really amazing movie

i have at least four friends who basically never see movies who were raving to me about how brilliant this was

this is me right now

Sister sitting on top of the toilet smoking in the flooding bathroom was an incredible shot, imo

― president of deluded fruitcakes anonymous (silby), Saturday, November 9, 2019 10:12 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Very otm

jeez i can't stop thinking about this movie lol

Watching The Host just cause of this movie. Loved it.

the comedy in the first half was amazing. when 1/4 of the pizza boxes are folded badly and they look at the father lmao

many xps back to tipsy but i watched chang-dong's Poetry and it was fucking devastating. i see what you mean about "enjoying" Bong's work more, it's certainly easier on the palate and the soul! both are master filmmakers tho and I'm looking forward to strapping on the emotional armor and trying again with another film.

I saw this tonight and thought it was great. It was so well executed that its heavy-handedness didn't bother me. Besides Snowpiercer and Burning I haven't seen any of the respective directors' stuff so I'm stoked now to explore their filmographies :)

liked this a lot, though one small moment that irked me (SPOILERS) was when Mr. Park turned over the basement guy's body to get the keys and then actually holds his nose. I get that it was the impetus for the dad to flip out and stab Mr. Park but there had to be a better way to get to that moment. I know Mr. Park was a rich asshole but it still felt very false to me that your son just got stabbed and you're frantically trying to save him and yet somehow, instinctively I guess, you take that extra second to physically hold your nose?

there's more than a few moments like that, played for theatrical clarity to the rafters, and they're among the reasons that I find the "BRILLIANT FILM DEMOLISHES THE ELITES" criticism a bit silly.

they should have included odorama scratch-n-sniff cards.

dude's been living in a basement with no shower or sunlight for like 10 years, he probably smells pretty awful

TBF he probably got to shower from time to time when his wife was the housekeeper. But he definitely hadn't bathed in several weeks by the time Mr. Park smelled him.

We went to a few things at GFF last year as well and it's strange thinking back now. The last things I saw were Bacurau, which was utterly packed out in a hot cinema 2, and Children Of Men.

My last was Portrait of a Lady On Fire which, bizarrely, was mentioned in Coronation Street last night using both the French and English titles.

I've been making Jjapaguri (a combination of Chapagetti and Neoguri), consisting of two different types of ramen and flavored with black bean sauce and shrimp broth. It is not made into a soup but eaten with less liquid as a savory noodle dish.

It was featured in that scene where Jang Hye-jin as Chung Sook the replacement housekeeper/cook was frantically making up a dish to satisfy the lady owner who was coming home. She made it by adding big sauteed chunks of sirloin

Just watched this over the weekend with my 19 year old son, at his recommendation. The entire cast is a treasure.

After seeing this a little while ago, I watched Memories of Murder and the short film Influenza last week. They're all powerful and feats of impressive control; maybe he's yet to make (or I've yet to see) the film that really connects in a deeper way.

So guys

This film is pretty good fyi

Well done.

I got there in the end!

But have you seen The Host?

I've scheduled that one for 2034

you should also check out Memories of Murder before the end of the century

otm

I tried watching this recently and for whatever reason, it gets way too suspenseful for me. There's a certain kind of suspense that has always caused me enormous levels of stress - that in which the protagonist is about to get caught doing something they shouldn't be. That scene seems like a masterful take on that, but unfortunately, fight or flight kicks in for me and my response is to turn the TV off and run out of the room. The first part where I shut it off was...

...when the Park family is coming home when their camping trip gets rained out and everybody is hurrying to hide. Ki-jung sliding under the coffee table as the family came walking up the stairs was just nightmarish levels of suspense for me and I noped out.

Then I left the movie off for about a month. I had allowed myself to come to terms with action of the movie and it had mellowed a little in my mind. I had thought that the suspense probably couldn't get any higher and it would taper off quickly, so I made another attempt at finishing it in the last week or so. And I got just a few minutes until...

...Mrs. Kim kicks the old housekeeper down the stairs (and might have broken her neck???).

I kinda would like to finish the movie (and last time I watched it, Hulu said it was on it's way out, so I might have missed my chance), but it also might just not be for me.

...at which point I couldn't deal with it and had to shut it off again.

the tension is masterfully delivered

yeah, scenes like that are tough for me also! i remember an INCREDIBLE feeling of tension in the theater in those parts; the coffee-table scene is what my brain goes to when i picture this movie. i also remember a really vivid sense that i was sharing this same nightmare with a couple hundred other people. i think that made it easier to bear, in a way?

i rewatched the host recently for the first time since i saw it in theaters and i did not love it as much as i remembered loving it. but i also saw memories of murder for the first time and that one is amazing. anyone who loves zodiac should also watch memories of murder, they are very similar conceptually in a lot of ways.

I’ve been wanting to watch MoM for so long but my wife is incredibly squeamish so might need to find a solo night

its such a tonally rich and strange and playful movie but when it wants to hit you, oof