Word: songs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Granted, there's not much here that's new. Pynchon, 72, has been playing variations on these themes since the genius trifecta of his early days: V., The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow. Even the grace notes are familiar. Inane, invented song lyrics? Got 'em. Festive foodstuffs? Pass the chocolate-covered frozen bananas. Funny names? How about a drug dealer called El Drano? It's an anagram for his real name, Leonard. Which, let's be clear, is pretty funny...
...that a good thing? No, because if a song tells too much of the story, it takes you out of the film. Because then you're like, I'm already watching the story unfold, I don't need lyrics to tell me the exact same thing...
...sometimes the best song for a given moment isn't the best song for that given moment? That's the challenge sometimes: to find a song that makes everyone happy, that we all can agree on, that you can get on your budget and that gets at the emotions. Not as easy as it sounds...
...Thirst gives the vampire genre a new king, or Count, and he wears a cassock instead of a cape. Father Sang-hyun (Korean superstar Song Kang-ho) is a very caring Catholic priest, who gives last rites to terminally ill patients at the local hospital. He is also a serious flagellant, whipping his thighs in mortification to suppress sexual urges. He has a Christ-like desire to save the world through suffering, and that vocation leads him into a medical experiment with dire effects: everyone else who's undergone it has died. (See TIME's photos: 90 years of vampires...
...Director Park, best known to DVD connoisseurs for his Vengeance trilogy, is a past master of emotional violence, and Thirst is his richest, craziest, most mature work yet. He gets valiant work from Song, a top Korean star whose trademark stolidity is a suitable vessel for Father Hyun's stoic battle against the impulses that have invaded his system. But it's the lovely Kim, just 22, who is the revelation here. She can play - no, she can be - a creature of mute docility, then searching ardor, then explosive eroticism, then murderous intent. She is Lady Chatterley and Lady Macbeth...