I Do Movies Badly: Introduction to Bong Joon-ho (featuring Jim Mickle)
Writer/director Jim Mickle (Stake Land, We Are What We Are, In the Shadow of the Moon) graces I Do Movies Badly with his presence to talk about his journey to filmmaking, his penchant for genre, and–of course–Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho! The Jims talk about Bong’s tendency to change lanes and moods mid-film, how his films are always centered in heart, and why Snowpiercer is Mickle’s least favorite of the filmmaker’s output before getting on to the recommendations: Memories of a Murder (2003), The Host (2006), and Okja (2017).
Jim Mickle’s latest film, In the Shadow of the Moon, is streaming now on Netflix!
Mickle is a good get for you, although the only film of his I’d recommend is Cold in July. We Are What We Are was particularly disappointing because I had become a fan of Julia Garner via The Americans and the original Mexican version was impressively unlike a typical horror movie, but his remake is really inferior in every way. I seem to be very much in the minority in my opinion about that though.
I enjoyed Okja, but it still left me with no qualms about eating mass-produced meat.
I’m glad Mickle picked Memories of Murder rather than Snowpiercer, since it’s much better. I was worried he might pick “Mother”, because unlike his three picks I haven’t seen that yet and had already planned on only watching horror in October.
I’ve not seen Cold In July, but I really liked Stake Lake and appreciated what he was able to do with Mulberry Street on a pretty small budget. It was my favorite of the After Dark Horrorfest in 2007 along with Borderland and Crazy Eights (though admittedly, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve revisited them).
Mother was initially one of his three recommendations, but when we recorded he swapped it out with The Host unbeknownst to me until right then.