Parasite (special episode)

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

Paul & Amy latch on to 2019’s Best Picture winning Korean class parable Parasite! They talk about overcoming the “one inch barrier of subtitles,” praise director Bong Joon Ho’s use of lines and vertical camera movement, and learn about Bong’s political awakening and how it inspired the film. Plus: Justin Chang (LA Times, NPR) tells us what the reaction to Parasite was like at Cannes.

For M*A*S*H week, give Paul a M*A*S*H worthy nickname! Call the Unspooled voicemail line at 747-666-5824 with your answer. Follow us on Twitter @Unspooled, get more info at unspooledpod.com and don’t forget to rate, review & subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. Photo credit: Kim Troxall

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

Never seen The Sound of Music, so, un-opinionated on the poll.

Wrt to the Oscars and foreign language films:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign-language_films_nominated_for_Academy_Awards#Best_Picture

I guess it's worth bringing up the list of movies that were nominated.

I did check, Z is on the criterion channel (amongst a lot of other things, because, you know, movies exist).

I don't really get the issue for some people with subtitles (much like some people unwilling to watch movies that are in black and white). And I will point out, it doesn't really make sense to say, "list of American films... and also any film a separate, local awards organization will recognize regardless of where it's from".

However, wrt reading subtitles, one thing I have noticed for myself, if I sit too close to the screen, I'm not being able to keep the screen and text in my field of vision, and my eyes will have to pick which to focus on. So, assuming your not too near-sighted (or at least have glasses), consider sitting a little further back if you're having an issue not being able to follow what's happening on screen because you're reading subtitles.

[Cameron H. 23786]

FWIW, I love Mary Poppins (maybe even more than TSoM in terms of “enjoyment factor”), but I feel like TSoM is a far more cinematic film that has a lot more to say.

[bleary 333]

Still in the middle of the episode, but I will say that the only times when subtitles have hindered my enjoyment of a film is when there's a lot of dialogue AND interesting visuals, and it's tough to see both.  A prime example that comes to mind to me is something like 8 1/2, which has such rapid-fire dialogue that I felt like I spent the whole movie reading the first time I saw it, and had no time to appreciate the rest of the screen.  When I watched it again relatively soon after, I realized how much on the screen I had missed the first time.

[grudlian. 4725]

I think a very obvious choice of foreign language film that should have won best picture is Roma.

I think Crouching Tiger is another good choice especially over Gladiator.

I would be fine with Seven Samurai winning but I believe that's the same year Marty won. Both movies are probably in my top 10 of all time. Marty seems like it would be a mostly forgotten gem if it didn't have Best Picture Winner attached to it while Seven Samurai gets recognition all the time. So, Seven Samurai is the better, more influential movie but I want more people to experience Marty.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

2 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

I think a very obvious choice of foreign language film that should have won best picture is Roma.

I think Crouching Tiger is another good choice especially over Gladiator.

I would be fine with Seven Samurai winning but I believe that's the same year Marty won. Both movies are probably in my top 10 of all time. Marty seems like it would be a mostly forgotten gem if it didn't have Best Picture Winner attached to it while Seven Samurai gets recognition all the time. So, Seven Samurai is the better, more influential movie but I want more people to experience Marty.

Crouching Tiger is definitely the one that stands out to me. Roma is great but kind of esoteric: it's black & white, it's a Netflix movie -- hard to tell how popular it was. CTHD was a bonafide smash hit, the highest-grossing subtitled movie ever in the USA, and also a critical darling. Before Parasite that was the obvious time to award one, especially since the competition wasn't super strong.

[grudlian. 4725]

35 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Crouching Tiger is definitely the one that stands out to me. Roma is great but kind of esoteric: it's black & white, it's a Netflix movie -- hard to tell how popular it was. CTHD was a bonafide smash hit, the highest-grossing subtitled movie ever in the USA, and also a critical darling. Before Parasite that was the obvious time to award one, especially since the competition wasn't super strong.

How esoteric or popular Roma is isn't relevant when it's just a better movie than everything it's nominated against in my opinion.

I wouldn't say that embracing streaming as a platform for film exhibition is as important as recognizing the world outside of English speakers, but I'd say denying Roma the award because it's a streaming movie (which is speculation but I think it's naive to say that wasn't part of it) is exactly the stodgy outdated thinking people have been complaining about in the academy for decades. 

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

35 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

How esoteric or popular Roma is isn't relevant when it's just a better movie than everything it's nominated against in my opinion.

I wouldn't say that embracing streaming as a platform for film exhibition is as important as recognizing the world outside of English speakers, but I'd say denying Roma the award because it's a streaming movie (which is speculation but I think it's naive to say that wasn't part of it) is exactly the stodgy outdated thinking people have been complaining about in the academy for decades. 

I don't really follow these things too much and yet I still received the impression that a big reason why Roma didn't win was because of filmmakers, not just Hollywood, having very negative opinions of Netflix - the early availability on such also ironically seemed to be the reason why it was able to gain the word of mouth to be nominated in the first place.

Looking at that list on wiki, of the recent nominees, Haeneke's Amour still stands out as the surprising nomination to me (since my general impression is the Academy wants fairly big movies).

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

40 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

How esoteric or popular Roma is isn't relevant when it's just a better movie than everything it's nominated against in my opinion.

I wouldn't say that embracing streaming as a platform for film exhibition is as important as recognizing the world outside of English speakers, but I'd say denying Roma the award because it's a streaming movie (which is speculation but I think it's naive to say that wasn't part of it) is exactly the stodgy outdated thinking people have been complaining about in the academy for decades. 

It really SHOULDN'T matter, I agree. I'm just acknowledging that given historical Oscar biases a movie like Roma has some things going against it beyond those of CTHD or Parasite.

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

And in terms of foreign language films that should have won Oscars (barring competition), the BFI list is full of them (I checked for the year 8 1/2 was up for best foreign film - the US bp nominees..., I'll just say the US bp nominees don't come to mind as essential movie viewing (admittedly, the winner, Tom Jones, is a movie I had not heard of before looking up what won the year of 8 1/2). But related to that point, the BFI list is also full of English language films that "should have won, but didn't", so I feel that makes the initial question of "should have won" ambiguous as to what we're asking.

I'm just falling back into the usual wormhole of what does "deserves recognition from recognizing body that it becomes clear I don't fully respect how/what it chooses to recognize."

 

[grudlian. 4725]

4 hours ago, ol' eddy wrecks said:

And in terms of foreign language films that should have won Oscars (barring competition), the BFI list is full of them (I checked for the year 8 1/2 was up for best foreign film - the US bp nominees..., I'll just say the US bp nominees don't come to mind as essential movie viewing (admittedly, the winner, Tom Jones, is a movie I had not heard of before looking up what won the year of 8 1/2). But related to that point, the BFI list is also full of English language films that "should have won, but didn't", so I feel that makes the initial question of "should have won" ambiguous as to what we're asking.

I haven't seen the other nominees from 1963, but Tom Jones did not deserve a win. It didn't deserve a nomination for best picture.

I haven't done any serious analysis but it certainly looks like one of the worst years for film. At least for English language movies. If I were nominating five movies for best picture, I'd probably say High And Low, 8 1/2, Hud, Dry Summer, and Contempt. So, only one English language movie but I'm sure there are a lot of great ones I haven't seen.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

I haven't finished this ep yet....

But I did just watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire and I think it's as great as Parasite and certainly better than most of the nominated films last year. 

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

16 hours ago, grudlian. said:

I haven't seen the other nominees from 1963, but Tom Jones did not deserve a win. It didn't deserve a nomination for best picture.

I haven't done any serious analysis but it certainly looks like one of the worst years for film. At least for English language movies. If I were nominating five movies for best picture, I'd probably say High And Low, 8 1/2, Hud, Dry Summer, and Contempt. So, only one English language movie but I'm sure there are a lot of great ones I haven't seen.

So, 1964 Oscars would be for 1963, looking it over on letterboxd, English language-wise, I'm seeing The Birds, Hud, The Haunting, and The Lord of the Flies (which, admittedly, I haven't seen).

(ETA: so, yeah... I'm having a hard time finding anything there at least amongst what I've seen)

Looking over other countries... holy crap:

8 1/2 (Fellini's, I'd say, best!)

Contempt (Godard!)

Winter Light (Bergman!)

The Silence (Bergman!)

The Leopard (Visconti!)

The Big City (Satyajit Ray!)

The Executioner (I can't remember who directed it, but it was pretty damn good!)

Muriel, or the Time of Return (Resnais!)

Youth of the Beast (Suzuki!)

Now, I'm not the biggest on Bergman, and I didn't really get Visconti from the one movie I saw (The Leopard) and sure, Youth of the Beast isn't best picture type of quality, but it just really layers on this was a really rich year for foreign cinema.

Fwiw, if I was to pick one from the list I'd suspect you'd like, I'd probably pick The Big City - but you're a little difficult to predict.

 

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

I loooooved Parasite. I definitely get more out of it on repeated viewings. I thought it was a real homage to Kurosawa’s High and Low. It first struck me with the little boy’s obsession with playing at being Native American since the boys in the opening and crucial scene of High and Low are playing the same way. A small detail that I may be reading too much into

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

15 hours ago, grudlian. said:

I haven't seen the other nominees from 1963, but Tom Jones did not deserve a win. It didn't deserve a nomination for best picture.

I haven't done any serious analysis but it certainly looks like one of the worst years for film. At least for English language movies. If I were nominating five movies for best picture, I'd probably say High And Low, 8 1/2, Hud, Dry Summer, and Contempt. So, only one English language movie but I'm sure there are a lot of great ones I haven't seen.

Tom Jones is one of the Best Picture winners I went back to watch and just scratched my head at how that won. Maybe you had to be there.

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

13 hours ago, WatchOutForSnakes said:

I loooooved Parasite. I definitely get more out of it on repeated viewings. I thought it was a real homage to Kurosawa’s High and Low. It first struck me with the little boy’s obsession with playing at being Native American since the boys in the opening and crucial scene of High and Low are playing the same way. A small detail that I may be reading too much into

Hey, You're back!

I have not seen High and Low - I wouldn't describe my knowledge of Kurosawa as complete.

But I did wonder about the boy's obsession with Native Americans and having him basically mimic how a lot of Americans have treated the issue up until... actually not that long ago.  Tribute to old westerns?  Is it the Park's family imitation of how they view America (which given how it's how Americans viewed their own mythology only a few decades ago is also an extra layer of commentary)?  Is it just an allusion to other cinema that Bong likes?  Reference to the Native American genocide?

I don't really track down interviews with the director, but that is definitely something I'd be curious what the authorial intent was.

 

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

I will say, I think I'm probably amongst the more mild responses to Parasite, which was, "solidly made thriller with some nice social commentary.  Well thought out.  Out of what I did see this past year, it was definitely in the category of, 'glad I saw it/did not disappoint nor wanting it to be more - i.e. it was what it was, and did it very well.'"  It wouldn't jump to my mind as possible best of the decade as it seemed a number of critics did when talking about it.  I wasn't surprised it won BP (just because every movie seemed to have its detractors and Parasite did not), and mildly glad that it did. I don't have much emotion invested in the Oscar's, but it's nice that it finally awarded BP to a foreign language film, though like Justin Chang, I don't have much hope for this becoming a trend of the Academy looking more at international films (I see it more of a reflection as the voting demographic gradually shifting), just because, as he said, it managed to tick off all three checkboxes (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, also mentioned in the thread, did those, just a little too early for the Academy to go that way.  So, I don't think it's non-replicable.).

So, shrugs.  /end of general thoughts on Parasite

[grudlian. 4725]

21 hours ago, ol' eddy wrecks said:

So, 1964 Oscars would be for 1963, looking it over on letterboxd, English language-wise, I'm seeing The Birds, Hud, The Haunting, and The Lord of the Flies (which, admittedly, I haven't seen).

(ETA: so, yeah... I'm having a hard time finding anything there at least amongst what I've seen)

Looking over other countries... holy crap:

8 1/2 (Fellini's, I'd say, best!)

Contempt (Godard!)

Winter Light (Bergman!)

The Silence (Bergman!)

The Leopard (Visconti!)

The Big City (Satyajit Ray!)

The Executioner (I can't remember who directed it, but it was pretty damn good!)

Muriel, or the Time of Return (Resnais!)

Youth of the Beast (Suzuki!)

Now, I'm not the biggest on Bergman, and I didn't really get Visconti from the one movie I saw (The Leopard) and sure, Youth of the Beast isn't best picture type of quality, but it just really layers on this was a really rich year for foreign cinema.

Fwiw, if I was to pick one from the list I'd suspect you'd like, I'd probably pick The Big City - but you're a little difficult to predict.

 

I've only seen about half of these. I haven't seen either Bergman but I'm either very hot or very cold on him so I'm always wary about watching new stuff.

I agree with you on The Leopard. I liked it okay but it felt very long. Youth Of The Beast I've seen but it didn't leave an impression on me the way his more stylish movies did.

I also haven't seen The Big City. I checked it out from the library last year then returned it unwatched because... no reason really. I like Satyajit Ray quite a bit from what little I've seen though. So, I expect I'll like it when I get to it.

I really recommend High And Low. I don't think it's underrated but it is overshadowed (understandably) by his other work. I'd probably put it in my top five for Kurosawa.

7 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Tom Jones is one of the Best Picture winners I went back to watch and just scratched my head at how that won. Maybe you had to be there.

Yeah. I was reading about it while watching it to try and keep entertained. I figured it had to be some critical darling that didn't translate to modern times. But I guess it was a big hit at the time with audiences too.

I'd really love to hear from a fan to explain the appeal because miss me with that.

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

On 2/21/2020 at 7:35 PM, ol' eddy wrecks said:

Hey, You're back!

I have not seen High and Low - I wouldn't describe my knowledge of Kurosawa as complete.

But I did wonder about the boy's obsession with Native Americans and having him basically mimic how a lot of Americans have treated the issue up until... actually not that long ago.  Tribute to old westerns?  Is it the Park's family imitation of how they view America (which given how it's how Americans viewed their own mythology only a few decades ago is also an extra layer of commentary)?  Is it just an allusion to other cinema that Bong likes?  Reference to the Native American genocide?

I don't really track down interviews with the director, but that is definitely something I'd be curious what the authorial intent was.

 

High and Low is on Criterion (I think it is still). I think the idea with Parasite and the Native American play struck me as being ironic that they would play at being violent amidst an actual outburst of the very bloody violence they're mimicking. 

And thanks for the welcome! I have been much distracted after adopting a puppy. My usual movie watching has been usurped by play and training. Today is actually our 6-month adoptaversaary!  She's @frida_von_schmiegen on IG.

[Cameron H. 23786]

FYI...