Letters to the Editor: Don’t over-hype ‘Parasite’ as the underdog best picture winner

To the editor: I must assume that L.A. Times critic Justin Chang’s knowledge of great films is compartmentalized into his rather myopic generation of filmmaking.

He asserts that “Parasite” might join the elite company of best picture winners such as “Moonlight,” “12 Years a Slave” and others, which are films of his generation but definitely not the very finest films ever nominated in the history of the Academy Awards.

Furthermore, what glass ceiling did “Parasite” shatter? The film was solidly and financially backed and excessively promoted by CJ Group, a South Korean conglomerate that was initially part of the Samsung empire.

“Parasite” is not a tiny independent feature that managed to survive and conquer the powerful film conglomerates. Rather, it is another over-hyped and vigorously backed film by one of those conglomerates, and the only ceiling it might have broken was that of language.

Giuseppe Mirelli, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: “Parasite” is a wonderful foreign-language film, one of the very best. But that should not qualify it to be competitive in the Academy Awards’ best picture category.

Just as “Roma” was inappropriately nominated last year, Parasite should have only been considered in the international film category, which before 2020 was known as the foreign language category.

It sets a dangerous precedent to have foreign-language films in the same category as English-language films. What’s next? An Oscar for the best actress in a Japanese film? An Oscar for the best actor in a Russian film? Where does it stop?

Francine Oschin, Encino