Hot Takes On Film

  A Werewolf Boy ( 2012 South Korea) A family takes in a feral boy who happens to be a Werewolf. Where Wolf? There Wolf. Sorry I couldn’t resist. This is a lovely fantasy teenage romance story NOT in the vein of Twilight. Very different. Technically you could make the argument that it’s SciFi because in the second act they spend about 10 minutes trying to explain why things are the way they are. Mad Scientist by the way. Then they went on with the movie not mentioning it again. I’m told that it’s common in Asian media to do that. Regardless, the explanation was kinda out of place so I choose to ignore it and continue to call it fantasy as Werewolves are solidly in the fantasy camp. Director Jo Sung-Hee made some interesting choices with the photography. They opened up the aperture to over-expose the scene making it look very bright or “hot”. I think they added a blur either in the camera or in post. It looked like the characters were bathed in a heavenly light. Quite lovely really. At

 Promising Young Woman (2020 US) Its #femaleFilmmakerFriday and todays film is from Emerald Fennell. Cool Name.  Cassie lives out her trauma trolling night club  pred ators. There is a lot going on in this film so the logline doesn't really cut it. However, one of the takeaways here is don't mess with Cassie. This film had some neonoir vibes but in style it did not reach that level. I know the trend is to use bright colors to create the contrast for noir style in film. I don't like it. My opinion is that bright colors are too "happy" for noir. However, the color grading was great and production design was fabulous. At it's heart, Promising Young Woman is a revenge story, a very clever revenge story. Fennell should make a vengeance trilogy like Park Chan-Wook. It was really on that level. Young Woman won an Oscar for the writing (Fennell) and was nominated in other categories including Best Picture and Best Director which lost to Nomadland and Chloe Zaou. Fenne

 Parasite (2019 S KR) An impoverished family schemes to work for a wealthy family. Things don't go well.  Director writer Bong Joon Ho had a lot to say about South Korean society with this very dark "comedy". This is a brilliant film and I'm glad it was recognized by the Academy with a best picture award. Bong is a genius when it comes to framing. I heard the term awhile ago Sacred Geometry. I know it does not apply here but I'm just going to pretend it does and say that Bong incorporated Sacred Geometry to inform his audience. Watch the film and pause it. Look at the geometry of the shot. It makes a huge difference in your sub conscious and emotional responses to the film. Its a lot of work and planning. I can assure you the process was daunting. Bong is known for tone changes and wow this one had a doozy of a tone change so beware. I'm a fan of his work and if you are interested he did an outstanding Kaiju film called The Host (2006). The thought was the Bon

  Decision to Leave (2022 S. Korea) written and directed by the insanely talented Park Chan-Wook. If you are like me and watched Parks “Old Boy” and now need serious therapy because you didn’t get a warning, thanks Josh, then you will be happy to know that he’s done traumatizing the world. The president of S. Korea had a little chat with him and he will now be using his powers for good instead of evil. Decision to Leave is good old fashion neo-noir complete with a helluva femme fatale for the romance aspect. Wow she was good. Park does not need high contrast and German Expressionism to make his noir. He has his own rules. The buzz last year was that Park would clean up like Parasite did at the Oscars. But nope! snubbed. WTF Oscar? We need to talk. You can rent this masterpiece on most streaming and free on Mubi.