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[팟캐스트] (667) 봉준호, 6년 만의 신작도 여전히 인간 이야기 중심

Korea Herald

30-03-2025

Entertainment
Korea Herald

[팟캐스트] (667) 봉준호, 6년 만의 신작도 여전히 인간 이야기 중심

Bong Joon-ho still keen on human stories 진행자: 홍유, Elise Youn 기사 요약: 봉준호 감독은 6년 만에 선보인 신작 "미키17 (Mickey 17)"에 대해, SF 장르를 통해 인간 본성을 탐구하며 현대 사회의 노동 착취 문제를 다룬다고 밝혔다. [1] "I've never been freeloading," Bong Joon-ho quips with a mischievous glint. The Oscar-winning director is speaking to reporters at a hotel in Yeouido, Seoul, Wednesday, discussing his first film in six years. freeload: 빈둥거리다, 공짜로 얻어먹다 quip: 재치있게 말하다. mischievous: 장난기 있는 [2]The film "Mickey 17" stars Robert Pattinson in a dual role as expendable clones on a distant ice planet. It's Bong's fourth venture into science fiction, following "The Host" (2006), "Snowpiercer" (2013) and "Okja" (2017). But as with those earlier works, the director's interest lies more in human nature than technological speculation. expendable: 소모용의, 소모품인 human nature: 인간 본성 speculation: 추측 [3] For Bong, science fiction has been a lens through which to examine contemporary reality. His previous genre works — whether exploring environmental disaster in "The Host" or class warfare in "Snowpiercer" — used fantastical premises to illuminate present-day concerns. Mickey 17 continues this tradition, with its story of a disposable worker serving as a mirror for modern-day labor exploitation. premise: 전제 exploitation: 착취 [4] "Rather than focusing on the sci-fi elements, I was most strongly drawn to the concept of human printing itself," Bong says. "I wanted to explore Mickey as a person — this poor, kindhearted but pathetic young man, and how he might survive such extreme circumstances. Instead of grand philosophical worldbuilding, I wanted to look into Mickey's mind, his emotional state."

In ‘Mickey 17,' Bong recycles Pattinson and his old ideas

Gulf Today

13-03-2025

Entertainment
Gulf Today

In ‘Mickey 17,' Bong recycles Pattinson and his old ideas

Of course Bong Joon Ho is an environmentalist. He recycles his own ideas. 'Mickey 17,' a sloppy but enjoyable sci-fi comedy set in the year 2054, mashes together the monsterphobia of 'The Host,' the animal-rights activism of 'Okja,' the environmental doomsaying of 'Snowpiercer' and the social inequality of 'Parasite,' that last one the Oscar winner that handed Bong the blank check to make a combo platter of his greatest hits. It's the equivalent of the lunch tray that Mickey 17 (Robert Pattinson) gobbles up in his outer-space cafeteria: squares of the same nutritious gunk. But I'm not complaining. Some filmmakers deliver sermons; Bong serves entertainment. The 17th Mickey is a flesh photocopy of Mickey Barnes, a good-for-nothing dope desperate to flee Earth after his macaron business flops and its main investor threatens him with a chainsaw. Earth isn't worth sticking around for, anyway. 'Seems like the whole of this planet was running away from something,' Mickey says, gazing up at a long line of wannabe migrants jostling to earn a spot on an escape ship headed to the ice planet Niflheim. As frigid as it is, Niflheim doesn't seem any worse than the pounding dust storms at home. The trouble is, Mickey doesn't have any skills. He's underqualified to fly planes or lead science experiments or even dish the gunk. Mickey is a moron. A sweet moron, but a moron nonetheless, which is evident as soon as Pattinson starts squeaking banalities in a nasal gasp that sounds as though he's never gotten enough oxygen to his brain. In Edward Ashton's original 2022 novel 'Mickey 7,' the character is an academic, a punch line that's even more bleak. So Mickey signs up to be the ship's 'expendable,' a canary-meets-crash-test-dummy who continually sacrifices his life in service of the fledgling colony. Someone has to sample the radiation in the atmosphere and the toxins in the air. Someone has to die to develop vaccines. He's a human-on-demand 3D-reprint, made from scraps of garbage. Fittingly, Pattinson hunches his shoulders and curls his upper lip: an obedient lab rat. The premise isn't 'Groundhog Day.' Mickey 17 remembers the pain of all prior Mickeys, from the original through No. 16. Among the indignities a newly vulnerable Mickey suffers, each one spurts out of a stuttering printer and flops to the floor, forsaken. With every copy, he's treated less like a person. One of the smart tweaks Bong has made to Ashton's book is devolving the character from an Everyman into a passive stooge. He's hurting all over but can't think straight about what is to blame. In the opening scene, Mickey is trapped at the bottom of a chasm having plummeted not to his doom but to everyone else's inconvenience. Cold and scared, he stares up at his supposed best friend, Timo (Steven Yeun), hoping for rescue. Timo sizes up his injuries with the impassivity of an insurance adjuster and abandons him to freeze. 'Have a nice death,' Timo says offhandedly. Mickey shivers. 'Yeah, no ... we're cool.' The highfalutin parallel is to 'Candide,' the classic 18th century novel about a naif who endures the horrors of civilization: chaos, selfishness, disease and destruction. The problems of 1759 are the same ones of 2054, with too many years in between. Bong's probably read Voltaire. But his film plays to a poppier crowd. Mickey's bowl haircut is straight out of 'Dumb and Dumber.' His obtuse optimism makes him the intergalactic Forrest Gump. Inconceivably, women love him. Mickey has an out-of-his-league girlfriend, Nasha (Naomi Ackie), who, when 17 takes too long to get back to her bedroom, proves a bit too eager for a replacement. The 18th Mickey, also played by Pattinson, is a more standard-issue hero who magically has a brain behind his eyes. Pattinson has incredible physical control over both 17's slack-jawed, knock-kneed cartoon and his identical opposite. (Nasha calls them 'mild and habanero.') As Pattinson toggles between the two, you can't help but think back to how the former 'Twilight' heartthrob shape-shifted himself out of playing romantic leads. You can practically imagine Pattinson experimenting with his own face in front of a mirror, figuring out which tilt of the jaw transforms him from handsome (blah) to Neanderthal (hooray).

Telegraph

11-03-2025

Telegraph

Savour Spain's gastronomic island

Tenerife might not be the first Spanish destination that springs to mind for food and drink, but to locals and those in the know, the island has had an incredible and innovative food scene for centuries. A new generation of chefs has also brought a fresh look to classic Canarian cuisine, using produce from the bountiful island and the bracing Atlantic Ocean that surrounds it, and Tenerife now has 10 Michelin stars across eight restaurants. Wine is also big business on the island, and you'll spot vineyards as much as you will banana plantations as you travel the diverse Tinerfeño landscape. 'Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink Canary with him,' says The Host in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. He's referring to Canary sack, a sweet wine that was produced in La Orotava valley in the north of Tenerife back in the 1500s. The bard himself was a big fan and supposedly had a barrel of Canary wine written into his contract. Wine has been produced in Tenerife for centuries, since the Spanish brought vines to the island in the 15th century. Taste the volcano These days the wines are less fortified, and Tenerife's volcanic terroir paired with native grape varieties means that bottles are much prized around the globe. In La Orotava, you'll spot grape vines growing in the cordón trenzado method, where they're braided in long horizontal rows to make the most of the sunshine. Bodegas Suertes del Marqués has been the driving force behind the modern Canarian wine scene, putting it once again on the international stage. Most wineries offer visits and tastings, but try Bodegas Tajinaste for wines made from the native listán negro grapes that often produce flavours of sour cherry, raspberries and black pepper. On the opposite side of the mountain near Arafo, you'll find one of the island's highest vineyards, Bodegas Ferrera at more than 1,000m above sea level, whose naturally sweet marmajuelo white wine with notes of melon and grapefruit shouldn't be missed. For a true taste of the island's viticultural prowess, make a pilgrimage to La Casa del Vino in the idyllic town of El Sauzal, where some of the island's best wines can be paired with stunning views of the Atlantic. It's because of wine that Tenerife can possibly claim the idea of the first pop-up restaurants. Known as guachinches, these rustic canteens have been cropping up for decades at the end of the wine harvest each September. Vineyards create cheap and cheerful eating spots in their barns, garages and sheds and serve simple Canarian cuisine, such as grilled meat, fried cheese, and papas arrugadas (salty baby potatoes served with either red pepper or coriander mojo sauces) along with their own wines. There are restrictions on how long these makeshift restaurants can be open, but if you're around the north of the island in autumn you'll often spot handmade signs on the side of the road pointing out a nearby guachinche. Mar y montaña – sea and mountains Good-quality produce has always been a staple of Tinerfeño gastronomy, and you'll find weekly agricultural markets across the island. Head to the capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife on a weekend and you'll find the covered municipal market known as La Recova. Here there are stalls selling fabulous Canarian cheeses, often made from goat's milk, as well as fresh fruit, wines, honey rum, meat and seafood. Venture downstairs to the fish and seafood section and watch as the merchants carefully select, prepare and serve a plethora of shellfish to hungry patrons – often swilled down with a local sparkling wine. At nearby La Hierbita restaurant you can feast on local dishes such as garbanzada (chickpea stew), cherne (wreckfish, which tastes a bit like cod), and carne fiesta (herby, spiced pork) along with a comprehensive list of local wines. You'll find versions of these dishes and ingredients served up in many of the Michelin-starred restaurants on the island. At Haydée – soon to be reopening in the Gran Tacande Hotel – chef Victor Suárez puts a unique twist on classic Canarian with plates such as oysters with banana kimchi, and rabbit tartlet with salmorejo (a traditional marinade of oregano, bay, garlic and more). Elsewhere, husband-and-wife team Andrea and Fernanda use their Italian and Chilean roots to create their signature tasting menus at Nub at Bahía del Duque resort. With dishes such as corn crème brûlée, with aged onion and herb ceviche, it's little wonder that the Michelin inspectors are consistently impressed. Tenerife beyond the beach With multiple airlines flying direct to Tenerife from the UK every day, it's time to find out more, plan your travel and book your trip with the Tenerife Tourism Corporation

In 'Mickey 17,' Bong Joon Ho recycles Robert Pattinson and his old ideas

Los Angeles Times

07-03-2025

Entertainment
Los Angeles Times

In 'Mickey 17,' Bong Joon Ho recycles Robert Pattinson and his old ideas

Of course, Bong Joon Ho is an environmentalist. He recycles his own ideas. 'Mickey 17,' a sloppy but enjoyable sci-fi comedy set in the year 2054, mashes together the monsterphobia of 'The Host,' the animal-rights activism of 'Okja,' the environmental doomsaying of 'Snowpiercer,' and the social inequality of 'Parasite,' that last one the Oscar winner that handed Bong the blank check to make a combo platter of his greatest hits. It's the equivalent of the lunch tray that Mickey 17 (Robert Pattinson) gobbles up in his outer-space cafeteria: squares of the same nutritious gunk. But I'm not complaining. Some filmmakers deliver sermons; Bong serves entertainment. The 17th Mickey is a flesh photocopy of Mickey Barnes, a good-for-nothing dope desperate to flee Earth after his macaron business flops and its main investor threatens him with a chain saw. Earth isn't worth sticking around for, anyway. 'Seems like the whole of this planet was running away from something,' Mickey says, gazing up at a long line of wannabe migrants jostling to earn a spot on an escape ship headed to the ice planet Niflheim. As frigid as it is, Niflheim doesn't seem any worse than the pounding dust storms at home. The trouble is, Mickey doesn't have any skills. He's underqualified to fly planes or lead science experiments or even dish the gunk. Mickey is a moron. A sweet moron, but a moron nonetheless, which is evident as soon as Pattinson starts squeaking banalities in a nasal gasp that sounds as though he's never gotten enough oxygen to his brain. In Edward Ashton's original 2022 novel 'Mickey 7,' the character is an academic, a punchline that's even more bleak. So Mickey signs up to be the ship's 'expendable,' a canary-meets-crash-test-dummy who continually sacrifices his life in service of the fledgling colony. Someone has to sample the radiation in the atmosphere and the toxins in the air. Someone has to die to develop vaccines. He's a human-on-demand 3D-reprint, made from scraps of garbage. Fittingly, Pattinson hunches his shoulders and curls his upper lip: an obedient lab rat. The premise isn't 'Groundhog Day.' Mickey 17 remembers the pain of all prior Mickeys, from the original through 16. Among the indignities a newly vulnerable Mickey suffers, each one spurts out of a stuttering printer and flops to the floor, forsaken. With every copy, he's treated less like a person. One of the smart tweaks Bong has made to Ashton's book is devolving the character from an everyman into a passive stooge. He's hurting all over but can't think straight about what is to blame. In the opening scene, Mickey is trapped at the bottom of a chasm having plummeted not to his doom, but to everyone else's inconvenience. Cold and scared, he stares up at his supposed best friend Timo (Steven Yeun), hoping for rescue. Timo sizes up his injuries with the impassivity of an insurance adjuster and abandons him to freeze. 'Have a nice death,' Timo says offhandedly. Mickey shivers. 'Yeah, no … we're cool.' The highfalutin parallel is to 'Candide,' the classic 18th century novel about a naif who endures the horrors of civilization: chaos, selfishness, disease and destruction. The problems of 1759 are the same ones of 2054, with too many years in between. Bong's probably read Voltaire. But his film plays to a poppier crowd. Mickey's bowl hair cut is straight out of 'Dumb and Dumber.' His obtuse optimism makes him the intergalactic Forrest Gump. Inconceivably, women love him. Mickey has an out-of-his-league girlfriend, Nasha (Naomi Ackie), who, when 17 takes too long to get back to her bedroom, proves a bit too eager for a replacement. The 18th Mickey, also played by Pattinson, is a more standard-issue hero who magically has a brain behind his eyes. Pattinson has incredible physical control over both 17's slack-jawed, knock-kneed cartoon and his identical opposite. (Nasha calls them 'mild and habanero.') As Pattinson toggles between the two, you can't help but think back to how the former 'Twilight' heartthrob shape-shifted himself out of playing romantic leads. You can practically imagine Pattinson experimenting with his own face in front of a mirror, figuring out which tilt of the jaw transforms him from handsome (blah) to Neanderthal (hooray). Most people on the ship are varying degrees of toadies to the ship's overlords, a vainglorious politician named Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his savvier wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette), who course-corrects her husband when he blurts the wrong thing. Mandatory celibacy does not go over well, a joke that springs from the novel's note that the colonists had no intellectually stimulating hobbies. ('Mostly, we banged,' Ashton writes.) The sex shtick is paired with a boisterous piano score that feels like it thundered in from a western — it doesn't work at all. But I did like spotting the details in the futuristic costume design that puts buttons and pockets in bizarre places. Marshall is a pseudo-religious hypocrite who rails against his enemies, both foreign — Niflheim's native inhabitants, an armadillo-esque species dubbed the 'creepers' — and domestic, multiples like Mickey whom he calls 'Satan's work.' Bong has given the leader TV aspirations; the makeup team has given him orange tanner. You know the drill even before you see his fans in the colony wearing red ball caps and saluting with one arm. Here is where I should note that the film wrapped shooting in 2022. Bong must have gambled that the gag would be kitschy, if still overdone. Voltaire would have warned that history repeats and repeats and repeats. Ruffalo has always struck me as a genuinely decent man. Lately, he's been investing that goodwill in playing fiends, like his Oscar-nominated turn as the lech in 'Poor Things.' He slides into these carapaces as though they're a rubber Godzilla suit and goes on the rampage. As for Ylfa, a newly concocted character, she exists just to squeeze a talent of Collette's caliber and comedic chops into the plot. Her Ylfa is a glamorous foodie — herself a photocopy of Tilda Swinton's meat-loving tycoon in 'Okja.' Rhapsodizing about condiments to a ship of starving workers, Ylfa may as well bleat, 'Let them eat ketchup!' The last stretch of the movie drags on as it shifts away from Mickey's storyline, Bong changing gears to his favorite topic: uprisings. The sense that Bong has made this movie before leads him to take lazy shortcuts. One subplot involves a second 'Okja' spin-off, a roly-poly baby-mammal thing who we're meant to find adorable simply because it's there. Sure, it's small, whatever. The creature design is similar to a microscopic tardigrade, which gives it enough biological credibility to balance out that it also has the same unfolding tentacle mouths as every other alien of the last 15 years. More interesting is that the beasts appear to be bonded en masse — their society shares an empathy that humankind lacks. Not one creeper seems to doubt that the others have a soul. We cannot say the same with a straight face, without or without tentacle mouths. As semi-inessential as 'Mickey 17' feels in Bong's canon, I'm at peace that he keeps asking how to give everyone's life value. He'll keep repeating the question until we come up with an answer.

‘Mickey 17′ is an expendable movie about an expendable man

Boston Globe

05-03-2025

Entertainment
Boston Globe

‘Mickey 17′ is an expendable movie about an expendable man

This adaptation of Edward Ashton's 2022 novel 'Mickey 7″ is as subtle as a sledgehammer as it cycles through the recognizable themes in the director's work. The screenplay has a lot to say about colonization, class, right-wing and religious ideology, and the othering of enemies. Unlike Bong's prior films, this one does too much and fails to cohere around a central point. A scene from "Mickey 17." Warner Bros. Pictures Advertisement 'Mickey 17″ plays like an inferior pastiche of the earlier films in the director's oeuvre. You can pick out scenes that remind you of Bong's monster-based movies like 2017′s 'Okja,' and 2006′s 'The Host.' Some of the darker scenes of food-based humor evoke 'Snowpiercer,' and the pointed commentary about the haves and have-nots reminds us of 'Parasite.' None of these callbacks is done as well as the originals. While the visuals are often stunning, and the first hour has a loose, raunchy charm, 'Mickey 17″ wears out its welcome long before its overlong, nearly two-and-a-half hour runtime ends. Making matters worse, the film also has two over-the-top, borderline ridiculous performances from the usually reliable Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette as the villains. Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette in "Mickey 17." Warner Bros. Pictures The plot is way too complicated to summarize, so here are the particulars. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) is our narrator. We meet him as he is slowly freezing to death on some distant planet in the year 2054. Back on Earth, he ran a failing macaron company with his double-crossing partner, Timo (Steven Yeun). Since the Earth is quickly becoming uninhabitable, Mickey makes a desperate move to ensure space travel. 'Did you read the brochure?,' asks the woman who accepts his application to become 'an expendable.' Several people ask that question, each one more incredulously than the last, because this isn't a job the average person wants to do. It involves having your memories saved in a hard drive and your entire body scanned. When you die, another copy of your body is printed via an unimpressive-looking machine, and your memories are loaded into that copy. Advertisement Technically, an expendable can live forever — but he's not exactly immortal. Part of the job is repeatedly dying. Lethal drugs, horrible experiments, and other ghastly fates await him in the next life. Basically, an expendable is like a lab rat or a crash-test dummy, a point 'Mickey 17″ makes, very literally, in one scene. Of course, Mickey didn't read the brochure. I guess he thought he was signing up for that other 'Expendables' job. You know, the one where you're an aging 1980s action star trapped in a movie franchise with Sylvester Stallone. No matter. The Mickey popsicle we're introduced to at the beginning of the film is the 17th iteration of Mickey Barnes. His job as an expendable was part of a four-and-a-half-year trip to a new planet where failed politician Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo) and his sauce-making, extremely devoted wife, Ylfa (Collette), plan to start a cult. Naomi Ackie and Robert Pattinson in "Mickey 17." Warner Bros. Pictures During the trip, Mickey falls for Nasha (Naomi Ackie), the one person who makes life worth living no matter how many lives it takes. Nasha's on Mickey 17′s mind when he's covered by a creeper, a gigantic creature that presumably eats people. Since the makers of Mickeys assume he's dead, they generate a Mickey 18. This causes all sorts of personal and professional problems when Mickey 17 comes face-to-face with the new version of himself, one who's been sexing up Nasha better than he ever could. Advertisement Multiples are forbidden (don't ask why), so bedlam ensues as they either try to kill one another or hide from the powers that be. Meanwhile, Marshall decides to nuke all the creepers from their native planet so he can build his commune. Robert Pattinson in "Mickey 17." Warner Bros. Pictures The love of creatures that Bong has always emphasized shines through here; the well-designed creepers are interesting characters who are more complex than we originally assume. But their symbolic use as stand-ins for people battling colonizers leads the film to an interminable climax that beats the metaphor into the ground. If there is one joy to be had here, it's Pattinson. He's the best thing about 'Mickey 17,' especially when he's playing opposite himself. The weird voices he uses for his dual role may grate on your nerves, but you can't deny that the actor is giving one hell of a comedic performance. I wish I could say the same for Ruffalo, who also uses a weird voice and gives plenty of questionable line readings. Still, he's kind of fascinating, like watching a traffic accident you can't look away from while it's happening. On the other hand, Collette's dreadful performance feels like the traffic accident involves your car. Now that the post-Oscars curse has been satisfied, I'm looking forward to Bong Joon Ho's next movie. ★★ MICKEY 17 Written and directed by Bong Joon Ho. Based on the novel by Edward Ashton. Starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette. At the Coolidge, AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 139 min. R (sex, violence, pervasive overacting) Advertisement Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.