I’m rallying all the troops! As cool as it is to see Albert Brook’s Mother enter the collection, Criterion should add Bong Joon-ho’s Mother next! Remember that you can email Criterion (suggestions@criterion.com) with suggestions for what to add next! By all that is good and holy in this world, join me in the South Korean cinema support!
C’mon Bill give Albert Brooks a chance! ‘Real Life’ stars deadpan comic genius Charles Grodin. So many funny scenes. Maybe it doesn’t play to modern audiences because “reality tv” is now so prevalent so I will be looking forward to commentary. “Mother” I think is a gentler comedy but if you enjoys Brooks’ comedy (which I very much do) you will find things to like about it.
I do really enjoy what I’ve seen from Brooks! I’ll certainly be checking out both these films (as well as Lost in America, love me some Julie Hagerty). Just disappointed that of all the films titled “Mother”, Criterion didn’t choose my favorite one.
I feel like Bong Joon-ho's "Mother" is one of this most underrated movies. I barely hear people talking about it and in my books its up there with "Memories of Murder" and "Parasite".
This last year I was doing research for another Bertolucci film "Little Buddha" (recently re-issued on Imprint.) I discovered that Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky and Little Buddha are all apart of some kind of trilogy according to the extras. I'll pick up The Sheltering Sky too so I can see how they all play together (and can fully finish my article. Real Life is pretty ground breaking for ushering in the 90s Reality TV craze. I watched Real Life on DVD a couple years ago since that was all there was and the TV was actually quite good quality. I actually had to take the disc out of the tray to make sure it wasn't actually a Blu-ray. That is the thing about DVD, you never know if the quality is going to be decent or terrible until you put it in.
