Around the World in 31 Days: India

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Official movie poster. Source: IMDb

It was a circuitous streaming road that finally led me to Pizza for my India pick. At first I clicked on a movie called Hiss because I thought I needed a killer cobra goddess in my life. I probably still do, but in the first five minutes the movie’s bad-looking production values and dubious acting turned me off. Since India is a country with a storied and exceptional film industry, I knew I could do better.

I then started Pizza, but decision freeze caused me to jump elsewhere – 706, Lupt, Mythily Veendum Varunnu, Savita Damodar Paranjpe, 706 – until I finally decided to return and commit to Pizza due to its charming conceit. And I am glad that I did.

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Around the World in 31 Days: South Korea

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Gokseong, or The Wailing (2016) has been staring at me from my Netflix queue for the better part of two years. It came to my attention from correspondence with the academics behind the book Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema, who seek to catalogue every instance of an exorcism scene in a feature film. At 2.5 hours of running time, it was always daunting to start it, but it is worth the time.

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