GreenCine Daily: <i>Sight & Sound</i>. 2/06.

January 18, 2006

Sight & Sound. 2/06.

Tristram Shandy may be touted on the cover of the new issue of Sight & Sound, but online, the focus is clearly on Korean cinema. Grady Hendrix opens things up by addressing Western pre- and misconceptions:

The problem is that we've mistaken a discussion about violence for its glorification; we've stepped into the middle of a long-running conversation and thrown in our two cents with no idea of what was said before we entered the room. Korean movies do play rougher than we're used to, but what Park Chan-wook and Kim Ki-duk's recent films represent is only the latest collision between Korean cinema's class-consciousness, anti-authoritarian impulses and a long-standing taste for melodrama.

Speaking of Park, Ali Jaafar speaks to him. Briefly. About the trilogy. And James Bell has a shortish talk with Kim Jee-woon about A Bittersweet Life.

"So the spectator is both subjected to [Michael] Haneke's film and asked to take responsibility for it: he or she is at once the victim of the film and the guilty party." Catherine Wheatley on Cach�.

Reviews:

Sight & Sound: February 06

Amy Taubin: "It is the intensity of Pocahontas' search for meaning and the curiosity and courage with which she pursues it that make The New World so moving and ultimately tragic."
Peter Jackson's King Kong is ultimately "a more timid, less primal version of the tale," writes Kim Newman.
Mark Kermode on Walk the Line: "After the feather-light foolishness of [James] Mangold's recent efforts Kate & Leopold (2001) and Identity (2003), this marks a weighty return to the character-based storytelling of Copland (1997), and ?nally cashes in on the overdrawn promise of 1995's Heavy."

Posted by dwhudson at January 18, 2006 2:15 AM

Comments

Thanks for posting a link to Grady Hendrix's article on Korean cinema.

But readers should be aware he wrongly credits Andrew Sarris with writing this review of "Oldboy" in the New York Observer: "What else can you expect from a nation weaned on kimchi, a mixture of raw garlic and cabbage buried underground until it rots, dug up from the grave and then served in earthenware pots sold at the Seoul airport as souvenirs?"

This paragraph was actually written by film critic Rex Reed.

My Slant Magazine editor Ed Gonzalez wrote an impassioned response to Mr. Reed's thoughtless comments in an essay called "The Crimes of Monsieur Reed", which can be read here:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/features/crimeofmonsieurreed.asp

It's not a defense of "Oldboy", which Ed disliked -- but rather a look at the state of film criticism using Mr. Reed as an example. It's a strong article and well worth reading.

Mr. Reed's comments were also roasted by Ed Park and Dennis Lim in the Village Voice ("Research reveals that the cosmopolitan critic has previously blamed other exotic dishes for the collapse of various national cinemas.") That article can be found here:

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0515,jumpcuts,62915,20.html

Posted by: Jeremiah Kipp at January 18, 2006 8:20 AM

Many thanks for the reminder of Ed Gonzalez's fine piece, Jeremiah, and yes, that is quite a slip-up, switching Reed for Sarris. These things happen (and it's at least a little understandable in that they both write for the same publication), but the Sight & Sound editors should have caught it.

Do you (or does anyone) happen to remember when EG's piece on Reed appeared? I wonder why I didn't include it in a summary of the two then-ongoing main debates on Korean cinema back in May when I introduced Jonathan Marlow's interview with Kim Ki-duk.

Anyway. Thanks again.

Posted by: David Hudson at January 18, 2006 12:44 PM

Looks like it was mid April, according to Dennis Cozzalio's reaction post.

Posted by: Brian at January 18, 2006 12:56 PM

Well, rats, I should have included it. Thanks, Brian.

Posted by: David Hudson at January 18, 2006 1:34 PM