The Film: Bong Joon-Ho’s 2006 monster movie parable The Host The Potable: One six-pack of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA From the nuclear anxieties of Godzilla to the Cold War paranoia of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and The Blob, monster movies have always been steeped in analogies. With my wife away on a work trip, I recently sat down to watch Bong’s The Host, about a monster brought to life by the rising pollution levels of the Han River. The film is exciting, goofy, and terrifying, but throughout my screening, my mind continued to wander to the disgusting state of our…
Author: Benjamin Page
Benjamin Page
Benjamin Page is an MFA grad from George Mason University. He spends his free time writing drunken movie reviews and trying to win the affection of his dog.
The man in the wrinkled, short-sleeve button-up sighs over his beer. It’s been a hell of a week, he says. The boss man, a real task master, has been riding him like a chairlift since Tuesday. TGIF, and plus it’s an especially tense time, what with the holidays coming up and all. Budgets never take a vacation, but such is the life of an accountant. Numbers, his father warned, they make a cruel mistress. The three-day weekend, at least, will give him a chance to bottle the beer he’s been fermenting for the last four months. A golden ale, fairly…
My papa had just returned from the farm when I caught my first glimpse of Eyes Wide Shut. I stood behind his recliner at the tender age of eleven as he clicked on our old tube set. It was the party scene. Red robes, strange gold masks. “Trash,” my father said, “exaggerated trash. No place behaves that way,” and he changed the channel. But I was transformed. I had peeked through a fleeting window; this was how the world’s great men lived. Imagine my disappointment then, after working my ass off to join the Greenpoint Order of the Moose, to…