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379. Oldeuboi (Oldboy) (#74)

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Grace Duffy and Andy McCarroll, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy.

One night in 1988, Oh Dae-su is snatched off the street. He is taken to a mysterious hotel room, where he is locked away without any human contact. Then, fifteen years later, he is just as suddenly released. Forced to adjust to life outside his prison, Oh Dae-su sets out to discover why he was imprisoned for fifteen years. And, perhaps just as importantly, why he was suddenly released.

At time of recording, it was ranked 74th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Non-Review Review: Thunderbolt & Lightfoot

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Darren

I think that Thunderbolt & Lightfoot might be my favourite Michael Cimino film. Don’t get me wrong, of course. I acknowledge and appreciate the director’s work on The Deer Hunter, but it’s not a film I return to on a regular basis. It’s a thoughtful and powerful commentary on the Vietnam War, but it isn’t among my favourite explorations of that particular conflict. On the other hand, while it still has its own serious flaws, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot has a much lighter touch. It’s a film that offers a great deal of depth beneath a relatively accessible surface layer, serving as an exploration of seventies America, but one with significant hidden depths. However, despite his sophisticated work here, Cimino’s directorial début is not inaccessible and works quite well as a hybrid of the “road” and the “heist”movie genres, albeit with a great deal happening beneath the surface.