The best movie of 2019 thus far

I was sitting in a movie theatre in downtown Toronto this (Sunday) afternoon. 

This is a big deal for a father of two children under ten. I was getting my reward – put in good time as my wife had been to Japan for 10 days for a conference. I got the day off. 

Anyway, I was sitting in a movie theatre in downtown Toronto on a Sunday afternoon. It was packed. That’s not the amazing thing. Rather, that it was packed and that it was a foreign film is what amazed me. The film is not in English. It’s in Korean. And like so many critics have been saying it might just be the best movie of the year. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, and before that puts you off as something too arty or strange, keep in mind these are the people that awarded Quentin Tarantino with the same honour for Pulp Fiction in 1994.

Watch the first five minutes and tell me you’ve seen anything of this adult quality in a movie theatre in a long, long time.

I will say no more because I hate movies being ruined except to attempt to entice you to see this (in a theatre if you can) by saying:

• movies that are shocking (it’s got an adult rating for a reason) are rarely ever humane;

• movies that are humane are rarely ever entertaining;

• movies that are entertaining are rarely ever “about” anything; and

• movies that are both shocking and humane do not usually make one laugh as much as this movie made me laugh.

I’ll be seeing this again in theatres, and soon. But then, I’m a nutbag that way. Oh, and it’s called Parasite.