| Critic |
Review |
Quote |
Analysis |
This Week's Verdict |
Manohla Dargis,
The New York Times |
The Host |
"Likewise it is Mr. Bong's willingness not just to contemplate but also to deliver a worst-case scenario that separates 'The Host' from run-of-the-mill horror and may have helped make it a runaway hit in Korea. Closer to home the film reminds me less of the usual splatter entertainments that clutter American movie theaters and more of another recent horror film, the one in which a newly thawed alien with a giant brain delivers apocalyptic warnings to humanity about its imminent future. IÕm talking of course about the documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth.'" |
Of course! It's Al Gore as the thawed alien embodiment of the liberal subconscious' collective fears. How could other reviewers have missed this obvious symbolism? Are remakes of Attack of the 50-foot Woman and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? in the works? Because we'd love to see prescient and topical Manohla Dargis reviews of those.
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J Hoberman,
The Village Voice |
The Host |
"The It falls into the water and swims over. Ordinary people, being what they are, merrily pelt the unknown creature with garbage until, with projectile force, it bounds ashore and the chase is onÑthud, grab, leaping lizards! Establishing a galumphing tone of carnivalesque terror that trumps just about everything to follow, this picnic panic is a comic replay of 9/11 or even Sergei Eisenstein's 'Odessa Steps.' Then the thing dives back into the river, scattering a gaggle of swan-shaped paddleboats, with little Hyun-seo in its fishy clutches. From then on, it's personal." |
This is how we like our reviews: "Thud, grab, leaping lizards!" Nice, clear informative and totally in tone with the movie. Also "picnic panic" is pure poetry. So good we almost missed that next part about The Host being like "a comic replay of 9/11 or even Sergei Eisenstein's 'Odessa Steps.'" Given we too have problems remembering what's real and what's not sometimes, we just want to make sure: J. Hoberman knows 9/11 wasn't a movie -- right? |
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Andrew O'Hehir,
Salon |
The Host |
"Maybe the beginning of the end arrived when film theorists and other bearers of the postmodern intellectual flame embraced horror films for their reputed transgression, and when the genre began to satirize itself. Let's face it, being rebellious is no fun -- in fact, it's no longer possible -- if university academics are on your side. As for horror self-mockery, I enjoyed the 'Scream' films, but a little of that trend went a long way. After the neglected masterpiece 'Wes Craven's New Nightmare' in 1994 -- in which the director, stars and studio executives behind the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' series all play themselves, persecuted by a vengeful Freddy who still yearns for his close-up -- meta-horror had no new realms to conquer." |
We hear you, Andrew. They don't make films like they did in the '90s anymore. And it's not easy to rebel when your elders totally had the market cornered on student protest and light psychedelic drugs back in the '60s. Even the whole "post modernity" thing didn't feel really fresh once you got to college. The boomers' didn't leave much for coming generations, did they? |
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Armond White,
The New York Press |
The Host |
"Bong ruinously misses out on endowing his creature with the human characters' apprehension. After all, wasn't it the genius of Jaws, the Jurassic Park movies and War of the Worlds to illustrate that nightmare creatures were aggregates of our fears? To truly value cinema as an international art, there's no reason to esteem Asian pop over Hollywood pop. The global enjoyment of Hollywood cinema means no viewer needs to be a homeless scavenger." |
Armond does explain at the beginning of the review that "seo-ri" is a Korean term for scavenging. Unfortunately we still don't get that last sentence. We're pretty dense, and got lost somewhere along the way when he got worked up over the artistic heights of Jaws and director Bong's "simplistic political commentary (and antagonism) [which] could be offensive if it could be taken seriously." Unlike many other critics Armond is not given to unthinking praise foreign movies and knee-jerk liberal critique of US bases in South Korea. We're thinking he's not buying an Asian car anytime soon. |
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Dana Stevens,
Slate |
300 |
"[300] conflates moral excellence and physical beauty (which, in this movie, means being young, white, male, and fresh from the gyms of Brentwood). Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the 'bad' (i.e., Persian) side in the movie: black people. Brown people. Disfigured people. Gay men (not gay in the buff, homoerotic Spartan fashion, but in the effeminate Persian style). Lesbians. Disfigured lesbians. Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws. Elephants and rhinos (filthy creatures both). The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him.
Meanwhile, the Spartans, clad in naught but leather man-briefs, fight under the stern command of Leonidas (Gerard Butler), whose warrior ethic was forged during a childhood spent fighting wolves in the snow.
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Dana Stevens writes a nice review and makes a good, if obvious, point about the Iraq war elsewhere in the text. But "Young, white, male and fresh from the gyms." "Black people, brown people, gay men and lesbians." "Bald club fag with facial piercings." "Leather man-briefs and lobster claws."? Wait a second... Dana, did we go to the same party last weekend? |
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