- Banned
- #21
Sorry to harp on this one, but the energy and inventiveness of Oldboy is not unique in Korean cinema at this moment. If films do indeed reflect the conditions of finance, then there should be other venturesome examples by other venturesome directors. And of course there are.
Another film ("Tale of Two Sisters") which was just remade in the U.S. as "The Uninvited" (though the latter has little to do with the Korean original), again accesses areas of mind and response inconceivable for an American-financed film.
This stuff, like it or not, is tapped into fundamentals of human urges, creative imagination and deep psychology. Meanwhile, most of the films we get here seem to be tapped into other movies and TV, marketing surveys, celebrity worship and an exhausted reliance on the audience's fight/flight response. Even effective exploitation of sex is beyond these people, lacking the courage and imagination for it. Folks in American movies make love with their clothes on in MPAA-approved positions, and the movie comes to dead halt while it goes on.
So follow the money.... The same business school geniuses who brought us the banking crisis have turned the American movie industry into a waste dump of recycled marketing formulas. They figure that if you switch the advertising megaphone up loud enough, and have tens of millions of dollars to do it, the movie consumer will come anyway. What a pity that we let these people run the American economy (into the ground).
Another film ("Tale of Two Sisters") which was just remade in the U.S. as "The Uninvited" (though the latter has little to do with the Korean original), again accesses areas of mind and response inconceivable for an American-financed film.
This stuff, like it or not, is tapped into fundamentals of human urges, creative imagination and deep psychology. Meanwhile, most of the films we get here seem to be tapped into other movies and TV, marketing surveys, celebrity worship and an exhausted reliance on the audience's fight/flight response. Even effective exploitation of sex is beyond these people, lacking the courage and imagination for it. Folks in American movies make love with their clothes on in MPAA-approved positions, and the movie comes to dead halt while it goes on.
So follow the money.... The same business school geniuses who brought us the banking crisis have turned the American movie industry into a waste dump of recycled marketing formulas. They figure that if you switch the advertising megaphone up loud enough, and have tens of millions of dollars to do it, the movie consumer will come anyway. What a pity that we let these people run the American economy (into the ground).