Stoker
Maid to Win: Park Chan-wook’s “The Handmaiden”
Maybe forty minutes into Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), the fingersmith turned personal maid to Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), is forced to cup the groin of Sound Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo), with whom she is plotting to con the Japanese/Korean aristocrat out of her money. But Fujiwara, like Sook-hee, is little more than a thief, and, in all honesty, a lousy one. Sook-hee’s dexterity, both literally and figuratively, knows this, and when the two argue about the trajectory of their con, she hurls back, “Stop shoving something so small of yours into my hand.” Read the rest of this entry »
My 13 Favorite Films of 2013
I’ve already made two lists this year (one with superlatives and one with three films I never need to see again), but I made another one because masochism is the new black.
Here are my 13 Favorite Films from 2013:
Kyle’s Superlative Year in Film: 2013 Edition at The Moviola
I realized it was almost the end of the year about a week and a half ago. And I began to panic. Little beads of sweat began to form on my forehead as I looked at the list of films I still had to watch. My original plan was to cram as many as I could before making my year end list. But, after some advice from a Twitter friend, I decided, “Eh, I’ve more than made my quota, I can take it easy and watch what I want to watch now.” By quota, I mean by my Masochist Quota. Because I feel like I’m always playing catch up with every other cinephile out there, I feel the incredibly masochistic need to watch at least 365 films a year. And watching that many (usually more) drains a person. (I’ve hit 516 films so far, not including rewatches.) I don’t have my license, so I don’t see that many 2013 films. I mostly see rep and archival stuff via Netflix, my library, etc. But this year, I did see a bit more. While I believe I have enough to make a reasonable top ten list, I decided to do something else. Silly superlatives! It’s more fun, a little more unorthodox, and does not require sleepless nights and valium pills to get me through eighteen other films I still had to watch.
Read on at The Moviola for my List of Film Superlatives for 2013!
I Like Things That Look Like Mistakes 