An outstanding profile of Bong Joon Ho up at Vulture: [link]

The bit about Weinstein's attempt to wrestle the final cut of Snowpiercer from Bong's hands in particular is DELIGHTFUL.

Bong remembers one fateful meeting in Tribeca when he and Weinstein watched the movie together. "Wow, you are a genius," he would say. "Let's cut out the dialogue."

Bong was at a loss: Cutting 25 minutes felt like taking out a major organ. Without the dialogue, the movie became incoherent; character motivation made no sense. That day, he managed to save one scene, the moment when a train guard guts a fish in front of the rebels as a show of intimidation. Bong and his cinematographer loved that shot. "Harvey hated it. Why fish? We need action!" Bong remembers. "I had a headache in that moment: What do I do? So suddenly, I said, 'Harvey, this shot means something to me.' "

"Oh, Bong? What?" Bong-as-Harvey booms.

"It's something personal," Bong replies. "My father was a fisherman. I'm dedicating this shot to my father."

Weinstein relents immediately: "You should have said something earlier, Bong! Family is the most important. You have the shot."

"I said, 'Thank you,'" Bong says, laughing. "It was a fucking lie. My father was not a fisherman."

The fish is possibly my favourite weird detail in all of Snowpiercer (a movie filled to brim with weird details), so that made me cackle like a hyena. And I loved the part that covered his early career in Korea. Bong and I are contemporaries, and I remember those daily demonstrations and tear gas smell like it was yesterday. (It's a sense memory inextricable from my adolescence. Like, I developed phantom stinging in the back of my throat just from reading the profile. Or maybe it's allergies, heh.)

Parasite opens in limited release in New York and parts of LA this weekend, followed by an extreeeeeeamly slow rollout elsewhere. You can find out when it will play in your city here: [link]

Pittsburgh doesn't even have a showtime scheduled, but I'm hoping it'll come here by November. I am chomping at bits to see it again. Have I mentioned that it's my favourite film of the year? I cannot wait for all of you to see it so that we could yell about it together.

None for Seattle yet, either. Damn it (though maybe it's for the best that it's not here yet, seeing as I'm still recovering from kidney stone removal and couldn't sit through a movie). I really, really want to see it.

Great profile. He's such a brilliant director.

There are many big cities missing on that rollout list. If it does well in NY and LA, it will probably go a lot wider. The big question mark is whether people will turn out in enough numbers in theater for a subtitled film. It's an incredibly accessible movie once you're there -- it's a real crowd-pleaser, funny and sharp and dazzling, not slow or esoteric at all. But you gotta have those butts on the seats first.

He's such a brilliant director.

I love him a lot. PSA: his brilliant earlier work, Memories of Murder, is streaming on Amazon Prime right now. Okja and Snowpiercer are on Netflix, I believe. I still need to catch up with Mother (not to be confused with Aranosky's Mother!), which some people think is his best work.

Arlington is the closest place Parasite is showing to me, but I have gone more than 100 miles to see a movie before, so I might go see it there.

It's playing at a film festival in Chapel Hill this weekend, but the tickets to each screening are over $20.00, and it looks like it's coming to the Alamo Drafthouse in Raleigh starting Nov. 6, so I may just wait.

Thanks for the link! I really want to see it.

Just got back from seeing Parasite at the Mill Valley Film Festival and all I can say is believe the hype (and also believe the people who say go into it knowing as little as possible).

I also saw Carmilla, which in no way resembles the original story by Le Fanu but is absolutely gorgeous in an "every frame a painting" way.

Just got back from seeing Parasite at the Mill Valley Film Festival and all I can say is believe the hype (and also believe the people who say go into it knowing as little as possible).

Yep. The hype is out of control, at least in the film twitter circuit I'm following, but it's one instance where that might be deserved.

Belatedly, I should mention that the Bong Joon Ho profile linked upthread has mild spoilers for the film, in so far as it describes the basic premise of the movie and some of the reactions it elicited. If you want to remain pure as driven snow, don't read the profile or just skip the paragraphs when it gets to the parts (there are a couple) where the interviewer describes the film.

I also saw Carmilla, which in no way resembles the original story by Le Fanu but is absolutely gorgeous in an "every frame a painting" way.

Oooh. Never heard of this before but it sounds intriguing. BTW, I was just at the festival web page and apparently the poor organizers are trying to make contingency plans in case the screening theater gets hit with the power outage issues affecting the Bay area? That whole thing sounds utterly fuckwitted. My sympathies to those of you affected by the outage!

BTW, I was just at the festival web page and apparently the poor organizers are trying to make contingency plans in case the screening theater gets hit with the power outage issues affecting the Bay area? That whole thing sounds utterly fuckwitted. My sympathies to those of you affected by the outage!

Yes, but they have venues in multiple towns and I think only one may be affected. I was sort of surprised because the original PG&E map didn't show any of the festival towns affected. (Nor are those of us in SF proper supposed to be.) I have tickets for Hirokazu Kore-eda's La Verité on Saturday so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

New trailer for Marriage Story: [link]

One of my favourite films from TIFF. The entire cast is phenomenal across the board. I legit teared up a little just watching the trailer. Prepare yourself to be emotionally destroyed, mhwahahaha!! *ahem* That said, it's never bleak, and the way it navigates through the Divorce Industrial Complex is quite funny in an absurdist-comedy type fashion.

Driver, Johansson and Dern have Oscar noms in the bag, and if Alan Alda makes it to the Best Supporting (a bit of a longer shot), it would be 4 for 4. Can't remember last time that happened.

FYI, they added a bunch of new cities for Parasite rollout. Chicago, SF, Washington DC etc. for this weekend, and many others for the next weekend. It's coming to Pitt on Nov 1st, yay!

I saw an ad for a remake of Doctor Doolittle starring Robert Downey, Jr. Looked interesting, but darker than I'd like to see the story told. Anybody have any thoughts?