"Parasite" and the other most popular foreign film hits of our lifetimes.

by Nathaniel R

In lieu of the traditional box office charts for the holiday weekend, it's time to marvel yet again at how leggy Parasite (2019) continues to be. After its Oscar win a week ago it doubled its screen count and is expected to take in over $5 million this weekend once the actual money has been counted. So let's take a look at the very biggest international hits since box office stats began to be a commonly reported thing. Which foreign films were the all time biggest hits (since the late 80s)? For clarity we're talking about films that weren't in English but also weren't from the US which removes Mel Gibson's weird dead language projects like Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto, Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima, and the recent Lulu Wang hit The Farewell among a few others. 

THE 25 HIGHEST-GROSSING INTERNATIONAL
FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILMS
IN DOMESTIC RELEASE (1987-2019)

01 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Taiwan, 2000) $128
10 Oscar nominations including Best Picture. 4 wins. There will never be another subtitled hit as big as this one but what a glorious film to find up top. 

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Almost There: John Lone in "The Last Emperor"

by Cláudio Alves

Parasite made history by becoming the first non-English-language production to win the Best Picture Oscar. Its many victories marked a series of firsts for the Academy, but there's a couple of feats that Bong Joon-ho's masterpiece shares with other winners. As it happens, Parasite is the third film with a majority Asian cast to conquer Best Picture. The Last Emperor and Slumdog Millionaire are the other two. Another thing they share is a glaring lack of acting nominations, which is rare for Best Picture champions. It's difficult to peruse the data and not smell a whiff of systematic racism.

John Lone's absence from the Oscar line-up for his starring role in The Last Emperor is particularly odd… 

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I Dream of... Ruby?

by Nathaniel R

"Ask her about Cold Mountain! Or who her favourite actors were as a child!" I pleaded with a certain Australian goddess. But this REM version of Nicole Kidmanwasn't cooperating. (We know it's considered dull to discuss dreams unsolicited but you'll forgive us when it involves subconscious actressexuality, won't you?)

You see, in my dream last night, Kidman had been asked to moderate a Renée Zellwegger tribute where very long clips were shown...

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Film Bitch Awards - Heroes, Villains, Action, and More...

by Nathaniel R

We promised to finish up the 2019 Film Bitch Awards so we're doing that. Who talked us into so many categories? Oh that's right, no one but our own movie-loving madness. There's probably a cure for it but we're happy to stay addicted. 

HEROES, VILLAINS, DIVAS, and SEXPOTS
The character awards are now complete with honors for titular characters from Harriet and Diamantino and Joker and Us (just making sure you're not skimming but titular works there, too, right?) among other films like Synonyms, Toy Story 4, and Hustlers. As to the latter we realize that Jennifer Lopez factors quite heavily into all six of Hustlers nominations thus far but sometimes you ARE the movie, even if the movie itself is quite good. And, because sometimes moviegoing pleasure is perverse, we even found a way to "honor" Cats...

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Streaming Roulette: Honey Boys & Gates of Hell

by Nathaniel R

The mania of Oscar season completely detached us to what people might have actually been streaming at home. So let's get back to that with a short round of Streaming Roulette. If you're new to the site that's how we share new streaming offerings. We select a handful (or two) of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating. 

If you'd like us to write up any of the new to streaming pictures (there's a huge list after the roulette) please share what you'd most like to talk about in the comments. Maybe we'll get to 2 or 3 of them? Ready? Let's stream...

The reviews were... like, I murdered their children or something. 

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