Last year, a movie called Green Book won best picture. Several film bloggers, including myself, were absolutely disgusted by this win for best picture of the year. For one, there's nothing that special about Green Book. It's your typical feel good Thanksgiving movie designed to please the masses. There's nothing wrong with films like Green Book, I'd say one of the nominations this year Ford v Ferrari would fit the same criteria. Green Book however was reported during award season to be an inaccurate recounting of the true story and dismissed by many who knew the real life story of the people depicted in the film. This made a lot of us think that The Oscars were simply now out of touch. They wouldn't pick movie that truly changed the medium in a profound way but the safe choices that made audiences feel good, even if that meant retelling true stories to make them more pleasant then they actually were. This year however, The Oscars redeemed themselves by picking one of the coolest choices for best picture they have ever had.

Parasite came out in America in around October after doing very well overseas and at festivals in the United States. The praise for this film was universal. It currently holds an impressive 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and beat out The Godfather to be the highest rated film of all time on Letterboxd. I'd describe a bit a more about the film but the less you know about this movie the better. This is one of the craziest films I've ever seen and sitting down and watching it was one of those euphoric feelings only cinema can give you. It's one of, if not my single favorite movie of 2019.

We were all skeptical about this films chances on winning Best Picture. It will certainly be the most remembered, it will be screened in film schools across the country. This sometimes doesn't matter. Remember when Shakespeare and Love beat Saving Private Ryan? The Oscars seem to always go for a more conventional and crowd pleasing movie then one with true innovation behind it. A lot of people put 1917 on their ballot to win best picture. If it would have won, I wouldn't have been upset. 1917 is an incredible war film that is certainly a feat of filmmaking. With all the love and buzz I had seen for Parasite however, I decided to put it down as my guess for best picture. It paid off as well. Parasite won and I couldn't be more excited.

So yeah, this movie should have won just due to the fact it's the single most innovative movie of the year. The social impact of this win is beyond simply just the testament to quality. South Korea has never won an Oscar before Sunday night and now the state has four thanks to the talent of Bong Joon Ho. This makes South Korea a major player in the media world. K-Pop and the pop culture phenomenon BTS has already put them on the map but this helps their film department out tremendously. South Korea is slowly becoming one of the biggest players in the world of media. One can only hope they can inspire North Korea and their strict regime to loosen up and give their people more freedom to create art. This could potentially inspire North Korea to be more free if that meant more profit. Maybe that's just a pipe dream but it's still a start to some change. South Korea has now opened the gates for foreign filmmakers to make their films and for them to get the same attention that films produced in America have and that's amazing.

Parasite is the very first film not in the English language to win best picture of the year. You will read and listen to some ignorant people saying this shouldn't be the case because Parasite won international feature it shouldn't win best picture. This is absolute nonsense. It shouldn't matter if your film is international, animated or even a documentary. A film is a film period end of discussion. It should be up for best movie of the year if it is the best movie of the year. This does open borders for more directors from different backgrounds to be able to get attention in Hollywood award circuits for their works. It will be interesting to see the variety of different films that emerge from Parasite and its historic win. This could be the end of safe feel good films winning gold and for films that push the envelope to get the attention they have deserved for so long.

This is my note for movie studios, take a chance on original voices. Be excited with original ideas and market them the same way you would a giant blockbuster. If you do this you could see that there is a market for people to express themselves in a unique way and you could be rewarded with this. Not only does this get more people to want to pay for your distribution, it will put you on a prestige. I'm excited for the next decade of film and I believe Parasite has opened a wave of new released films we will all love deeply.