Latest news with #PastLives
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Bong Joon Ho's 'Parasite' titled Best Movie of the 21st Century
Bong Joon Ho 's cult classic Korean film 'Parasite' has been named as the Best Movie of the 21st century! The title has been given to the film alongside other big names such as ' Oldboy ', 'Past Lives', and ' Memories of Murder '. The New York Times released a report titled 'The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century' on June 27. The list analysed films released after January 1, 2000, and even analysed survey data that had been collected from over 500 different people. People who work as directors, actors, producers, and film enthusiasts were involved in the study and gave their survey answers. According to the report, 'Parasite' ended up claiming the 1st spot. As per the publication, the movie was called 'a story of the haves and have-nots', adding, 'A twisted shock flows from the poor household to the wealthy one.' On the other hand, Bong Joon Ho was labelled as 'a superstar in the making, a master of genre unconstrained by convention (who) burnt everything down in a blaze of inevitable violence.' by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like เทรดทองCFDsกับโบรกเกอร์ที่เชื่อถือได้| เปิดบัญชีวันนี้ IC Markets สมัคร Undo Another one of Joon Ho's films ended up on the list, securing the 99th spot with its intriguing plot and star cast. 'Memories of Murder' is another fan favourite from the famed director. More about 'Parasite' 'Parasite', released in 2019, explored the disparity between the rich and the poor while taking everyday instances into account. The film was made as a social commentary on such class differences and how low one can sink when it comes to money and other luxuries. At the time of the release, the film collected a total box office of $258.1 million as per Box Office Mojo. It even won the Palme d'Or award, which is one of the most prestigious film awards at the Cannes Film Festival, in the same year. The film also won a Golden Globe Award at the 77th edition of the event for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture, making it the first Korean film to do so!
Forbes
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Celine Song On ‘Materialists': ‘I Really Believe That Love Is A Miracle When It Happens'
Past Lives director Celine Song is back with what already feels like an all-time classic romantic drama, Materialists. 'Materialists' directed by Celine Song Song's feature debut and critically acclaimed Past Lives earned many awards and countless nominations in 2023, including a nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars. With Materialists, which features a stellar cast including Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, Song cements her work in the tradition of classic romance films by legendary filmmakers such as Nora Ephron or James L. Brooks. Song shot Materialists in 35mm which, combined with her precise and elegant writing, gives the movie a classy and comforting atmosphere. In her new film, Song questions modern dating and the impact that money -and therefore the lack of- can have on romantic relationships. I caught up with Song who was in Paris, at the Champs-Elysées Film Festival, where she was presenting Materialists to the French audience. Paris and New York can be regarded as twin cities to a certain extent and many romance movies have been shot in the city of love in the past, so I asked the filmmaker if she might consider shooting a future project in Paris. She said, 'Oh my God! That's so sweet! I mean Paris is such an inspiring city, I feel like I would love to make something here, that sounds so amazing. I know the French crew is so strong, and cinema is such a powerful center here, so I would love that, that sounds so fun!' She added: 'I was thinking about sharing Materialists here last night, and it's kind of the same concerns in the way that we have to be both so romantic and cynical just to survive here. Like, to live in a city like New York and I can imagine Paris, you have to believe that it's your home and there's so much romance in it, but it's because it's so hard to live here. The quality of living is so low, and it is so hard to pay rent, so you have to believe in the dream. Living in New York is a dream, but to survive there you also have to be realistic and practical and cynical too. So, that's why I think New York was the perfect setting for Materialists, and sharing it with the Paris audience, there are so many things that resonate here because there are twin cities.' In Materialists, Johnson portrays Lucy, a New York matchmaker who finds herself in a love triangle when she meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), a charismatic and successful man. The same night, she reconnects with her ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), an aspiring theatre actor. Celine Song, Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans while filming 'Materialists' Lucy sees love and marriage as a 'business transaction' and as the logical consequence of non-negotiables, such as height, age and income. In Lucy's job, all these data must be taken into account to satisfy her client's needs. And when a date doesn't go as planned for her clients, Lucy has a motto, 'Upward and onward.' There's no time to dwell or feel sorry for oneself, life goes on and so does the dating market. 'So much of the movie is about how much we objectify each other and ourselves. And one of the most important lines in the film is 'I'm not merchandise, I'm a person.' So part of this 'Onward and upwards' is the way that we are always being asked to think about ourselves as an object that has value, and we always have to improve our value. So it's a corporate language, but we're talking about a personal, romantic rejection. And when Lucy says that, she's trying to turn it into a corporate idea,' Song told me. When a movie mentions money a lot, things can soon start to feel very pragmatic, cold, and anti-romantic. However, Song's writing of those themes, especially through Lucy's point of view, which is her fear of being stuck in a relationship where money might become a problem, manages to create the most romantic lines and scenes in the movie. Song said, 'I feel like it's about the way we introduce the language of money, which is very cold. So the most romantic lines in this movie, and it's only possible because the movie is called Materialists, are lines such as 'Deal' or 'How would you like to make a very bad financial decision?' Those lines feel like they could be from The Wolf of Wall Street, but the truth is that, of course they are the most romantic lines in the film. So much of it is about the acceptance of it, how much this language has become a part of the way we talk about love.' We then talked about how much the characters in the film mention money, compared to how very little French people talk about money, especially during a date. Song said, 'We think about the fact that it is impolite to talk about money, and I always have to ask the follow up question, 'Who is it impolite for ?'' For the director, people might regard this topic as impolite because they don't want to reveal themselves with numbers. She added: 'We should talk about that thing that is a little bit taboo, like it's not really polite in the U.S. either, but because of how much economic pressure everybody is under, even the taboo things are out. Lucy offers it openly, she's like 'I make $80K a year!' And what that does, is that it put us in a position where we have to accept that we either make more than her or less. And the truth is most of us make less.' But what about true love? True connection? Those are the questions Song tries to answer regarding modern dating. Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal She said, 'This is something I learned while I was working as a matchmaker. Something that I was really shocked by is that behind closed doors, in a way that they would not speak of, in front of anyone else, clients were telling me all the numbers that they wanted and that were their non-negotiables like height, weight, age, income. There's a very specific way that people say 'I will not date somebody who is over 30.' Or 'I will not date somebody under 6 feet tall.'' She added: 'But what happened? Dating was supposed to be a game we all played in the pursuit of love. I had just got married, and it seemed to me that love or even marriage had nothing to do with these numbers. If I ask my husband, 'Why do you love me?' I don't think he will say a single number.' For Song, love 'won't have anything to do with numbers, it will always be simpler.' She added: 'It's about the way we are animals, and we are beyond numbers. In the middle of all that, we're going to completely lose sight of what it is like to actually have a proper connection and have a proper miracle happen. Because I really believe that love is a miracle when it happens, and it's mysterious as a miracle, and it's an ancient mystery.' In recent interviews, Song mentioned that she does not believe in love at first sight, but in love at first conversation. Watching Materialists, I saw Pascal's character, the 'Unicorn' as Lucy's love at first sight and Evans' character as love at first conversation. When one of Lucy's client is assaulted during a date, the only person Lucy wants to talk to is John, even though she is dating Harry. She calls her ex-boyfriend in tears, while he sits on the ground, listen to her and is simply there for her in the moment. I asked Song about the writing of this scene, and particularly the heartache and longing that emanates from that moment. She said, 'Harry and Lucy, they do in a way, fall in love at first conversation, but as business partners, right? When you think about the way that they meet, and Harry undresses her and her job, to really assess her value as a working person, that really speaks about the way the two of them connect. And of course, with Lucy and John, what you realize is that there are a couple of kids or something. There is a part of that where there is no reason, it's 'I just like hearing your voice, I just like talking to you and that's it. I don't have anything to offer beyond that. But when I think about you, I just want to spend time with you. I just know I could do this forever.' So it's a very different thing, but it's the only thing.'' Song added: 'When Lucy says, 'Love has to be on the table,' sometimes, the response to my movie is 'I am single, are you saying that in order for me to not be single, I have to lower my standards?' and my response is that I would never ask anyone to lower their standards when it comes to a thing that you are entitled to. And the thing that you are entitled to, it's not height, it's not weight, it's not age or income. The only thing that you're entitled from the person who loves you, is that they love you. Love is the only thing you're entitled to from the person who loves you.' Song shared how concerned she is that love or the idea of a romantic relationship and the value of it all might be questioned. She said, 'I feel like the value of love is constantly questioned in the way that no one seems to question the value of a Birkin bag. No one seems to be asking 'Why does this bag cost five times someone's salary? How can that be?' No one asks that question, but the thing that people are constantly wondering is 'Well, is love even worth it?' And to me that's the most heartbreaking thing. And I think, the way we're moving away from love is the way we are moving away from being humans. That's why the line 'I'm not merchandise, I'm a person' is such an important line in the film. And it's a line I'm always going back to.' 'Materialists' In Past Lives, Song wrote about the Korean term 'Inyeon', which is a word used to describe providence, fate and the connection we have with each other, even with a stranger on the street. So are Lucy and John each other's 'Inyeon'? During a gorgeously shot and perfectly paced sequence where Lucy and John crash a wedding, they start dancing to Baby Rose's original song for the film, That's All. The connection between the two characters is so palpable and we are so completely immersed in this romantic scene that we almost forget that it's not actually their wedding. 'Oh my God, Baby Rose is the best! What a completely romantic song, you know, it's just that, 'That's all!'' Song also explained that she wanted to ask the question, 'What is love worth?' She said, 'The less we talk about it, the less we're gonna feel like human beings and that's when we start losing our value, just like love is. That, to me, is really the impulse behind this movie.' She added: 'A person might be able to experience the miracle, which is to love someone. The movie is so much about the objectification and qualification of each other. And what we know about the objectification of a human being, is that it's always going to be dehumanization. That's also connected to what Harry does to his body. That's just something I really wanted to talk about, I'm very concerned about it, and it's worthy of a conversation.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Past Lives to The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – the seven best films to watch on TV this week
With Celine Song's new film Materialists on the brink of release, now is the perfect time to revisit the film that put her on the map. Past Lives is an extraordinary piece of work about a woman forced to re-examine her entire sense of self when an old love reappears, long after she has moved on. It's a film that aches with longing. It's knotty with the mess of cultural identity. All three of its leads do tremendous, heartbreaking work, but Greta Lee deserved an Oscar for her outstanding central performance. That she didn't even receive a nomination is utterly baffling. Nevertheless, consider this an update to Brief Encounter, only with a less infuriatingly paternalistic ending. Sunday 29 June, 10pm, BBC Two Ed Zwick's recent memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions has much to recommend it (not least the astonishing bridge-burning chapter about his involvement with Shakespeare in Love), but chief among its qualities is how much it will make you want to rewatch Glory. Zwick's film about an African American regiment in the civil war is a true epic. The script swings for the fences. Cinematically it spills from the screen. And, let's not forget, this is the movie that announced Denzel Washington as a major presence. He still may not have bettered this performance. Saturday 28 June, 12:30am, Channel 4 Starting life as a short John Cheever story in the New Yorker, The Swimmer does its best to defy as many conventions as it can. Burt Lancaster plays Ned Merrill, an ad executive who one day decides to 'swim home' by clambering in and out of every pool he passes. Along the way he attempts to seduce a string of women, refers to himself in ever more grandiose terms and begins to detach from the easy suburbia he finds himself in. Before long he has spiralled out of control. Dark and hallucinogenic, it's perhaps the best midlife crisis movie ever made. Monday 30 June, 4:55pm, Film4 This needs to be said upfront: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a musical. Even though the film's publicity really did not want you to know about it, this is a film where Rachel Zegler will not stop singing. But forewarned is forearmed, and once the shock of the genre has worn off, what's left might be the best Hunger Games movie yet. A prequel, this is an origin story for Coriolanus Snow (the authoritarian ruler played in previous movies by Donald Sutherland), so it gets to exist in the moral murk more happily than the rest of the series. Tuesday 1 July, Netflix Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion Long before The King's Speech made him an A-lister (and even longer before Cats blew his career to smithereens), Tom Hooper made arguably his best film. A wilfully inaccurate biopic of Brian Clough's ill-fated stint as manager of Leeds United in 1974, the film is like a tug of war between a headstrong individual and an immovable corporation. It is truly fantastic, with Michael Sheen operating at the highest possible level as the cocky, obstinate Clough. A wonderful celebration of a complex man. Tuesday 1 July, 12am, BBC Two Strongly in the running for the most gleefully preposterous film of the decade, Heads of State is a movie about the American president and the British prime minister. What's preposterous is that they are respectively played by John Cena and Idris Elba. Even more preposterously, it's an action buddy comedy by Ilya Naishuller, the director of Nobody. Did the world need a film where the leaders of the western world are stranded in the middle of nowhere and have to machine-gun their way out in a whirlwind of quips? Absolutely not. But the most preposterous thing of all is that it somehow works. Wednesday 2 July, Prime Video If you couldn't get enough of Heads of State, here's a film that must have at least partially inspired it. Although it suffered at the time from comparisons to Olympus Has Fallen – Gerard Butler's dour action film about a terrorist attack on the presidential residence – White House Down is a far lighter affair. Sure, the same things happen, but this has Channing Tatum instead of Butler, and he's intent on delivering all his lines with the biggest wink imaginable. This is an impossibly silly film and, if you're drunk enough, it forms a perfect double bill with Heads of State. Friday 4 July, 9pm, E4
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Are our must-have love lists killing our chance at happiness?
In the final moments of Celine Song's debut feature film, Past Lives, a woman closes the door to a cab taking her childhood love, a man who represented a lifelong 'what if?', to the airport to fly from New York back to Korea, where he lives and she grew up. The camera follows her down the street to the stoop where her husband sits waiting. The first time I watched it, the cinema lights came up soundtracked to my heaving sobs. The second time I saw the film, I excused myself from the cinema before it reached that scene, because I feared the post-screening Q&A I was hosting with the writer-director would be embarrassing and damp. A deeply romantic, patient and quiet film, Past Lives went on to top many of the year's 'best of' lists and earn Oscar attention. It cemented me as a fan of Song for life. Then it was announced that her follow-up would be another romantic drama positioning one woman between two men who represent bigger choices than just affection and passion. Materialists is in Australian cinemas now, and before bundling up in half a dozen layers to see it on Sunday night, I'd heard the director had pulled off another feat and that the marketing of Materialists as a fluffy rom-com about a big-city matchmaker played by Dakota Johnson was something of a Trojan horse. The real story was a treatise on modern dating and what our outsized expectations for partners does to our chance at relationships. My curiosity was piqued. As the perpetually single one, I've learned to tune out the inquiries from well-meaning friends who've never had to swipe left or right, have never had to scroll through profiles of men in their late 30s who are still 'not sure' if they want to have children. Every attempted date organised with a man whose profile bleats about how 'no one on this app actually wants to meet in person!' and who unmatches me the day we've made plans to do just that makes me more hardened towards the whole process … until a month or two later I decide to reinvest because what is there to lose. People these days, I've been conditioned to believe, don't meet by chance any more. They don't meet as children or at artist residencies, like Nora in Past Lives did with the two men she felt split between. Loading I've been asked, by those friends spared from the Hinge trenches, what I want in a partner – and then been scolded for not having high enough standards when my answer was simply, 'taller than me and has a job'. (After every year on the apps, even those criteria become less 'dealbreakers' and more 'nice to haves'.) Lucy, Johnson's character in Materialists, notes down similar expectations of her clients when they first meet. Men in their late 40s looking for women under 25. Women who make $80k a year on the hunt for a man making more than $300k. Men wanting a 'fit' woman – which, of course, has nothing to do with strength or cardiovascular health or time spent in the gym, but is instead code for 'not fat'. Women not looking twice at men under 180 centimetres. Lucy's similarly calloused to the whole enterprise. Her clients are seen as either 'high value' or delusional. She personally believes that romance is a numbers game – specifically the numbers in a prospective partner's bank account. What her career – and the collective time we singles are spending on miserable, hopeless apps – has missed is the surprise and spontaneity underpinning so many of the good relationships, the ones that don't just get the chance to begin, but last. A friend of mine drunkenly declared she'd marry a man she saw in line at Hungry Jack's one night. They took their wedding photos outside that takeaway spot years later. If another friend had not gone to a house party, who knows if she'd have a baby and a mortgage with the guy she met there. I was the officiant, early this year, of the wedding between two friends who were dancing near each other at a pub when one of them worked up the courage to put their number in the other's phone (and barely remembered afterwards). No criteria or checklists or forensic accounting or seeing how someone (literally) measures up. Just chemistry that an app or matchmaker can never dream of conjuring up. It's almost enough to give a sceptical human barnacle some hope. Almost.
The Age
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
Are our must-have love lists killing our chance at happiness?
In the final moments of Celine Song's debut feature film, Past Lives, a woman closes the door to a cab taking her childhood love, a man who represented a lifelong 'what if?', to the airport to fly from New York back to Korea, where he lives and she grew up. The camera follows her down the street to the stoop where her husband sits waiting. The first time I watched it, the cinema lights came up soundtracked to my heaving sobs. The second time I saw the film, I excused myself from the cinema before it reached that scene, because I feared the post-screening Q&A I was hosting with the writer-director would be embarrassing and damp. A deeply romantic, patient and quiet film, Past Lives went on to top many of the year's 'best of' lists and earn Oscar attention. It cemented me as a fan of Song for life. Then it was announced that her follow-up would be another romantic drama positioning one woman between two men who represent bigger choices than just affection and passion. Materialists is in Australian cinemas now, and before bundling up in half a dozen layers to see it on Sunday night, I'd heard the director had pulled off another feat and that the marketing of Materialists as a fluffy rom-com about a big-city matchmaker played by Dakota Johnson was something of a Trojan horse. The real story was a treatise on modern dating and what our outsized expectations for partners does to our chance at relationships. My curiosity was piqued. As the perpetually single one, I've learned to tune out the inquiries from well-meaning friends who've never had to swipe left or right, have never had to scroll through profiles of men in their late 30s who are still 'not sure' if they want to have children. Every attempted date organised with a man whose profile bleats about how 'no one on this app actually wants to meet in person!' and who unmatches me the day we've made plans to do just that makes me more hardened towards the whole process … until a month or two later I decide to reinvest because what is there to lose. People these days, I've been conditioned to believe, don't meet by chance any more. They don't meet as children or at artist residencies, like Nora in Past Lives did with the two men she felt split between. Loading I've been asked, by those friends spared from the Hinge trenches, what I want in a partner – and then been scolded for not having high enough standards when my answer was simply, 'taller than me and has a job'. (After every year on the apps, even those criteria become less 'dealbreakers' and more 'nice to haves'.) Lucy, Johnson's character in Materialists, notes down similar expectations of her clients when they first meet. Men in their late 40s looking for women under 25. Women who make $80k a year on the hunt for a man making more than $300k. Men wanting a 'fit' woman – which, of course, has nothing to do with strength or cardiovascular health or time spent in the gym, but is instead code for 'not fat'. Women not looking twice at men under 180 centimetres. Lucy's similarly calloused to the whole enterprise. Her clients are seen as either 'high value' or delusional. She personally believes that romance is a numbers game – specifically the numbers in a prospective partner's bank account. What her career – and the collective time we singles are spending on miserable, hopeless apps – has missed is the surprise and spontaneity underpinning so many of the good relationships, the ones that don't just get the chance to begin, but last. A friend of mine drunkenly declared she'd marry a man she saw in line at Hungry Jack's one night. They took their wedding photos outside that takeaway spot years later. If another friend had not gone to a house party, who knows if she'd have a baby and a mortgage with the guy she met there. I was the officiant, early this year, of the wedding between two friends who were dancing near each other at a pub when one of them worked up the courage to put their number in the other's phone (and barely remembered afterwards). No criteria or checklists or forensic accounting or seeing how someone (literally) measures up. Just chemistry that an app or matchmaker can never dream of conjuring up. It's almost enough to give a sceptical human barnacle some hope. Almost.
