Couple of questions about Parasite, which I saw for the first time last night:
I guess what I don’t get is why the father decided to hide out in the underground bunker. My understanding is that Asian prisons aren’t bad at all. Presumably he would be able to get out eventually. Also he’d likely get family visits and regular meals. Life in that bunker has to be worse than a South Korean prison.
I suppose retreating to the bunker would make sense if he was making a plan to get out. For example change appearance, steal some valuables from the German family and get out of Dodge. Start a new life somewhere else. That would be a reasonable strategy. Only downside is that he gets caught and goes to a prison that is nicer than the one he has trapped himself in.
It just seems really weird that he would just decide to trap himself in there forever.
Later tonight, I’m gonna watch Mal Gabson’s latest: Force of Nature.
The description is delightful
There’s arguably nothing the world needs less right now than Force of Nature , a movie starring Mel Gibson and Emile Hirsch as trigger-happy cops with violent pasts and take-no-prisoners attitudes who are tasked with rescuing a Black man, a rookie Latina officer, and a Nazi descendant (and his stolen artwork) from evil Puerto Rican villains during a Category 5 hurricane in San Juan. What would be tasteless retrograde nonsense at any other time resounds during this particular moment in U.S. history as almost cataclysmically tone-deaf and insulting, turning director Michael Polish’s thriller (on VOD June 30) into the year’s most misbegotten venture.
Midsommar was good, but not as good as Hereditary. About 40 minutes too long. I would not recommend watching with someone you’re dating if the relationship isn’t rock solid.
I was wooed by the panache and swagger of QT’s early films, but ultimately when that wore off it seemed there wasn’t enough substance to make his other films appealing.
The fact that he can capture the essence of many different film genres alone makes him pretty great in my opinion. That’s before we consider that several of his movies are master pieces or cult classics.
I liked Once upon a time in Hollywood btw. Definitely not his worst movie. For now I’d rate it somewhere in the middle above Death Proof, the Hateful 8 and maybe Django Unchained. I have only seen it once and maybe it won’t be as rewatchable as some of his other movies.
I think Tarantino is a lot like George Lucas in that once he lost his long-time film editor, it became painfully obvious that she was an essential ingredient to his storytelling. Sally Menke was an amazing film editor, and you need look no further than a comparison between Inglorious Basterds (her last film with him before her death in 2010 at a mere 56 years old) to his first film without her (Django Unchained). The pacing alone falls off a cliff.
I enjoy the first 90% or so of QTs movies, just not really a fan of all the (spoilers) blood orgies at the end. I’m not even against gratuitous violence in movies its just that he does such a great job with the settings, tension, characters, and dialogue its like his safest bet is to just openly shit all over everything because he otherwise doesn’t know how to close.
Not sure I agree there. Such scenes are a foundational part of his taste. You could argue they’re self indulgent, but in that regard, Tarantino is like a lot of narcissistic storytellers. They don’t give a fuck what the audience wants. They tell the story that pleases themselves. Most of the time, those storytellers pass on without ever telling a story that connects with an audience larger than one. But on occasion, their taste connects with huge numbers of people.
We can go the other direction and look at hacks who don’t do anything more than pander to audiences. It’s a careful balance to tell stories true to ourselves while also considering how to make those stories accessible and engaging to others.
