Catching Up on Movies --- Day 8/208

Walk: Asian Art Museum (Noguchi and Nasegawa Exhibition), Opera Plaza Cinema (By the Grace of God)
Distance: 4.5 Miles, Yoga

Writer Director, Bong Joon-Ho, and cast of Parasite

If you are a movie buff, Ciwt says run don't walk to Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho's masterpiece about class struggle (warfare actually).  Ciwt went twice, one with her New York playgoing friend, and then with a visiting friend whose son is enrolled at Columbia University's Film School.  His thought after seeing Parasite is that it will be taught at film schools for the next 20 years.  It's that technically perfect; not a wasted cinematic moment.

All that said, Parasite is easily respected, but not so easily liked. And it is definitely not for everybody.

One of these years Willem Dafoe is going to get an Best Actor Oscar.  He is outstanding and memorable in every part he's played over the decades, including The Lighthouse.  Robert Pattinson might eventually get one too; his acting and handsomeness were a revelation to Ciwt in The Lighthouse.  But, for Ciwt, the acting was not enough to keep her from looking at her watch every few minutes from 5-10 minutes into the movie.  The bleak, B&W movie about two repressed, guilt-ridden, not-too-sane men (one bombastically long-winded) trapped on a lighthouse island felt interminable.  Oh, and did Ciwt mention the actors speak in an often indecipherable brogue?  Good acting, but so what?

Ciwt was skeptical about JoJo Rabbit after seeing the preview.  A send up of Nazism and Hitler with a child star no less, no thanks.  Since she was still in a funk about the leaden The Lighthouse, she went in hopes of being lifted a bit. Und, voila, it worked - especially watching Sam Rockwell almost steal yet another movie.