inthecutzine: IN THE CUT CELEBRATE’S PARASITE’S HISTORIC ACADEMY AWARD BEST PICTURE WIND
inthecutzine: IN THE CUT CELEBRATE’S PARASITE’S HISTORIC ACADEMY AWARD BEST PICTURE WINDISCLAIMER: We are choosing to exclude Bong Joon-Ho’s work as this will be a separate article chronicling the works of the gonzo South Korean genius. In the Cut wishes to celebrate different director, for new film lovers who want to expand on their knowledge of film, beyond Parasite. On February 9, 2019, Bong Joon-Ho made history at the Academy Awards. His movie, Parasite, was the first recipient of the Best International Feature Film, as the Academy’s decision was to retire the moniker Best Foreign Film because it devalues the inclusivity of the language of films, as well as the word “foreign” is both globally antiquated and shallowly fixated on specific regional movements. The controversy grows with the reality that the award’s representation was becoming globally outdated amongst filmmakers. The notion that the Academy would rationalize that a foreign film wasn’t an accurate representation of a so-call “regular” film is downright culturally insensitive and racially motivated.Parasite broke the barriers last night, as it won Best Picture (alongside Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay). To watch, not only, a person of color succeed, but an entire country like South Korea, who stands divided by the oppression that its neighboring oligarchal country, North Korea faces, is the first step to breaking down barricades. It is a moment in history, where we are standing on the right side of it.Bong-Joon Ho’s undisputed universally beloved masterpiece brought down the house. It was the first time in a while where we saw the best film actually win Best Picture. Before Moonlight’s historic win, we can’t recollect which film could hold that distinction. Unfortunately for Moonlight, it was marred by the controversial error of PricewaterhouseCoopers (the accounting firm behind the Oscars).As we all know now, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty presented Best Picture to La La Land. Everything was beautiful and dandy when Jimmy Kimmel (the host of the evening) worriedly rushed to the podium. Horrified and pale-faced, Kimmel announced to the confused audience that there was an egregious error that needed to be ramified. La La Land was not the Best Picture winner. Instead, Moonlight took the prize home.Moonlight, the more deserving movie of 2016, now has that dent when accounting for history. For better or worse, it’s apart of its history.With Parasite, history will be much kinder to the prolific film, because the uproarious nature of its win felt like we were witnessing Kobe Bryant hit the epoch-making 81 points from the January 22, 2006 basketball game against the Toronto Raptors. Soon, In the Cut will meticulously chronicle on 92 Best Picture winners and rank. We understand that it is brutal because some of them were erroneous and downright fallacious, in our humble opinion. Still, it’s critical to our widening of film cinema to look back at those films and investigate why they were chosen.But it is safe to say that Parasite is in my Top 5 of all time Best Picture wins. We’re not sure where the landing sticks, but it’s clearly among the highest wins in that category’s history. We can say that with pride in our hearts. We, or I (as in Jennifer, in this case, always believed that if we ever had a director that would break that barrier, it would have been Wong Kar-wai.If we have any cultivated following, we’re not sure if we do, but if we have returning readers to our site, you’d know how much we love the works of Wong Kar-wai. Hell, he’s number one on this very list right now, but Bong Joon-ho was always a clearcut direct competition against Kar-wai. If Kar-wai is the David Lynch of Hong Kong, then Joon-ho is the Spike Lee of South Korea. And for that, it gives us the pride to watch this profoundly humble artist ascend on this global platform, breaking that barrier for all international films to be seen and watched like any American or British film is in the mainstream. Films are meant to be universal. The anthropological and linguistic divide amongst nations and ethnicities is what is hurting our industry, alongside race and misogyny. Is Parasite’s a quick win in the hurdle? No, absolutely not, but it’s the right baby-step in the right direction. No film should ever be denoted as a “foreign” film and “regular” film again. With Parasite, we now hope to see movies like Cold War, La Strada, Rashomon, 8 ½, Ash Is the Purest White, Amour, and others win the big prize. Like Woody from Toy Story 2 once exclaimed, “Ride like the wind, Bullseye!”IN THE CUT’S TOP 10 GREATEST ASIAN CINEMA FILMS OF ALL TIMEIN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2001); directed by Wong Kar-waiTHE HANDMAIDEN (2016); directed by Park Chan-wook DREAMS (1990); directed by Akira KurosawaPERFECT BLUE (1985); directed by Satoshi KonICHI THE KILLER (2001); directed by Takashi Miike RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991); directed by Zhang Yimou GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1993); directed by Isao Takahata AKIRA (1988); directed by Katsuhiro Otomo HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2004); directed by Hayao Miyazaki LONG DAY JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (2018); directed by Bi GanIN THE CUT’S TOP 10 GREATEST ASIAN FILMS’ CORRESPONDING COUNTRY OF ORIGININ THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Hong Kong, China) THE HANDMAIDEN (South Korea) DREAMS (Japan)PERFECT BLUE (Japan)ICHI THE KILLER (Japan) RAISE THE RED LANTERN (Hong Kong, China)GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (Japan) AKIRA (Japan) HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (Japan) LONG DAY JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (China) -- source link