The lives and loves of past and present intermingle in Celine Song's beautiful directorial debut. Spices intermingle with Cheetos in a fact-free true story.
On one hand, me disgusted by trend of movies that are love letters to corporations and their products. On other hand, me more hopeful than ever that me can sell screenplay for insightful, soul-stirring, and surprisingly racy Mrs Fields biopic me have been working on.
Cookie, I once drove to Park City, Utah, to interview for a software job with Mr. Fields. I think he didn’t hire me because he realized I’d end up part of the love triangle in your biopic.
Any movie that has a character sharing my name is aces. :) But seriously, I've been a fan of Greta Lee since the first season of Russian Doll. She plays that brittle/intelligent role well, so it'd be great to see her do something a bit different.
I heard about Flamin' Hot for two reasons: the linked article exposing that he didn't create it and because it was listed on Franklin Entertainment's slate, who are best known for doing stealthy faith-based films (John Boy has fallen into the well, no one recovers from that, we need a miracle! Oprah's the talking animal that makes the inn owner take in Mary and Joseph, etc.) that aren't quite Pure Flix. But the founder/owner is something of a producer savant and used to show up on Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil as an Oprah-approved speaker. Allegedly he's even remaking Foxy Brown which makes me think he misread the logline as Foxy being in the underground prostration business looking for revenge.
I saw the trailer for "Past Lives" when I went to see "Blackberry" and thought immediately that it was a movie I wanted to see. Always nice to have one's instincts unofficially vouched for by the experts.
Watched Past Lives tonight and was swept up in the romance and what-could-have-been quality of the film. While I wished that the film could have more variance in this tone/mood (more moments of humor/lightness) to balance the movie, I appreciated the clarity in vision and exploration of these themes. Recognized its similarities to the Before trilogy so surprised that this wasn’t brought up in the review here. Excited to see what Song does to follow up this impressive debut.
Finally had the time and opportunity to watch Past Lives. 4-star rating is right on target -- I expected to be impressed by Greta Lee and was, but I must say, I was really impressed by the Korean actor Teo Yoo. Turns out he's actually German born and raised?!?! So Korean obviously is neither of their native tongues but they both sounded very much like natives, so either they grew up with the language to some degree or had excellent dialect coaching and practice. Also, I really felt for the Magaro character -- so perfectly cast, that role. He's got the natural hangdog/sadness in his eyes.
For a movie about unrequited yearning, I'd put Remains of the Day over it for sure, and for romantic swooning, Carol is tops. Still, for Celine Song's first feature, it's not quite a home run but more than a triple. Maybe inside-the-park home run?
p.s. Several times, the translation bothered me. At that crucial scene where Hae Sung bids Nora goodbye the first time (when they are 12 year olds), the translation said, "Bye." Even though "jaal gara" technically translates to "bye," I find it too simple. There are two ways to say goodbye in Korean, "jaal gara" (when the person is leaving) and "jaal it suh" (when the person is staying and YOU are leaving). So when Hae Sung says this, it's really more like "bon voyage" or "happy trails." Neither of those work, either...I guess maybe we're just hitting the natural limits of linguistic translations...
On one hand, me disgusted by trend of movies that are love letters to corporations and their products. On other hand, me more hopeful than ever that me can sell screenplay for insightful, soul-stirring, and surprisingly racy Mrs Fields biopic me have been working on.
Fields of Dreams? The Snacking Fields?
Too bad Cookie's Fortune is already taken.
Oh, fantastic!
Cookie, I once drove to Park City, Utah, to interview for a software job with Mr. Fields. I think he didn’t hire me because he realized I’d end up part of the love triangle in your biopic.
To be fair to BlackBerry it’s
sympathetic but does lean into the dysfunction (and criminality) of the enterprise
Absolutely. Blackberry is definitely not brand-boosting LOL.
Any movie that has a character sharing my name is aces. :) But seriously, I've been a fan of Greta Lee since the first season of Russian Doll. She plays that brittle/intelligent role well, so it'd be great to see her do something a bit different.
I heard about Flamin' Hot for two reasons: the linked article exposing that he didn't create it and because it was listed on Franklin Entertainment's slate, who are best known for doing stealthy faith-based films (John Boy has fallen into the well, no one recovers from that, we need a miracle! Oprah's the talking animal that makes the inn owner take in Mary and Joseph, etc.) that aren't quite Pure Flix. But the founder/owner is something of a producer savant and used to show up on Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil as an Oprah-approved speaker. Allegedly he's even remaking Foxy Brown which makes me think he misread the logline as Foxy being in the underground prostration business looking for revenge.
I saw the trailer for "Past Lives" when I went to see "Blackberry" and thought immediately that it was a movie I wanted to see. Always nice to have one's instincts unofficially vouched for by the experts.
Watched Past Lives tonight and was swept up in the romance and what-could-have-been quality of the film. While I wished that the film could have more variance in this tone/mood (more moments of humor/lightness) to balance the movie, I appreciated the clarity in vision and exploration of these themes. Recognized its similarities to the Before trilogy so surprised that this wasn’t brought up in the review here. Excited to see what Song does to follow up this impressive debut.
Killing me that I haven't gotten a chance to see this one yet.
Finally had the time and opportunity to watch Past Lives. 4-star rating is right on target -- I expected to be impressed by Greta Lee and was, but I must say, I was really impressed by the Korean actor Teo Yoo. Turns out he's actually German born and raised?!?! So Korean obviously is neither of their native tongues but they both sounded very much like natives, so either they grew up with the language to some degree or had excellent dialect coaching and practice. Also, I really felt for the Magaro character -- so perfectly cast, that role. He's got the natural hangdog/sadness in his eyes.
For a movie about unrequited yearning, I'd put Remains of the Day over it for sure, and for romantic swooning, Carol is tops. Still, for Celine Song's first feature, it's not quite a home run but more than a triple. Maybe inside-the-park home run?
p.s. Several times, the translation bothered me. At that crucial scene where Hae Sung bids Nora goodbye the first time (when they are 12 year olds), the translation said, "Bye." Even though "jaal gara" technically translates to "bye," I find it too simple. There are two ways to say goodbye in Korean, "jaal gara" (when the person is leaving) and "jaal it suh" (when the person is staying and YOU are leaving). So when Hae Sung says this, it's really more like "bon voyage" or "happy trails." Neither of those work, either...I guess maybe we're just hitting the natural limits of linguistic translations...