Tag: movies

Parasite should probably be Best Picture

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember when I first saw the trailer for Parasite, my first thought was: what the hell is this actually about?  The trailer gives pretty much nothing away, and the only thing that can really be deduced from it is that there is one family that is dirt poor.  There’s little clue to why the film is even called “Parasite” for the matter.

Regardless, the cinematography looked intriguing, the brief clips seemed quirky enough to pique curiosity, and naturally I wish to support anything Korean that can ascend to the world’s stage, so I knew that I wanted to see this flick.  It didn’t hurt that on the film festival scene, Parasite was cleaning up, even winning the Palme d’Or, which full disclaimer I had no idea what it was, but it’s basically the highest award at Cannes, which is a pretty big deal.

Needless to say, having watched Parasite, I can say that I do feel that the film did live up to all of the hype.  It’s one of those films where you enjoy the ride while you’re on it, but then afterward, the mind wanders and analyzes and delves deeper into the story and execution, and the more I think about Parasite, the more I think about how good it really was.

And not just because the fact that me being Korean I’m going to give a Korean film an automatic pass on a pedestal; sure it definitely doesn’t hurt it, but when I break Parasite down into my own criteria of storytelling, cinematography, acting and plot analysis, I think the film as a whole really stood out.

The story is pretty linear, and not really that complicated; without giving too much up, poor family finds a way to entwine their lives with a rich family, and then some complications arise, leading to the culmination of the plot.  The acting is good and Song Kang-ho is to me, one of the most recognizable faces in Korean cinema, to where even a novice to Korean media like me can pick him out.

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Pound-sign-Blessed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is an autographed picture of Sonny Chiba, crushing the shit out of some pleeb’s skull, personalized to me.  This has tremendous meaning to me, because for anyone who’s known me for any lengthy time knows that Sonny Chiba is one of my cult idols.  He’s basically the godfather of movie violence, and has had some of the most savage, bone-crushing combat scenes in the history of cinema, most notably known for getting the first ever X-rating from violence alone in the 1974 flick The Street Fighter, where he rips a man’s testicles off, among other brutal beatdowns he gives to other pleebs.  This isn’t to say that I myself am a bloodthirsty violence monger, but damn if Sonny Chiba films weren’t always entertaining to watch growing up.

I received this treasure as a gift from one of my long time, twenty-year club friends Kat, to whom I am eternally grateful for such a thoughtful and meaningful present.  Despite the fact that my brother kind of spoiled the surprise, it was still no less jaw-dropping when I opened the envelope in the mail and saw the picture that had Lord Chiba’s signature on it.

Like, most celebrities that do any sort of autograph sessions, they have some pretty standard headshot or studio shot, personifying one or more of their most iconic roles.  My brother foolheartedly dropped a mammoth hint that I should expect to receive an autograph from one of my teenage heroes, but little did I realize that it would be to this magnitude.

Because Sonny Chiba is so far above his peers, not only does he not have some simple headshot or studio shot from a single role, he’s got some classic amalgamation of he himself, and all of the sadistic and overpowered characters he’s portrayed throughout his career, caving in the skull of an unnamed victim who had the gall to exist in front of the fists and limbs of the great Sonny Chiba.  And as if that weren’t enough, the background is this epic collage full of stereotypical 70s Asian bad guys, hookers, and more Sonny Chibas.

Frankly, there couldn’t be any more perfect of a canvas for Sonny Chiba to be autographing for his fans.  And I’m truly blessed to have great people in my life who think of me enough to take the time and effort to get this piece of treasure for me.  It’ll hang proudly on the wall of my office, and always make me smirk.

Avengers: Endgame and the obnoxious evolution of hype

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Disclaimer: I may or may not say things that might be interpreted as spoilers for the movie.  But then again considering the fact that I am still offline, it could be weeks or literal years before anyone other than myself sees this post.  Always good to maintain good brogging etiquette though.

So mythical fiancée and I went and saw Avengers: Endgame today.  It’s been two days since the formal release date of the film, but because Hollywood ticket sales data is weird and loves to fudge things to make profits sound way more impressive than they might actually be, it could be anywhere from three to four days since other people of the mostly public world has been watching it.

Typically, this is the type of film that I don’t exactly make such an effort to see so immediately after its release.  Frankly, I didn’t even see Avengers: Infinity War in theaters, and didn’t actually watch it until it started to be available for home releases.  But as a person who was raised heavily on comic books, and as someone who actually read the actual Infinity War/Gauntlet/Crusades comic book arcs, it was still something that I’d be interested in, and despite the fact that I’m not exactly a opening night/special screenings kind of seeker, I’ve still kept up pretty well with just about all of the films of the general Marvel Studios Phase 1 series.

However, because the world is so connected and locked into the internet these days, and damn near everyone is attached to social media in some way, shape or form, I felt somewhat of an urgency to watch Endgame on the earlier side of the spectrum, solely for the fact that I recognize that the citizens of the internet, be it through news and pop culture websites, or through social media itself, are completely incapable of not spoiling things, and waiting to watch anything runs the serious risk of having anything and everything spoiled for you, by people on the internet who just can’t shut the fuck up.

So, we went and watched Endgame.  2-4 days after its initial release.  And it was good.  A solid film that tied up just about every loose end that was unraveled throughout the last 11 years of Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Lots of comedic moments here, some very serious moments there, some slightly eye-rolly fan service moments occasionally, and a few nods to the actual comics, which nerds like me probably recognized.  As I said, it was a solid flick that was fairly enjoyable, and didn’t feel like the three hours that many bemoaned was going to be a test to all viewer’s constitutions.

But do I think it lived up to the hype that the internet artificially created over the last few months?  Absolutely not.

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I feel like a lack of time is all part of being adults

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I take the time to write, it’s usually because I’ve built myself a nice little cushion of time to where I can write, fairly uninterrupted, for anywhere from 45-90 minutes.  That, has not happened in quite some time, and therefore I have not really taken the time to write, which in itself gives me a little bit of anxiety, because I don’t ever want to fall out of the habit of writing, because writing is important to me, and it makes me anxious when I haven’t done it in a while.

It’s literally been two weeks since the last time I sat down and did any sort of writing.  This isn’t to say that there’s been nothing interesting or worth writing about, although I will say that the usual bullshit that occurs in Atlanta and/or Georgia itself has been a little on the dull side or a little too darkly serious side, like the prehistoric anti-abortion laws they’re pushing, which are things that I don’t really feel remotely capable of speaking about.  I ran in my first-ever official half marathon, the Star Wars half at Disney World.  UVA won a national championship in an actual sport (basketball).  Women, main evented Wrestlemania, with Becky Lynch winning both women’s championships from Charlotte and Ronda Rousey.  Tiger Woods won the Masters and proved that winning shit in sports absolves anyone of their personal indiscretions because they’re totally related.  Game of Thrones embarked on their final season, and the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris almost burned down, because bad shit always tends to happen this time of year.

Things, have most definitely been happening all around the world; it’s just that I really haven’t been able to build that cushion that I always tend to want in order to do some writing, because it never seems like there’s ever any time in the day for me do such.  Whether it’s the increased responsibilities and the seemingly endless parade of little and large tasks that I have at work, meetings after meetings, I barely have the time to have proper lunches on a daily basis, much less be able to eat food and type words at the same time. 

And then when I get home, whether or not I have to cook dinner or an endless litany of small tasks and daily chores that I feel the need to do in order to have a somewhat kept house, that by the time I’m done with everything, I’m at that awkward point of the day in which I don’t feel like I have enough time to write, or watch anything other than a 30-minute program on Netflix, because I should probably start considering going to bed in order to be a responsible adult and not be tired during work.

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Does Batista get his job back too?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

About as surprising as celebrities that pay to get their children into college: Disney reinstates fired and disgraced director James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3

I think the only real question marks that come remotely close to being something of surprises, was when this was going to occur.  Considering the firing, which if you need a refresher, revolved around the fact that James Gunn was smart enough to tweet jokes about pedophilia, rape and other inappropriate subject matter on Twitter like a decade ago, which naturally stays on the internet for eternity, was unearthed, and therefore Disney shitcanned him; even though he received a tremendous amount of support from the entire Guardians cast, namely Dave Bautista who threatened to walk away from the series as if he thought anyone thought he was completely indispensable.

Naturally, the firing was as stupid as American politics, because really, who hasn’t said stupid shit, much less stupid shit on the internet at some point in time?  It’s just the fact that James Gunn was in an elevated position societally that made him a target for the trolls that actually spend time looking for inflammatory things once said to bring to surface because that’s the kind of world we live in now which totally sucks.  But Disney being the gozillion dollar company it is, seemed to think they can’t afford to have someone who made a careless innocuously insensitive series of tweets when he was young and stupid, felt that they had to do it anyway.  Did everyone also conveniently forget that Walt hated Jews?

Anyway, I understand why Didney did it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I thought it was stupid.  Naturally though, stupider is the obvious news that Didney brought Gunn back, which kind of also sends mixed, but also negative messages out to the inquiring public: namely the fact that by bringing Gunn back kind of says that Didney condones insensitive jokes about pedophilia, rape, the Holocaust and 9/11.

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A Morbius film sounds pretty bottom of the barrel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Just a few days ago, I saw Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.  It was fantastic.  I felt it captured a lot of what the series has been trying to convey over the last decade, that Spider-Man was more of an idea, and not so much exclusively Peter Parker, and that it’s entirely possible for absolutely anyone, regardless of race, gender or any other difference, to be, a Spider-Man (or woman).

Even more amazing was the fact that Into the Spiderverse was a creation under the Sony Pictures banner, with no affiliation whatsoever to the Marvel Cinematic Universe under the Disney overlords; because it was actually good; unlike the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man sequels, and although I have little interest in watching it, I heard Venom was a turd too.  Needless to say, it’s impressive that Sony actually created something of significant quality with the Spider-Man property, because they’ve demonstrated a surprising ineptitude with it previously.

Without question, into the Spiderverse is the crown jewel of Sony’s collection of Marvel films released, and if they’re smart, they really stick with the formula of creating quality animated films.

So with that said, I just found out that Sony is releasing a spinoff film, based on another Spider-Man villain: Morbius the Living Vampire.  Much like the Venom film, it doesn’t seem like there’s any real tie-in to any Spider-Man properties, and honestly, I have no idea what Sony thinks they’re doing by releasing stand-alone films about Spider-Man villains without actually tying them into any Spider-Man storylines.

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Not sure how I feel about a Hulkamania biopic

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Source: Netflix to develop a Hulk Hogan biopic with Chris Hemsworth playing the role of Hulk Hogan

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.  My knee-jerk reaction is “oh fuck no, how dare someone try to profit on my nostalgia??”  But when I take the time to read about the details of this project, there are more reasons to feel like it might not be as terrible as I initially would assume it would be.

Namely the fact that Hulk Hogan himself is overseeing the whole thing, and that it’s going to be distributed by Netflix.  And Netflix is pretty solid when it comes to creating original content that doesn’t always suck beyond belief; and it’s funny that I hold more stock in the fact that Netflix is helming this over the fact that Hulk Hogan is consulting over his very own biopic as reasoning it might not be terrible.  As much as I love the Hulkster, the guy hasn’t always been the bastion of good decision making throughout his career and life.

Don’t get me wrong, my optimism for this is kind of at like a… 40 out of 100, in that I think there’s only a 40% chance that this is going to be any good.  Netflix or not, it’s probably going to be a trainwreck all the same, because although Hogan and Netflix are involved with this, it’s worth mentioning that one of the producers in this is still Eric Bischoff.

Look, nothing against the man himself, but as history has shown, combining Hogan and Bischoff has led to a notable amount of failures.  They basically tanked two separate wrestling federations when they got together, and who knows how many other business ventures they’ve sabotaged, inadvertent or deliberately.  It’s no secret that both could probably benefit from the payday of a Netflix project, but if this is the only reason why they’re doing it, it’s doomed to fail before it even gets off the ground.

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