Tag Archives: Bong Joon Ho

Joni Mitchell’s Blue – A Perfect Album; Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite – Best Film of the Year; Nordic Crime Fiction- Smilla’s Sense of Snow

books poetry lit, film & television, this & that December 23, 2019 Leave a comment

Things I’m into right now!

“What makes a perfect record perfect?”

I remember the first time I heard a Joni Mitchell song. It was “Both Sides Now” – I came upon it directly after listening to Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” for the first time, which is as it should be, and a story of music and magical discovery all its own. What I remember about “Both Sides Now” is that it was one of the first songs to give me that sense that all great songs do: that is has always existed, that I was already aware of its existence, and that when I heard it, synapses in my brain fired to make this unknown thing instantly familiar, recognized, remembered – and loved. All of which is a long way to say: read this article – Anatomy of a Perfect Album: On Joni Mitchell’s Blue [Lithub]. “Both Sides Now” isn’t from Blue – “River” is, which is another classic, and a Christmas song, shot through with a gorgeous yet assenting wistfulness that sweeps you along its rich turns and delicate melancholy like the river of the title. Mitchell teaches us how to embrace loneliness as a friend rather than an enemy. “Only a phase, these dark café days.”

 

Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite placed first in the Indiewire’s critics poll for 2019, which polled 304 movie critics from around the world to pick the best movies and performances of the year. I loved Parasite, but the fact that it’s the pick for best movie of the year really speaks to the paucity of transcendent or even brilliant films this year. The movie is brilliant, but flawed, and it’s not even among Joon Ho’s two best films (of which one would certainly be the scorching, unforgettable Mother). The 50 Best Movies of 2019, According to 304 Film Critics [IndieWire]

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Caffeinated Links: Andrew Davies and Steven Moffat Shenanigans, Toni Morrison

books poetry lit, film & television, this & that October 10, 2013 Leave a comment

sunflower

Flavorwire on why Toni Morrison is the most important living writer – “A handful of us care enough to groan whenever Jonathan Franzen says something about social media, but when Toni Morrison says something about a president, it’s monumental.” RT

Bong Joon Ho is furious about the Weinstein Company’s cuts to Snowpiercer. Guess which person my sympathies are with – the brilliant and revered foreign director or the grab-all money-grubbing film production company? RT

Joanna Robinson is right as always. This time about Agents of Shield.  “But the show should not, cannot rest on the shoulders of Skye and Ward. They are two of the blandest leads of all time. They are shiny-haired porridge. Heck, I don’t even mind if Skye’s weekly job is to dress cute and flirt her way through an op. But in order for that kind of premise to be remotely interesting, you need to have charisma. You need to be Sarah Walker or Sydney Bristow. Sydney Bristow she ain’t. And don’t even get me started on that swirling vortex of anti-charisma that is Agent Ward.” RT

Peter Davison, the 5th Doctor Who, says Steven Moffat is coming up with a way to get around the rule that states the Time Lord can only regenerate 12 times. Of course he is. RT

Andrew Davies said that he had meant for Firth to be naked in the hallowed Pride and Prejudice lake scene. “He added he had intended the scene to be one of “social embarrassment”, showing awkwardness between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

“In fact it seems to have affected women in wife a different way,” he said. “And who am I to complain?” Indeed. RT

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