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- [00:11]
A
I'm Sean Fennessy.
- [00:12]
B
I'm Amanda Davis.
- [00:13]
A
And this is 25 for 25, a big picture special conversation show about Parasite. Respect. Okay. Parasite.
- [00:20]
B
Yeah.
- [00:20]
A
So it was obviously gonna be on this list.
- [00:22]
B
Sure.
- [00:22]
A
This is, Is it the most recent film on this list?
- [00:26]
B
Let's see.
- [00:27]
A
Well, we don't know.
- [00:28]
B
We don't know. We haven't decided. We haven't had that great conversation yet.
- [00:32]
A
We don'. It is, for now the most recent film that we have discussed on this list. This movie was released in October of 2019. This show existed. There are multiple episodes of this show in which we discussed Parasite.
- [00:45]
B
Yes. There is a famous clip of your voice cracking while announcing that Parasite won best picture at the 2020 Oscars in February 2020.
- [00:55]
A
Yes. Just weeks before the pandemic, before the world changed and everything changed. This movie, of course, is directed by Bong Joon Ho. It's written by Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin. It is, it is quite clearly one of the signature films of the century for a variety of reasons that we will talk about here. It stars Song Kang Ho, Lee Sung Kyun, Cho Yeon Jong, Choi Woo Shik, you know, a standout movie from South Korea that found its way around the world in a way that is very unusual. And it did so in a variety of ways, not just from a box office perspective. But you mentioned the Academy Awards. This is a best picture winner. It's a best director winner. It's a screenplay winner. It's the movie that was voted at number one in the New York Times poll earlier this year by both the hallowed and esteemed people who were selected to vote and also the readers of the New York Times. They both voted this movie number one, which I still find shocking. And we can talk about maybe why that has become the case, how this became an instant classic. But it is an instant classic. This episode is presented by LinkedIn ads.
- [02:09]
B
Sometimes marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. Like if you see an ad for movie themed dog sweaters when you don't even have a pet.
- [02:16]
A
Reach exactly who you need with LinkedIn ads. With a network of 130 million decision makers, they can help you target by job title, industry, company size, or even skills. It's one of the reasons LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them.
- [02:33]
B
Try it out. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com TheBigPicture Terms and Conditions apply. I've had many friends try to guess what would be number one on this list throughout the year. And they don't want it spoiled, which is sweet of them. I guess they're invested. But Parasite was the guess of a lot of people because, you know, it seemed kind of preordained. Yes. Which is a interesting thing about that.
- [03:08]
A
How did that happen?
- [03:09]
B
And it happened pretty quickly, like within the scope of awards season in 2019 and early 20s. Like it was just called a wave. It was still a bit of a surprise that Parasyte won Best Picture, but we knew by about like 8:15 that night. Well, I guess 8:15 Eastern once the awards started stacking up and certainly once Director Bong won Best Director and we were like pleased but also like, yeah, I guess we saw this coming. Like this was. Things were lining up for this. So that everyone just said, uh huh, yeah, in real time is pretty fascinating.
- [03:49]
A
I think part of the reason for that, and we will get into why this movie is on the list very, very shortly, but part of the reason for that was because 2019 is such a special year in movies. It's the Once Upon a time in Hollywood year. And I think in any other year that would have been the year in which Tarantino was crowned. That year also featured Ford vs Ferrari, 1917, marriage story, Greta Gerwig's Little Women. Little Women. Jojo Rabbit was that year. I think Joker was that year. Right. There were a number.
- [04:22]
B
Jojo Rabbit, sorry, not a funny topic.
- [04:25]
A
But Jojo Rabbit, not a funny movie and not a mov. But the fact that it was competing against such a hallowed group of movies that year, such a memorable movie year, I think also makes it feel like it conquered that year. And so it is worthy to kind of conquer this century. So the movie itself, when you look at it, is actually a surprising movie to have become an instant classic for a variety of reasons. One, it is very South Korean. The sort of like the social structures that it's analyzing, the particulars of the lifestyles of the two families at the center of the story. It is not. There are a lot of nuances that I would say you could very easily overlook if you are an audience not from South Korea or even if you're.
- [05:08]
B
Two podcasters, you know, talking about.
- [05:10]
A
I can only imagine what we said on our first episodes about the movie because over time it's a lot easier to learn. I've read now multiple books about Parasite, so I feel like I have a little Bit of a better understanding. I was reading some criticism of it last night from a variety of different sources to think about a little bit more differently about it. I remember we had Donnie Kwok, our former colleague and friend on the show, to talk about it back then to give us some of that perspective and some perspective on Bong. But it's a fairly simple Hitchcockian thriller in terms of its design. Right? I mean, it's not that complex or even elevated of a movie in terms of what it is trying to do.
- [05:45]
B
That's true. And I think it also, when you say design, you mean actually like in the script and the story, but also quite literally in the design of the house and the movie. And this like upstairs, middle, you know, middle and then downstairs, basement world. Like, the characters go up a hill or down a hill, they go up the stairs or down the stairs. And what it is telegraphing to you is very, very straightforward in terms of like the visual building blocks of where these people are, where they're trying to go, where they're coming from, where they're stuck. So you, or we may miss some of the particular sociological nuances to it being from South Korea, but there is also a universality and a directness to it that is, it is quite literally constructed and into the film and, you know, into the camera. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com.
- [07:16]
A
So the movie is essentially about one family, the Kim family, that is a sort of lower class family in South Korea that is slowly but surely kind of invading the life and home of an upper class family in South Korea. Originally, the son of this family gets a tip that one of the children in the family needs a tutor, and he gets that job as a tutor. And he slowly kind of conspires to bring in his sister and then his father and then his mother into this home. And then we see this kind of portrait of these two worlds colliding and then a third family enters the picture eventually as well. And so you see, as you said, this sort of like tripartite experience of class in South Korea and in the world. And I think one of the reasons why this movie has been so celebrated and one of the reasons why it feels so relevant is that class and income equality is kind of a defining problem of the last 10 years in America. And so that problem, and this is all happening kind of amidst two separate Trump administrations.
- [08:22]
B
Right. That problem at the tail end of.
- [08:24]
A
The first feels like. Feels very chewy. Feels like something that we want to talk about, we want to try to understand, we want to figure out. I think one of the great things about this movie is it's not your typical rich, bad, poor, good social dynamic. It is a much more nuanced portrayal of what systems do to people instead of how people are just bad. And I think you can read this movie as purely Marxist, if you want to. You can read it as just suspicious of capitalism. You could read it, I think, with a lot of empathy for the rich family, if you chose to. I read a lot of different interviews, interpretations of it over the last few days, and it kind of stands up to all of those interpretations. And what you ultimately learn is that everybody that exists inside of this story has been victimized by the way that we live our lives in these organized societies. And I don't think I fully understood it in that way when I first saw the movie. I think I had a slightly more simplistic understanding of what Bong was trying to accomplish.
- [09:31]
B
And I think probably most people who went bananas over it in 2019 did as well. Because the movie, in addition to being this beautifully constructed black comedy satire, is also a thriller. And so at some point, you're just like, oh, God, what are they going to do? How are they going to get out of this? What's going to happen? What stood out to me, rewatching it, and in some ways, this is the most Captain Obvious thing to say is just the movie itself is a system. The movie is so perfectly constructed by one of the great living filmmakers. And down to that tripartite construction of the world every shot flows through, you see exactly what you're supposed to see. It's designed. And as we know, Bong likes storyboards. Every image, Every single image. And so you are watching. To me, it was the feeling of watching all of these people, almost like in a dollhouse being moved around by a director. I mean, the house is built in that way with the big panoramic window, and you see from both sides of it, but you see the people being moved around, which, you know, is. Is a metaphor or a recreation of all of these people are just being cogs in the system that exists. That is, you know, late stage capitalism.
- [11:00]
A
Yeah. And I think you get, like, more different expressions of personal freedom in the movie, too. Like, hearing you talk about that makes me think about this choice that Bong makes. That is something I would have not picked up on if I had not heard somebody explain it, which is that the family, the Kim family, is often seen as a collective, as four people working together to try to accomplish something right. And.
- [11:25]
B
Or four people crammed in one room because in part because of that.
- [11:28]
A
Yes. The cramped space. And the park family, the wealthy family, is never shown together. That they're always shown as individuals with their own agencies and their own freedoms because wealth creates freedom and life. And there's just no denying the fact that those characters get to be as loose and oblivious to everything happening around them and as desirous of services that they probably don't really need because they have the comfort to ask for those things or to seek those things. And that's a very small, formal choice that is very instructive about what the point that he's trying to make in the movie. And then the other thing, too, is, as you said, it's just a fun thriller. The first time you watch it, I saw this movie, a Telluride, for the first time after it had already won the Palme d'. Or. There was a lot of hype going into my screening of this movie, and I was like, this better be fucking good. When I sat down and I sat down and I was like, wow, that was a lot fucking better than I thought it was gonna be. And it's because it is a series of reveals that are very fun. So when you're watching the movie in particular, especially the basement reveal, when you learn that there is someone. When the housekeeper comes back to the house and you learn that there was someone living in the basement of this home, there is a kind of. It feels like. It feels like Psycho, where something is shown to us. We're like, oh, that's what's going on here? And that's not. You don't find that in a lot of movies that go into the canon that they have that pop sensibility, the movies that are important with social themes that we all should understand as a collective. This is a popcorn movie.
- [13:03]
B
Well, I mean, that is the magic of this movie, that it is so tightly constructed and, you know, formally arranged and about big ideas, and it is just some wacky shit. And these people are. They say weird things. It's very funny, but in an unexpected, very specific to Bong like sense of humor. It's a very dark humor. So it's deeply entertaining in addition to being, like, you know, this kind of, like, jewel box of, like, perfect sentiment.
- [13:31]
A
Yeah. And it's not. The themes are big, but it's not highfalutin. Like, a lot of the stuff you see, for example, the Scholar's Rock, which is like, the inciting object of the movie, where a friend comes over to the apartment of the Kim family living together and says, like, here's something for you to think about and to use as you go through the world. It's a rock. And this rock will help you feel more intellectually significant and then come to find out, obviously, like, it's ultimately used as a weapon and as all rocks are, is Chekhov's rock. But that's just like a classical storytelling device, you know, it's not any more complicated than that. It's just an invented premise that kickstarts us into this world that otherwise would feel ridiculous if you didn't have one character pushing this family into this other family's house. It's like a series of these things, you know. Gyeonsei, the guy living in the basement being the ghost in the house, is another genre tool that allows the story to kind of, like, push forward. Like, he's not really reinventing the wheel in this movie. He's pulling a lot of strands of both South Korean culture. And then we also know that he's obsessed with American movies and American movie history, and he's plugging a lot of that stuff into these worlds, too.
- [14:47]
B
And very, like, you know, pop culture conversant. I was thinking about, remember, the scammer era, you know, Remember, like, the. The late 2015-2000s, when everyone's just in like, hey, Anna Delvey. All of this stuff. And so I. I do think that some of it is just. Everyone was really excited about some, you know, some righteous scammers, mostly.
- [15:08]
A
Yeah, I think. I think that there was the. The. The grifter and then the kind of gig economy grind set quality to the movie, too, where sort of like, the only way to come up in the world is you have to get yourself into a position where you can, like, get to show people what you can do, which is, of course, all a fallacy, obviously, and we're kind of encouraging people to apply for these kinds of gigs so that we can bleed them dry. But the movie, it opens with them folding the pizza boxes and then being scolded for their inability to properly fold pizza boxes. That's a gig economy job. So all of that stuff was happening. You can feel him writing it concurrent to those movements. And the grifter thing does feel a little ancient at this point.
- [15:51]
B
Yeah, I mean, many Netflix series have failed as a result of that, you know.
- [15:56]
A
Yes, it's very true, I think. Also I'm curious what you think about this now. So the movie's called Parasite? Very obliquely, yeah. Who is the parasite in this movie?
- [16:10]
B
You know, I mean, we all are, I guess. I mean, quite literally there are a series of people living inside this home, like, you know, nesting dolls. So those are, I think, the literal definitions of a parasite. But isn't the point that. That we're all either, you know, a parasite on some larger system and. Or we are the, you know, like we're a part of a larger thing that's being fed upon and also is trying to suck other people dry? Yeah, that's how we interact with each other.
- [16:45]
A
I definitely think that that's the intention. Right. That it's a. It's a multi way street. I was reading a little bit about how in South Korea it's a very patriarchal structure and that the father figure and especially the parents are expected to support their children all the way through the time when they retire. So it's a little bit different than how we think about it in the United States. Me, for example, I fled my home at 21 as soon as I possibly could. And so because of that, the father figure in this movie, played by Song Kang Ho, an incredible performance, is the kind of the ultimate parasite because he's the father who maybe didn't create as much stability or was not able to create as much stability.
- [17:25]
B
Right.
- [17:26]
A
As other father figures. And he has kind of trained his children to be grifters and that they are leeching on this family. And then this family is obviously leeching on not just the parasitic family inside of their home, but the wider structure of capitalism. And then that they are very, you know, not just frivolous, but sort of like desirous of bullshit, which then further feeds your ability to like, want to make more money so that you can have more things. So that you can make more money so you can have more things. And it's interesting to think about this because when like you said when the movie came out, everybody was just like, oh, parasites. These are like awful rich people. They're the people who are like sucking the blood out of the world.
- [18:09]
B
Right.
- [18:09]
A
But it's not that simple, you know, and it's not. And I'm not saying that the rich people are good in this movie because they're not. They're ultimately revealed to be extremely selfish and somewhat evil by the end of the film.
- [18:19]
B
But it's more that the other family is complicated. That everyone is. It's complicated, yes.
- [18:25]
A
Everyone is committing sins throughout this entire movie. I think the other thing too is.
- [18:31]
B
That except for Jessica, who rules.
- [18:35]
A
Well, I mean, she's a real grifter though. She's in.
- [18:38]
B
But her heart's in it, you know. But then also what is her fate?
- [18:42]
A
It's very violent and terrible. But I think she's an interesting person to think about too, because the quote unquote poor family. The Kims are very smart, they're very clever. You know, they're not. They don't want to get real jobs, but they're not lazy. Like this requires a lot of ingenuity, what they're doing.
- [18:59]
B
I don't know if they don't want to or whether they can't, like, can't. You know, there's.
- [19:03]
A
That's also. Yes.
- [19:04]
B
They speak a lot about, you know, like the employment crisis in South Korea, like at the beginning of the film, and they can't get jobs. And you know, the brother character says to his friend, like, they're perfectly healthy. They just are like unemployed.
- [19:21]
A
Yes. And we know that the sister is like a design whiz, you know that she's got all these great skills and they're educated. That's the other thing. It's like they've gone to college. They're very. They're not.
- [19:31]
B
I mean, has he. Or has the brother or is it like he's taken the entrance exam?
- [19:37]
A
Maybe that's what it was.
- [19:38]
B
He didn't get there yet. And so they remember. Cause they make the degree. And he has that speech of like, to me, this isn't a forgery. It's just. I just printed it out early, you know, so. Which there's a lot of delusion going on with everyone, which I think is probably an essential part of being a grifter and. Or a successful rich person in the world. Like, I think they go hand in hand.
- [20:00]
A
Yeah. But I think it's asking you, does poverty drive people to become low level criminals because of the inability to break the system?
- [20:08]
B
But like, you know, the only difference.
- [20:10]
A
Between like, is it hustling or Criminal. Criminality.
- [20:13]
B
Yeah, exactly. And once you've made enough money, then you're not a criminal anymore. You're just a rich person.
- [20:18]
A
But then rich people also commit very elaborate crimes as well. Yeah, Yeah. I think it's an indictment of kind of the entire structure throughout there are a number of ways that the difference between the two families is communicated. There's obviously, there's a wealth gap in their living arrangements, which we see in great detail in that home that has been excellently designed.
- [20:39]
B
And they both have front picture windows, but, like, you know, one is architecturally significant and, you know, above ground.
- [20:47]
A
I was gonna say one goes up and one goes down and one goes down.
- [20:49]
B
Yeah.
- [20:50]
A
But then there's a couple of other things. You know, the stench of the Kims is something that we hear about all the time. You know, they ride the subway. They live in a kind of filth. We see that they're surrounded by bugs that need to be literally fumigated inside of their home. At the beginning of the film, you know, when the flood does hit, well.
- [21:07]
B
They accept free fumigation from the street.
- [21:08]
A
Yes, they pursue it. They could have closed their window, but they leave it wide open. They sleep in the gymnasium. After the flood, they don't shower. We see multiple times park family members pinching their nose to avoid the smell. This idea that, like, we're forced to be around you and we'll tolerate this stench, but it's very unpleasant to us, which is, you know, obviously a component of class division here. And even the idea, like just that, the idea of Mr. Park clenching his nose at the very end of the film right when he lifts, and then that is the triggering moment for Mr. Kim is so fascinating because I think it speaks to. That there's this idea that there is, like, a breaking point socially, too, you know, that no matter what you do, no matter how much money you pay someone for their work, you can cross the line.
- [22:04]
B
I mean, also a fascinating, formal decision to really hinge the movie on the one sense that movies can't really, like, communicate to you. You know, you've got sound, you've got visuals, like you can. And the movie successfully does. I'm sure that the smell smells something different to everyone, but he builds it into the text in such a way, and the actors play with it in such a way that you know what it is. You know, it feels real. You feel the closeness.
- [22:39]
A
You could see a world where there is a smell o version of this movie.
- [22:43]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to.
- [22:43]
A
Do it, but it's like the peaches, you know, are so tactile in this movie. The pizza with the hot sauce, like, there. There are images in the movie that are kind of like, emanating off the screen. That. And. And. And if. If that includes Mr. Kim's body odor, that's also a factor.
- [22:59]
B
I mean it could be laundry, you know, because they noticed that they all the they, they quote, smell the same.
- [23:05]
A
Yes. The little one or the pig out session that they all have in the living room. Right. With all the snacks and treats.
- [23:10]
B
It's like mostly whiskey, but.
- [23:12]
A
Yeah, yeah, but that's the other thing too is like that's another thing that is communicated in the movie is what kind of foods are they eating in this film? Like all of the foods that the Kims are eating are all come out of a bag or processed or delivered via fast food. They're lower economy foods and that's what is available to people who don't have as much money.
- [23:33]
B
And meanwhile they're just like platters of fruit are presented to everyone at all.
- [23:38]
A
Times in the park home, fresh in the park home. Or this freshly made Ram Dan.
- [23:42]
B
Yeah, well, I mean that does come out of a bag, but you know. But then sirloin is added in.
- [23:46]
A
Sure. Exactly.
- [23:47]
B
Yeah.
- [23:49]
A
This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com TheBigPicture Terms and Conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, There's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. It's a movie that's like, very, I think, very, very self aware about what it's doing. The fact that we constantly hear the phrase, it's so metaphorical. It's. It almost feels like it's thumbing its nose at the audience a little bit, this movie, in a way that I like. But then maybe at first blush, I didn't totally understand. There was sort of. He was going to be like, I'm doing my class satire now, but maybe everyone's kind of complicit, you know, and also everyone's screwed over by what they're stuck inside of at the same time, which I think is kind of brave to make a movie like that, you know, to make a movie in which we have rooting interests, of course. And the movie ends, I think, with a lot of empathy for the Kim family. Yeah, but they're not innocent.
- [26:08]
B
No. And, well, I think empathy is different than sympathy. And as, you know, as English teachers around the world try to teach children and AI every day. And also that I think the ending, to me, just finally, after two hours of being like, this is absurd. And there's almost like a nihilistic, like every. This is a. This is a really messed up society. And like, everything is bad just brings a little, like, heart. And a little bit like, this is actually quite sad as well.
- [26:43]
A
Yeah, it's tragical to me.
- [26:44]
B
Yeah, it twists kind of. It twists the tone more than to me, it like, twists who the hero and who the villain is.
- [26:50]
A
I agree. I saw a suggestion that I thought was intriguing that I had not fully considered, which is that is the Kim's downfall a result of a lack of solidarity with Moon Gwang, the housekeeper, the first housekeeper and her husband. And if they had only conspired together in some way instead of trying to victimize one another, could all of this have been avoided somehow? Which, you know, is again, a pretty. If that is intention, that's a pretty severe class critique about the ability to overcome these systems. You know, there is a lot of nuance in this. It doesn't have to be one way or the other, but it's. It's a line of thought that I think makes this an even deeper movie.
- [27:30]
B
I mean, things escalate pretty quickly in that particular situation, if I recall. And there's that. That exchange between the old housekeeper and Mrs. Kim, once the old housekeeper figures it out and immediately snaps that video. Yeah. Grabs the video, which is just another, like, we're all trained, you know, in our moments to like, get the receipts for ourselves. There is, you know, the English translation is the Mrs. Kim calls her cis and it's, you know, don't call me cis, which I assume is, you know, some form of like, Korean. What's the word? Like.
- [28:13]
A
Familiarity.
- [28:13]
B
Familiarity, you know, like a tense thing that. That many languages have that the English doesn't really.
- [28:19]
A
And.
- [28:21]
B
But it snaps instantly. It goes from. No, no, no, we're not on that now. We've like, the hierarchy has been changed. I'm no longer. So it's not even really the Kims that aren't going along with it. The housekeeper sees an advantage.
- [28:36]
A
They're not aligned quickly. Yes. They're trying to beat each other.
- [28:39]
B
And I think it's really more just like it's. Everyone is so everyone for themselves, which you have to be in like in the world of parasite and probably also in the world at large, sadly, that there's no time for that.
- [28:52]
A
Yeah, it's crabs in a barrel trying to survive and willing to do anything to take advantage of one another. I think also there's something interesting about the way that Moon Gwang's husband is portrayed too, where he is this kind of idolater of the parks and of the wealthy lifestyle and the respect incantation being this thing about how you can become kind of obsessed and consumed by the desire by people who are successful and then you want to be successful like them, but then the only ways you can think about are by, like, modes of emulation. You know, like there's a Steve Jobs book downstairs in the basement. There's this like, aspirational, one day I will be able to pull myself from the basement feeling which people kind of delude themselves into.
- [29:32]
B
He's literally been in the basement for four years. I think he has, you know, gone.
- [29:36]
A
Like to avoid loan sharks, by the way.
- [29:38]
B
Right, exactly. But so some of it is just like a lack of grasp on reality at this point. But what that is funneled into, you know, is maybe not unlike people on the Internet and certain other people right now.
- [29:51]
A
Yeah, you know, it's like.
- [29:52]
B
It's just kind of. And seeing like what you want and is the further you lose, the further you dive into that world, just the. The more outsized it gets.
- [30:04]
A
I think this is a movie with one of the great endings of the 21st century. Very heart wrenching. The score for this film is amazing. None more so than in the kind of closing notes of the movie. But it's a film that is pretty breakneck and comic and then has this kind of epilogue that is very sad and I think is also like a grace note on that idea of delusion that you were talking about too, where you've got characters who think that they're going to be able to do something, but if you do the math, the idea of them ever being able to buy that home and free their father and make it work is.
- [30:39]
B
And come out into the sunlight. And that, like, beautiful last shot.
- [30:43]
A
Yeah. The hug that will never be. It's just an absolutely beautiful movie with also, as you mentioned earlier, too, like a series of ecstatic movie set pieces. From, you know, the basement raid at the beginning to the flood to, you know, the role playing sex scene.
- [31:06]
B
Yeah.
- [31:06]
A
And the idea of observing how desire plays out and the idea of like becoming less than the wealth class that you are to then be able to realize some sense of desire.
- [31:19]
B
Right. I mean, there's the whole sequence of which is effectively like a heist in reverse. Getting everybody in the house instead of out of the house, but just like completely exhilarating. And the selfies at the hospital and the.
- [31:31]
A
Yeah, Come on, all edge of your seat stuff. And then the garden party too, which is, to me, like the most classical bong setup where there's like huge violent moments. It's very gory, it's very extravagant. There's a lot of food present. You know, that's something you find in a lot of his work. It's just. It's an absolute culmination for one of the great movie directors of the last 25 years.
- [31:52]
B
That's weird.
- [31:52]
A
It's an interesting time to be talking about this because, you know, he made Mickey 17 this year.
- [31:56]
B
Yeah.
- [31:57]
A
I think a movie that both of us liked and kind of got caught in the slipstream of, oh, this is a letdown from Parasite. And it didn't work at the box.
- [32:04]
B
Office, but I think you liked it more than I did. I liked about two thirds of it. And I really did not like the most timely kind of, let me like.
- [32:17]
A
You know, broad social commentary.
- [32:18]
B
Broad social commentary. And specifically like the Mark Ruffalo as Trump of it all, you know, and that's kind of like a triple hat, black licorice situation for me. But I didn't think it worked. And I thought it was the timely commentary that stuck out in a way that this movie nails perfectly.
- [32:42]
A
Well. See? Okay, so this is what I was gonna. The reason I brought that up is because with Mickey 17, I found it to be pretty consistent With Bong's tone. Bong has a very antic, comic, absurdist tone in all of his movies. And even when a movie feels like it's going to be deathly serious, like the first 20 minutes of the Host, where there's this, like, prologue about ecological damage when they pour the formaldehyde down the sink, and then the kid being scooped up by the monster, and you're like, oh, my God, this is a severe, epic monster movie. And then it's not that. It's this weird comic fantasia about families in South Korea amidst this monster attack. Obviously, the same is totally true for Okja.
- [33:26]
B
Yeah, I think I prefer Okja more. And you're more of a Mickey 17 guy.
- [33:32]
A
Yeah, I think they're all like, in a.
- [33:34]
B
In a very comfortable stew, but there is a little bit like, you know, Okja is more the. Well, just that the kid is awesome. She's so great.
- [33:43]
A
And then super fake.
- [33:45]
B
And, like, the outsized, ridiculous characters are more like our broader characters as opposed to. I just. I was like, why is Mark Ruffalo doing Trump? Like, I really was just like, I don't. I don't want. I don't. This doesn't work for me.
- [33:58]
A
I think what I'm trying to locate. And it's okay to not like it. I'm not saying you have to like it. It's more like, there's plenty of broad social commentary in Parasite. It's just. It's in South Korea. It's just not true, you know? So I think it's kind of like you have to take the good with the bad or, like, the modes of that kind of stuff. The one movie that I know listeners at home who really love Bong are thinking about that we didn't choose his Memories of Murder.
- [34:21]
B
Hello, Bobby Wagner.
- [34:22]
A
Yeah, I know Bob would want us to do that. Memories of Murder is the movie that got Bong kind of internationally recognized as a filmmaker. It's his first movie with Song Kang Ho. It is a movie that's very openly riffing on the kind of serial killer movie and then became very influential on the serial killer movie. One of the magical things about that movie, which also has a lot of anticipation, comic stuff inside of this really, really intense story, is just the unknowability of life, you know, the insolvability of the biggest problems in the world. And it's a. It's a really great film that doesn't have the same. He's a little less interested in making it as crowd pleasing as I find most of his other Movies are.
- [35:11]
B
Right.
- [35:12]
A
And part of that is because of the intention of the movie is like there is a kind of doom laden, like, we're all fucked quality to Memories of Murder at its conclusion. And there's not.
- [35:21]
B
Not to this film as well. But it's wrapped up in some funnier, broader stuff.
- [35:27]
A
Yeah. And like some gleeful stuff too that I think is really helpful. You know, he obviously has other movies. Mother. He's now making an animated film.
- [35:38]
B
Okay.
- [35:38]
A
Called the Valley.
- [35:39]
B
Great.
- [35:41]
A
Do you think you'll watch that?
- [35:42]
B
I will.
- [35:43]
A
It's also shot by Hong Kong Pyo, who shot Parasite and is one of the world's great cinematographers. But it's an animated film.
- [35:52]
B
Right. So what does that mean for him?
- [35:55]
A
Well, he'll be doing the work that he needs to do. Listen, as an anime, I think.
- [36:04]
B
How does it feel to have picked the most obvious one on this one? This is the.
- [36:09]
A
I love this movie. This is a five star movie. I loved it when it came out. I watched it last night and was just enraptured by it. And I think it's just a marvelous piece of tight genre filmmaking. So I don't really have a problem with picking the obvious one. I don't need to be smarter than other people. I do think Memories of Murder is a very close second. I do think it's a big achievement and he was a very young filmmaker when he made that movie. It has a kind of wow quality.
- [36:33]
B
To it, but we can't do that for every, every movie on this list. Sometimes you gotta do the thing.
- [36:37]
A
You get to do it for Marie Antoinette and I don't get to do it for Parasite, which is okay.
- [36:42]
B
You might get to do it for a couple other things and I think you have as well.
- [36:45]
A
We shall see. This is the movie that fully dragged the Academy Awards into not just the future, but the global future of movies. Because I think in 16, when moonlight won, it was very clear that was a big dramatic shift in the kind of film that could win Best Picture in this century. This movie winning is stunning. To me, it was part of the reason why my voice cracked that night is because I was just like, wow. I've been following this since I was nine years old. I never would have thought a movie like this. And in part because when you, when you hear Bong talk about movies, he's like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you know, seven, you know, Halloween. Like, these are my hallmarks, you know, like those are my hallmarks.
- [37:32]
B
I believe it was the best director speech. But like from the Oscar stage That night, like, thanked Scorsese personally and was like, this has been a personal hero of me. And that was also the year of the Irishman.
- [37:41]
A
It was. Which ruled great film, I think I felt like. So the Academy Awards is kind of into what I'm into now.
- [37:52]
B
Yeah. I mean, you and I have been wrestling with this for some time.
- [37:55]
A
Yeah.
- [37:56]
B
And do you think it's a spoiler to say you can bleep this out if it's a spoiler, Jack. That this is our last Best Picture winner?
- [38:04]
A
No, I didn't say it.
- [38:07]
B
And we've had what, one other two.
- [38:12]
A
We did do Oppenheimer, which is not. That's the most recent movie on the list. I was saying at the top that that's the most recent. But this is the. Yeah. Is it only two?
- [38:22]
B
Yeah. And we have, you know, on this long journey that we've been on, always had an uneasy relationship with, like, agreeing with the Academy, you know, because we were raised on, like. Oh, but actually Pulp Fiction should have won and. Oh, but actually, you know, this should have won and consensus. And like, being included in this is not the sign of great art or even. Or great taste, in our opinion. Like, we are historically more. But like, actually Memories of Murder. I had it on vinyl, you know, so we are. We don't. It's nice that when the Academy agrees with us, I guess, but it's disorienting. Yeah. It's off putting. Yeah.
- [39:07]
A
And one of the things, for our purposes, people in our 40s that we are.
- [39:12]
B
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [39:14]
A
Is that I wasn't one.
- [39:16]
B
This one.
- [39:16]
A
Is it just that we're getting old and that what we thought was cool and transgressive no longer is. Is now just actually down the middle, neoliberal Hollywood. Like, that's the thing I was trying to think about with Parasite, I think.
- [39:27]
B
Yes. A little bit. And I think it's same with Shape of Water.
- [39:31]
A
Winning. I know you don't love it, but it's like a movie like that. Winning two is very unusual for the Academy Awards.
- [39:36]
B
It won over Phantom Thread. Lady Bird. Get out. Call me by your name. Dunkirk. Yeah. Dunkirk was that year too, right?
- [39:45]
A
I think so, yeah.
- [39:46]
B
And then what was the Churchill movie that you love so much? Darkest Hour.
- [39:50]
A
Did I love any of these movies? Darkest Hour is not bad. It's not good, but it's not bad. I've been turning this over in my head as an Oscar watcher, sort of like. And a lot of it was disrupted by the 2020s because of COVID and the Films that were kind of available to be nominated, but then everything everywhere, all at once kind of kicked this back off. And Oppenheimer to me is a little bit more of a classical win biopic from a great filmmaker. This year we'll see. This year if one battle after another wins the Academy Award, then it's like you are middle aged because all of your cool heroes are now being honored for their late in career masterpieces. Masterpieces.
- [40:31]
B
We are middle aged.
- [40:32]
A
I know. You know what a great reckoning we're having.
- [40:35]
B
Maybe we can still hang on to being cool. Maybe it's just that all the middle aged people have. I don't know. What do 23 year olds want to give an Oscar to? Jack, what you got for what year specifically? I don't know.
- [40:48]
A
In 2019, what would you have given.
- [40:50]
B
Me most excited about?
- [40:51]
A
No, don't do that. Don't. Jack. God damn it. Amanda, can you look at 2019 list and tell us what you would have chosen for best? I definitely would have chosen Parasite. I mean, I think I mentioned this like a few pods ago, but when I was at Ithaca and we got an early screening at Cinemopolis for was like the Super Bowl. Like everybody walked out of the theater and was like, what just happened? Yeah, shout out to Cinemopolis, which was a great art house theater, which I think is still there, right? It is. It is that I frequented when I was a student at Ithaca College. That was extremely critical to my movie going at that time in my life. I'm glad to hear it's still going.
- [41:24]
B
Okay.
- [41:25]
A
So the film's legacy, as I mentioned, six Academy award nominations, four wins picture director, screenplay and international feature film. It lost editing to Ford v. Ferrari. How do you feel about that?
- [41:35]
B
You guys really liked that, you know, cool movie.
- [41:37]
A
Yeah. Production design lost to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I thought when the production design is one of the great achievements of this movie, it is the design of the two homes and some of it is done via computer generated imagery. So that might have been part of it.
- [41:52]
B
But you know, one thing I forgot to say about this movie, I love a house movie. You know, it's a movie about house, so that's really, really important. But the production design Oscar usually goes to a period piece. Yes, almost always. So, you know, and don't forget pta, the lights, you know, I mean, Once.
- [42:08]
A
Upon a Time fucking rocks. It's fantastic. This was a year that for me had three five star movies. That's very unusual. Of my three five star movies that year Were this Once Upon a Time and Uncut Gems, which was not nominated for best picture, but Uncut Gems also came out.
- [42:23]
B
It was an incredible year, a great movie year, I gotta tell you. I rewatched Little Women on the plane back from New York also.
- [42:29]
A
Great, terrific movie. I think we're talking a lot about Chalamet because he is, of course, in the new Josh Safdie movie. And that's an underrated. Great Chalamet performance.
- [42:38]
B
Not to me. The scene and the battlefield.
- [42:40]
A
I feel like it's getting like. It's getting like pushed aside for all his lead roles. But he's obviously just supporting in that movie. But he's wonderful in that. This movie has a 97 Metacritic score. Only 54 movies in the history of Metacritic have 97 or more.
- [42:55]
B
Read the rest of them.
- [42:56]
A
I don't have the list in front of me, unfortunately. What movies is this standing in for? Now? We talked about memories of Murder in the Bong filmography. I was trying to think of a couple of movies that are class conscious because I do think that Class is the new vanguard of the Academy Award film. But a couple that sprung to mind, Bridesmaids, which weirdly, a movie that I think you could have made. The case could be on our list that, you know, one of the great comedies of the time. We put Anchorman on. But I think that it was in discussion for that spot that is very much a movie about like a have and a have not in close quarters over a very emotional time. And the Florida Project, of course. And then along with the Florida Project, you have the other Shawn Baker film about class, Anora.
- [43:39]
B
And then I put Anora together with moonlight and Hurt Locker, which are sort of the, huh, the Academy's doing this now? Moments.
- [43:45]
A
Yeah.
- [43:46]
B
You know.
- [43:46]
A
Yeah.
- [43:47]
B
Where like, critically acclaimed, quote unquote, smaller movies that we don't associate with Best Picture in the vein of, you know, some historical epic.
- [43:57]
A
The big differentiator between Parasite and these three films that you have here is that those three films are the three lowest grossing best picture winners of all time. Non, you know, Covid restrictions edition. This movie went on to make well over $200 million around the world. This is an insane financial success for Bong and is one of the reasons why he got to make Mickey 17. He got a real proper American studio blank check after the success of this movie. I do wonder. I'm curious about the rest of his career because he's not getting $150 million again anytime soon. That's not. But he does have. He'll have support in South Korea and the pretty significant financial system that has helped produce a lot of his movies there for the longest time. And he does like to kind of move back and forth between US Features or US and British casts and the South Korean features, and sometimes he blends those two things together. Doing an animated movie makes a ton of sense when you think about the way that he designs all of his films, for sure. The storyboarding being converted.
- [45:02]
B
You do what you want, you know, I mean, if you. If the outsized financial success of Parasite earns you anything. And kind of the magic of Parasite is that he was just making the movie that he wanted to make, you know, and then it went bananas. So I don't know that's. He can make an animated film. He can. He can do weird stuff. Like, what does he have left to prove?
- [45:27]
A
I mean, he has nothing to prove at this point. Obviously, he goes into. But he's in the pantheon at this point. I'll be interested to see, though, if America kind of continues to care about him. That's a very ethnocentric point of view, but this is an American movie podcast, and I'll certainly watch anything that he makes. The other thing that I think was kind of a knockdown effect of this was Yoon Ya Jung won Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards a couple years later for Minari. And there's so few foreign language acting prizes in Oscar history. And even though no one from the Parasite cast was nominated, it did win the SAG Ensemble Award, which was seen as one of those moments where it was like, oh, wow, this is really happening. And I now wonder if you will see hopefully more and more, you know, international feature performances getting nominated for Oscars, winning Oscars. I'm kind of fascinated by sentimental value this season.
- [46:24]
B
I think we're gonna have a couple because of that. Yeah.
- [46:26]
A
You know, there's definitely some stuff in play where it's not just like, okay, yeah, Jafar Panahy made an amazing movie. Let's give him an international feature. And then, like, pretend like nothing else ever happened. Obviously, you know, I'm still here. We saw an acting performance from that film last year. I do think that's going to happen a lot more, which is very cool for the Oscars. It does do the thing of, like, kind of reducing the pool of awareness because just those films are. None of those films are Parasite. And it's going to be hard to replicate the phenomenon, like, quality of this. But. But that's also just a great outcome from this movie. Recommended, if you like.
- [46:57]
B
Yeah.
- [46:59]
A
Bong has cited the Housemaid, the South Korean kind of black comedy, thriller, satire many times as a key inspiration for this movie. I wrote down Us, which has also got a kind of. You know, it's a mirror image of two families, but.
- [47:14]
B
But there's a basement in that, right?
- [47:16]
A
Yeah. Yeah. There's class, for sure, as a factor in that one. Coryda's shoplifters also this year.
- [47:22]
B
Yeah.
- [47:23]
A
They're kind of. They're kind of twinned.
- [47:25]
B
They are.
- [47:27]
A
I wrote the host also for the Bong Heads Fight Club.
- [47:30]
B
I see it. Yeah.
- [47:32]
A
You know, how do we break the system? Yeah. That's what that movie is about.
- [47:36]
B
Delusion.
- [47:36]
A
Yeah. And broad satire in which kind of everyone is guilty.
- [47:40]
B
Right.
- [47:41]
A
Likewise for the killing of a sacred deer.
- [47:43]
B
Sure. But a lot darker.
- [47:45]
A
I mean, but pretty funny.
- [47:46]
B
Yeah. But like, really real messed up.
- [47:48]
A
Yeah. And with a real chaos agent, you know, in Barry Keoghan. I see you've got an addition here.
- [47:54]
B
Sure. Downton Abbey.
- [47:55]
A
Yeah. The grand finale downstairs.
- [47:59]
B
Anything, you know, anywhere you want to go, but it's slightly lighter but not trending great for anyone in that world at the end of the grand finale, you know, I mean, I guess they're, like, sort of emotionally fulfilled, but otherwise.
- [48:13]
A
Maybe Bong could do down. That would be good. I would watch that. Yeah. This is a great movie. You feel good about number eight?
- [48:22]
B
I say this every time. It's like we've moved past numbers, you know, it's all vibes. Well, I just. At this point, it. It makes me feel a little queasy when I really start thinking about them. They're all great movies. We're at the point now when I tell my husband, like, oh, you know, sorry, I have work. I have to go watch, like, X Movie. He's like, that's not really a half situation.
- [48:43]
A
Yeah, I know.
- [48:44]
B
So I, you know, I feel okay.
- [48:46]
A
Well, I also went down into my basement, my dungeon, to watch this movie last night, and I had a similar, Like, I'm sorry, Eileen, as soon as bedtime is over, I can't sit with you. I have to go get into my spreadsheet. And at first I was like, it had been a long weekend.
- [49:02]
B
Yeah.
- [49:03]
A
And I didn't want to do work on a Sunday night, as I often am.
- [49:06]
B
Sure. Same.
- [49:07]
A
And then within 10 minutes of the film, I was like, this is such a good movie. This is just such an engaging, emotional, funny, strange film. The next seven are not quite like this. That doesn't mean that they're any less good. They all have different energies. The final seven.
- [49:23]
B
Yeah.
- [49:23]
A
There's no sameness.
- [49:24]
B
Now, that's called list making.
- [49:25]
A
It is. It is some good variety. Any closing thoughts?
- [49:29]
B
I recommend Parasite.
- [49:30]
A
If you haven't seen it, I would, too. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Later this week on Friday, we've decided to separate two films. We were gonna do House of Dynamite and Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere in the same episode. I'll just be completely transparent here. I thought that a movie that was coming out in November was going wide, and it's not. So now we're gonna push the schedule a little bit. So this Friday, Springsteen Delivered Me From Nowhere. Me, you, cr. The true Nebraska hat of the three of us talking about one of the awards acting showcases of the year. And then on Monday, after everyone's had a chance to watch it on the Netflix streaming platform, we will talk about House of Dynamite.
- [50:15]
B
Okay.
- [50:16]
A
Does that sound good to you?
- [50:17]
B
I'm ready.
- [50:17]
A
Okay, we'll see you then.