okja.jpg

Netflix presents the adventures of an iron-willed little girl and her gargantuan, galumphing mutant super pig, from the director of The Host and Snowpiercer. The results are even weirder than the previous sentence suggests. Bong Joon-ho’s latest multi-leveled achievement somehow manages to resist pretty much any classification thrown its way, drifting at will between honestly earned sentiment, WTF slapstick, and some genuinely scary moments of eco-horror, all anchored by a CGI title character that feels like a truly special effect. (To quote a classic: “That’s some pig.”) A gloriously messy and intoxicatingly odd movie, Okja features a canvas large enough to contain passages of silent My Neighbor Totoro-ish beauty, uncomfortably pointed satire, and whatever the hell it is that Jake Gyllenhaal is doing. Whenever you think peak wonderment has been reached, in swoops Tilda Swinton. (dir. Bong Joon-ho; available on Netflix)

The Portland Mercury's Super Cinema Strikeforce™ had a bunch of other favorite movies in 2017, too! Check them all out here.