Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, the Criterion Collection welcomes Bong Joon Ho and another of his films to their club. That’s our top pick this week, as the slate otherwise is, again, somewhat lacking. Read on for more…
Joey’s Top Pick
Memories of Murder (Criterion)
Bong Joon Ho’s sophomore feature gets the Criterion treatment today, joining Parasite. If you haven’t seen Memories of Murder, it’s yet more evidence why he’s one of the best filmmakers on the planet. Definitely pick this one up, especially given the other choices this week. It’s easily my top pick!
From The Criterion Collection: “In his breakthrough second feature, Bong Joon Ho explodes the conventions of the policier with thrillingly subversive, genre-defying results. Based on the true story of a string of serial killings that rocked a rural community in the 1980s, Memories of Murder stars New Korean Cinema icon Song Kang Ho as the local officer who reluctantly joins forces with a seasoned Seoul detective (Kim Sang Kyung) to investigate the crimes—leading each man on a wrenching, yearslong odyssey of failure and frustration that will drive him to the existential edge. Combining a gripping procedural with a vivid social portrait of the everyday absurdity of life under military rule, Bong fashions a haunting journey into ever-deepening darkness that begins as a black-comic satire and ends as a soul-shattering encounter with the abyss.”
Also Available This Week
Body Brokers
Crisis (interview with Nicholas Jarecki here)
Test Pattern
‘Til Death: The Complete Series (TV)
Criterion Corner
The Furies
From The Criterion Collection: “Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston are at their fierce finest in master Hollywood craftsman Anthony Mann’s crackling western melodrama The Furies. In 1870s New Mexico Territory, megalomaniacal widowed ranch owner T. C. Jeffords (Huston, in his final role) butts heads with his firebrand of a daughter, Vance (Stanwyck), over her dowry, choice of husband, and, finally, ownership of the land itself. Sophisticated in its view of frontier settlement and ablaze with searing domestic drama, The Furies is an often-overlooked treasure of American filmmaking, boasting Oscar–nominated cinematography and vivid supporting turns from Judith Anderson, Wendell Corey, and Gilbert Roland.”
Memories of Murder (cited above)
Stay tuned for more next week!
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