PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 424

   

Ray Harryhausen came up as an option and pretty much unplanned we wound up watching Ray's first movie and his last. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms came out in 1953 movie and Clash Of The Titans was released in 1981. Ray had worked on several shorts before The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and he was effects technician on Mighty Joe Young in 1949 but the films we watched are the first and last of the 15 films where he was in charge of the visual effects. Ray created the creatures and did all the animation work. I've seen them all, some several times, over the years. Some are better than others but usually they're entertaining and Ray's stop motion animation is fun to watch. Part of the appeal is the monsters or mythical creatures he brings to life. We like monsters in our group and we'll watch pretty much anything with a giant monster in it. We sure see some crap sometimes. Luckily for us, these two aren't at the lower end of the spectrum.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms opens with some men in the arctic conducting a nuke test. The explosion uncovers a giant reptile which wakes up and ambles about yelling. I'd be yelling too, especially if my balls were dangling in an iceberg for a 100 million years. A couple of men see it but one dies and the other is thought to have been driven crazy by the strain of arctic life and the death of his friend. We know he's not crazy and as the monster makes some more appearances the rest of the world comes to know it too. The scientists and the military rally around to try to stop it. The monster makes several appearances. We particularily liked the scene with the lighthouse. Lovely silhouette.

   

The monster is eventually tracked and they shoot it with guns of various sizes. Turns out the beast's blood is deadly poison so they need to kill it without making it bleed too much. They figure that out and at the end of the film the critter lies dead in the ruins of a roller coaster. It's sad really, poor monster. It was the first giant creature that was woken up, or created, by nukes in a movie. The film did well, making $5 mill from a $220K cost, and that spured other companies to make more monster movies. Great for us, huh. There's some dodgey science in the movie but it's a movie about a giant pre-historic reptile so you can't expect too much. It's one I've seen a few times and I always enjoy watching it. It's very much of the time and I like science fiction movies from the 1950's. 

Eugène Lourié was mostly an art director during his career which started in 1934 and ended in 1980. The Art Direction Catagorey on his IMDb page lists 52 films and tv series. As a director he made some tv shows and a tv movie but only directed 4 theatrical films: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), The Colossus Of New York (1958), The Giant Behemoth (1959) and Gorgo (1961). He quit directing because he though he was getting typecast as a monster movie director. It's too bad. While I wouldn't say his films are great cinematic art they are good solid monster movies that provide an entertaining story and some mighty monster action. 

 

Clash Of The Titans was directed by Desmond Davis from a script by Beverly Cross who was Maggie Smith's husband until he died in 1998. When the King of Argos tosses his daughter and her son into the sea the gods get involved. The King is mad that the son, Perseus, is the offspring of Zeus. The big guy retaliates by killing the king and having Posideon release the Kraken to destroy Argos. Sucks to live there now. Zeus has the gods help Perseus and his mon, Danae to get to an island and a new life. Perseus grows up into Harry Hamblin and his feathered hairdo. Zues has the gods give him some help. They provide an invisibility helmet, a sword that can cut through marble and a shiny shield. Good thing, there are monsters to fight.

 

I'm not much of a Harry Hamblyn fan but there you go. Judi Bowker plays Andromeda, the daughter of Queen Cassiopeia. The story is fair for a Greek God melodrama. They were some pricks, those Greek gods, with all their dickin' around and screwing over the people they've scared into worshipping them. The people of Argos didn't have anything to do with their King and they paid for that by being crushed by the kraken. Some of the effects don't look as good as you might hope, especially Poseidon releasing the kraken from his undersea prison. Most of Ray's work looks pretty good. There's a nice Pegasus and some scorpions and the shorts of the medusa are what I remember most from the film.

 

That's Ray and Medusa. She'll loose her head soon and that'll screw up the Kraken's snackin' on Perseus's wife. Zeus is impressed with his boy's courage and he forbids the god's to bother them anymore. Like you could trust that lot. Not quite as entertaining as the first movie. It's 118 minute length seems a bit long, I find some of the story a bit dull, but the monsters are much better. Well worth the look.

The Ray Harryhausen Chronicles

 

I see Ray Harryhausen died today. I was sad. He always seemed like such a nice guy. He always seemed friendly, full of stories about the business. I've been reading a book about him. Big art book with some good number of words. It's big, I have to set it on at a table to read it. I'm not interested in holding up a huge hardcover so it sits for long periods before I read another chapter. Just co-incidentally I've been watching most of Ray's movies over the last year or two. The Ray Harryhausen Chronicles was 1 of the extras on a DVD. It's a nice overview of his career and a lot of clips of his work. There don't seem to be any full movies on YouTube but you can see clips galore. Especially the effects stuff and that's the stuff to watch.

9466 The Crazy Scientist & His Monster

As usual I'm getting behind looking over some of the old sets I wanted to blog about and the new stuff keeps pouring in. Gathering nice pictures of off of Grogal's BrickShelf page recently has sparked me into posting a few more LEGO posts. I try to put something up every day but it isn't always possible and I'm so easily distracted. Oh, shiny! I just took a musical break. Back to work.

Still I find posting about sets is a good process in helping to eliminate a set I might not need to buy and to help me remember why I shouldn't get it, even on clearance. Finding the time and fighting the lazyness is also slowing me down. Being a bitch to my media is a bitch.

I like the artwork on the picture above. It gives you a good shot of the set with the background but without the lettering and marketing crap. With out it you can see the Crazy Scientist has his lab in a tumbled down castle or a rock quarry. I don't know. What I do know is you can drive up to it. I guess that scientist really is crazy. If you're up to man-makin' you need to keep that shit indoors. I have learned that from the movies. That's where the truth is. 

It's a $49.99 set with 430 pieces. You make a car and a bit of a lab. There are 4 minifigs. The lab looks skimpy . The car, I don't even know what to say. Really. Just look at it. The description below tells me the car has a sliding seat and can shoot flick missiles. Wow. It still looks ghastly. The lab is like a lot of LEGO sets, it needs flushing out. And walls. There are some good amounts of blay and a few other handy and useful things. A lot of 1s and 2s of a part. Other than the Medium Blue in the car the majority of the rest of the parts are mostly black and reddish brown. The set hasn't much appeal to me but others might find the mix worth their while. It's 11+ cents a part is higher than I like for parts I just don't need right now. Since I don't play with the set once I get it, I just don't get to excited with that aspect of it, and the same goes with the whole monster theme. Sad, I really liked the previous monster theme sets, and wanted to like these ones. These I find lacking somehow. Maybe it's all the vehicles. They just turn me off. The 2002 Studio Monster sets had only one small car, in all 4 sets, and the monsters weren't being hunted, they were the hunters. Just like it's supposed to be. Read this sad story.

Defeat the Crazy Scientist and his Monster at the laboratory!

Dr. Rodney Rathbone and Major Quinton Steele have stumbled upon the Crazy Scientist's laboratory. As our heroes reach for the moonstone, the dastardly scientist zaps his ghoulish monster and brings him to life! Can they escape to their car or will the Crazy Scientist's Monster win the battle and imprison them in the laboratory? You decide! Includes 4 minifigures: Rodney Rathbone, Quinton Steele, the Crazy Scientist and his monster.

• Includes 4 minifigures: Rodney Rathbone, Quinton Steele, the Crazy Scientist and Monster
• The Crazy Scientist's laboratory features resurrection table with LEGO® light brick, catapult on the roof and prison with space for minifigure
• Vehicles include the hero's car
• Hero car features sliding seat and 3 flick missiles
• Accessories include moonstone and 3 weapons
• Zap the Monster to life!
• Launch a rooftop catapult attack!
• Fire the missiles!
• Zap the Monster with the light brick!
• Measures over 6” (16cm) high, 9” (24cm) wide and 5” (13cm) deep
• Hero car measures over 3” (8cm) high, 3” (8cm) wide and 4” (12cm) long

 

That's Rodney Rathbone, Quinton Steele, the Crazy Scientist and the aptly named Monster from left to right. Sad they don't give the scientist a name, huh. It's also sad to see the poor Monster lumped in with his creator as evil. He didn't do anything. Leave him alone. The figs are ok. I just don't need more of the same sort of figures. They have good accessories for the most part. Still they aren't the reason to get the set. I'd still grab one at half off. Maybe next summer. We can only hope.

Science Fiction Sunday 194

 

Latitude Zero is a 1969 Toho film called  緯度0大作戦 Ido zero daisakusen. It was directed by Ishirō Honda with music by Akira Ifukube. Special effects were by Eiji Tsuburaya who would pass away, shortly after the film was made, at age 69. The story was written by Ted Sherdeman and his script is based on his 1941 radio serial Latitude Zero. Ted wrote the 1954 giant ant movie Them! and several other movies I haven't seen. He wrote plenty of episodes for TV, shows that I might actually have seen, like Wagon Train, Hazel and The Flying Nun. There was additional dialog by Warren Lewis and Shinichi Sekizawa. It was a co-production between Toho and National General Pictures of the US. It was shot in Japan and in English. The Japanese actors have to speak English the best they could and they don't get too many lines. The Japanese version is the dubbed one this time. The US version is 16 minutes longer than the 89 minute Japanese version. Both versions are in the 2 disc Tokyo Shock dvd set which seems to be out of print already. There is a third dvd stuck in the package. It's got a bunch of trailers for movies that Tokyo Shock has out.

 

Joseph Cotten, Cesar Romero, Akira Takarada, Masumi Okada, Richard Jaeckel, Patricia Medina, and Akihiko Hirata are the main characters. Richard, Akira and Masumi are in a bathysphere doing research  on ocean currents when an undersea volcano causes their tether to snap. They are rescued by Joseph Cotton, who like Captain Nemo before him, has a fancy ass submarine and a secret undersea base. He's been collecting scientists of the world to create a thinking man's utopia. Turns out Joseph is 204 years old and his mortal enemy Cesar Romero is a year younger. They've been battling for over a century. Cesar has his own secret base where he experiments on things like grafting eagle wings onto lions and creating human size rats and bat men. He's a real dick but Patricia likes him until he stabs her to death accidentally near the end of the movie. In real life Patricia was married to Joseph Cotten at the time the movie was made.

 

Cesar steals a scientist and his daughter, that's them with the bat men, and takes them to his base at Blood Rock. Cesar wants the doctor's immunization formula and he'll torture them for it. As a reward for failing Caser puts the brain of his submarine's captain into the flying lion. All she wanted to do was serve him and get a bit of a jump now and then; now she's a flying lion. When she gets the chance she destroys Cesar and his sub. There's plenty of story between the opening scenes and the end of the movie and it ends with the good guys pretty much ok. Akira and Masumi decide to stay at Latitude Zero with Joseph and that hot doctor lady played by Linda Haynes. Richard heads back to the outside world. No one believes him of course, his pictures are all ruined, but someone deposited a bunch of diamonds in his bamk so he'll be ok. I would have stayed. I've been in the outside world and it sure can suck. It's not a great movie but this mix of western and eastern film making proves to be fairly entertaining. I give it higher points for being quite goofy. The ships, props, serts and costumes are all great and/or silly. They had a larger budget than some of the other Japanese monster movies of the time and it shows. It's worth a look but it might be harder than usual to see it. That's the movie biz.

 

My second feature this morning is the 1970 Toho production Gezora, Ganime, Kamoeba: Decisive Battle! Giant Monsters of the South Seas ゲゾラ・ガニメ・カメーバ 決戦! 南海の大怪獣 Gezora Ganime Kameba Kessen! Nankai no Kaijuu. It's called Space Amoeba on the Tokyo Shock dvd that's out in the US where it's also known as Yog: Monster From Space. It's directed by Ishiro Honda and has music by Akira Ifukube. A space probe gets a sparkly blue space critter on it and the thing directs the ship back to earth. There it takes over a cuttle fish which grows to enormous size. It can attack ships, it's that big. It attacks an island and the people there fight back. They burn it and drive it into the sea where it dies. The space blob isn't done though and it takes over a rock crab and grows really large fairly quickly. The people it attacks lure it into a pit and blow it up. The space amoeba escapes once again and this time takes over two more monsters. The humans notice the creature is sensative to sound waves and they break the space amoeba's control long enough to kill them by triggering a volcano. Even with all that it's not one of my favorites. It's totally watchable but there are more fun ones. Everything is a repeat of what you'd seen in dozens of other movies from the same place. More for the fan of the giant monster flic. 

9463 The Werewolf

 

The Werewolf set has 243 pieces for $19.99 which is about 8.23 cents a part. There are 2 figures, the werewolf and monster fighter Major Quinton Steele. The set makes a small one seater car and a fair size tree. The car isn't too bad but the tree looks kind of odd. Like someone didn't have all the parts they needed and made the tree anyway. It has a moving bit at the top that catapults the werewolf out of it. I'd like the tree better if the black parts of the tree were reddish brown, or better yet, if the whole thing was made from dark brown slopes and bricks. There was a previous werewolf set that was issued under the Studio Scary Monsters theme. It had three figs, a car and a small tree. The tree is hinged and falls over. It wasn't that great a tree and it has eyes. That's so weird.

I do like the olive leaves, there are 5 of them, and that pair of seaweed pieces will come in handy someday. The werewolf has Wolverine claws, which are way too long,  but they do glow in the dark. Sad to say he hasn't got a minifig head for when he's not a werewolf. It's a pretty good werewolf head. Different than the ones on the werewolf figures that have come before. I'll post after this with a look at them all. The Major has a rifle that is made out of one of the tranquilizer guns that the guys in the current Dino sets sport. They've added a pearl gold telescope and a pearl gold Fez. That Fez seems to be pretty useful, I see it turn up in the oddest places.

 

The werewolf has a ripped shirt and pants and the Major looks like an adventurer from early part of the last century. Both costumes have somewhat limited re-uses. The Major has a weird eye piece, like someone has strapped a monicle to his head, and a grumpy look. Not too bad a set. Worth picking up one or two.

Grimm Season 1 - Episodes 1-4

 

I sort of remembered that Grimm had started in the fall. I was looking around the tv section in On Demand and there were a bunch of episodes listed. Since they started with the first one I put that on. The idea is that Nick Burkhardt, played by David Giuntoliis the last of a long line of monster hunters. He's a detective on the Portland Police Force. That's him with his cop partner Hank Griffin up above. Hank is played by Russell Hornsby. Nick doesn't know about his secret history when the show starts but he's been seeing things, like people changing into beast for a second or two. His dying step mom starts to fill him in but she dies at the end of episode 2 leaving a lot of things up in the air. Nick's a typical fish out of water when it comes to dealing with all the different supernatural monster folk and their schenannigans. He makes a sort of friend with a wolf guy named Monroe, played by Silas Weir Mitchell, who reluctantly gets involved with Nick's investigations. That's him in the sweater.

That's the cast: Russell Hornsby, Reggie Lee, Bitsie Tulloch, David Giuntoli, Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz. The show was created by Stephen Carpenter, David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf. Fans of Buffy and Angel should recognize the middle name. He did a lot of work on those shows. Grimm is pretty much your average cop show but with a monster twist. Nick has to hide the other world from the regular folks on the police force. Even his partner doesn't know what's out there. I wonder how long that will last. Nick's boss knows about that world but Nick doesn't know he's a player yet. There's a gruesome murder or other nasty bit of business each week, most of which could be explained in a normal way. Occasionally some bit get into the evidence stream that makes them shake their heads. It's moody, dark, violent and occasionally beautiful. The show is set in Portland Oregon and the outdoor scenery is really great looking. Everything seems covered with moss and that green sure is vibrant. It's a nicely produced show with a good on screen look.

The supernaturally different humans are a varied lot. In the first episode we meet some Hexenbeast, who are all hot lawyer gals, our pal Monroe, who's a wolfman, and a Reaper of the Grimm, who are troll like guys who want to kill Grimms. In episode 2 we've got bear people, some of whom are having trouble fitting in, gossipy bee people in the 3rd show, and a goat guy in the 4th episode seduces women with his touch. Some of the monsters are monsters and some are regular working folk just trying to get along. Angel fans should find that familiar. The regualr folks in the show don't know that this other world exists but they get slaughtered pretty regular. There isn't much of a sense of humor, Monroe provides a bit of comic relief but not much, and Russell Hornsby has a light touch at times. There are levels to the new magical world that Nick has to dig into. He's got a bit of a reference library and he gets some help from Monroe but mostly he has to learn as he goes along. It's all well enough made, the CGI is typical of tv, some of the monster makeup looks so-so at times. I've been enjoying watching the first four episodes and plan to keep on going.   

Science Fiction Sunday 164

I'm finally getting to the end of the Godzilla series. I was thinking tackling the rest of the Japanese monster movies after that but I'm taking a break and going back to other genre's of SF movies. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.is the 27th movie and it was released 12-13-2003. It continues from the previous movie. The government is repairing Kiryu while wondering if there is a reason to continue with the expense. Kiryu is the Mechagodzilla built over the real Godzilla's bones. The Mothra girls come to an old guy they had meet before and tell him to warn the government that they need to chuck the dead Godzilla's bones in the sea. The bones are attracting the big guy will keep coming back for them. Mothra will turn against the human's if they continue on this path. A giant dead sea turtle washes on shore. Looks rather Gamera like. We see the slashes on his next from some giant claws. Ooohhh, huh. The humans are kind of annoying, all noisy, and they don't listen to Mothra. Godzilla does show up and the old man and his grandson call Mothra for some help. It's a nice looking CGI Mothra that show sup. Looks really great. MechaGodzilla shows up and there's more fighting. The huge battle eats up a lot of the movie but is pretty entertaining. MechaG takes over it's own control and grabs Godzilla. They drop into the sea and the movie closes, after some human nattering, with a shot of a secret store of monster DNA. Oh, oh. The movie is more entertaining that the story it tells. The people don't have a lot to do and you've seen it all before. The effects in general are pretty nice and the soundtrack doesn't bother me any. There's a US edition from Columbia TriStar. It's letterboxed, looks pretty good, and has both Japanese audio with English subs and an English Dub version. I don't care for the dubbing very much. I've also got a Video Daikaiju bootleg dvd that is fan subbed that's pretty close to the US version. Worth a gander for the monster fa. The weak story line is bouyed up by the great battle scenes which make it better than average.

The 28th and currently last Godzilla film, Godzilla: Final Wars, came out in 2004. Ryuhei Kitamura is the director. I wouldn't have guessed he'd be directing a Godzilla movie, he does a fairly good job, expecially with the monster action. His script isn't anything special, back to the invading alien theme. Monsters seem to be popping out of the ground all over the world. They are trashing lots of stuff and the earth looks to be in trouble. Some aliens appear, they collect the attacking monsters, saving the earth. It's too good to be true of course and soon enough the aliens are outed. They are inhuman critters, in men suits, out to get their munch on. People are one of the alien's main food groups. Damn, that's some payback for being an animal eater, huh. It's slightly in the future of the rest of the series and it turns out that this Godzilla universe has mutants with special powers. They were rounded up and are now working for the Earth Defense Organization. That will be important in the fight to get rid of the aliens. There's a good bit of action and that was fun enough. I watched the bootleg dvd I had and part of the English Dub I got off of On Demand. There's a US version I hadn't picked up yet. I'm not in a big rush.

Science Fiction Sunday 163

The 25th Godzilla film reboots the series again. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack pretends the other films hadn't happened and Godzilla returns after 50 years. A nuclear sub goes missing. There's a strange earthquake with a moving epicenter. Other strange things are happening and Yuri, a pretty TV gal, is covering them. She has a strange encounter with an old man. He warns Godzilla will return and fills her in on the Guardian Monsters. Yuri's dad is high up in the military. He tells her about the first Godzilla visit back in 1954. He was there and saw the destruction first hand. He has always wanted to destroy Godzilla. Soon he'll get his chance. First Barugon, one of three Guardian Monsters, who wasn't good enough to get named int he title, makes an appearance just before the big guy makes a big smash when he comes ashore. Godzilla trashes some cityscape's and scares some people before killing them. His nuclear breath is very powerful and leaves a mushroom cloud over the blast site. It's flash is visible for miles. He's definately not the hero in this movie. I don't care for this Godzilla's costume very much especially around the head area. Barugon is the first giant beast to have a battle with Godzilla. They battle in a park near Hakone and the fight is pretty darn good. Baragon takes a beating before he falls. The other Guardian Monsters, Mothra and Ghidorah, make their first appearance soon after. The Japanese military is powerless as the monsters duke it out.There are some good battles with lots of monster on monster action. The Japanese defence force makes a brief appearance before they are toasted by G's atom breath. It's what takes Mothra down. Her spirit goes into Ghidorah unleashing the King inside. Their battles light up the night like the sun. Godzilla is knocked into the water but the fight continues. Sadly even King G is no match for the mighty mutant. When he falls the spirits of the Guardian Monsters are unleashed and they sink Godzilla into the water. Yuki's dad gets the chance to plant a bomb in Godzilla's wound and does so. That finally takes the big guy down. Yuri survives and so does her dad. They honor the fallen Guardian Monsters and as we pan down into the bay we see Godzilla's beating heart and know that he'll be back.I have the Columbian TriStar dvd and it's pretty nice. The uncut movie is widescreen and has a Japanese soundtrack and English subs. It's one of the better of the recent films and a lot of fun to watch.

The 26th Godzilla film looks back to other previous films in the series and cherry picks hooks from them to hang its story on. Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla starts in 1999 and Akane is the gunner on a mazer. The gun fails to kill Godzilla. Moving the maser in retreat she accidentally knocks a military car off the hill and the big guy steps on it. Akane is demoted to a desk job to suffer her guilt alone. Scientists use the original Godzilla's bones to build bio-robot and we all know how transplants go in movies and this is no different. Akane harbors her hatred of Godzilla down in the library. There's a little girl, the daughter of one of the scientists, who figures in the story. Akane gets to be the pilot of MechaGodzilla so she's happy to be able to get some revenge. Yuki meets the scientist and the little girl. The girl tries to get a hook up going. After all the human drama we finally see some monster action. During a test of the MechaGodzilla the real thing is spotted at sea. Big VTOL planes carry MechaG to the big guy who's come ashore to break things. The bio-bot goes out of control after the bones hear the Godzilla roar and trashes the city with missiles and laser blasts. Black eye for the military, huh. they fix that and there are more battles and a bit of human drama. I found it entertaining after having seen it several times. The Columbia TriStar dvd has a nice widescreen copy with Japanese language track and subtitles. There's an English dub track but it's not so good. I like the Godzilla costume in this one better than the last movie. It did well enough at the box office that the series continued. Check back next week for the last two in the series.      

Action

I've been thinking of revisiting Action for the last couple of weeks and it finally seemed like the right time this last long weekend. Four days off for the Thankgiving weekend leaves enough time to watch a lot of tv. Mind you this series is pretty short. There were only 13 episodes when it aired on Fox back in 1999. It was created by Chris Thompson who had worked on shows like The Larry Sanders Show and Laverne and Shirley. I'm a real big fan of Larry Sanders and his tv world but not as interested in seeing L&V again. Action stars Jay Mohr as Peter Dragon, the head of Dragonfire Films, and as the first show starts he's waiting to make an entrance at the premiere of his new film Slow Torture. He produces big budget action films and he's tied in with a larger studio. The head of that studio is Bobby G and he's married to Peter's ex-wife which causes some friction. Illeana Douglas is a former child star Wendy Ward. She grew up poorly and snorted her career into oblivion. Now she's a high priced call girl and due to a series of events she winds up taking a fall on the red carpet just when Peter shows up. To save the day he calls her a stunt woman and she winds up hanging with his group. The movie tanks and she's the only one who tells him the thing sucks. Next day he hires her on as head of development. She knows a lot of people with money and that's what you need in this business. Buddy Hacket is Peter's uncle and he runs the security at the studio. He's a great guy to know. He know's where the blood and piss guy lives. You need clean blood and piss so your stars and crew can pass their insurance drug tests. The blood and piss guy knows Dr Lee who can suck the fat out people illegally, right in his office. As he says, "It hurts like hell!" Since Peter's movie bombed Bobby G is pissed at him for wasting all that money. Peter needs to come up with a new hit or he's out. He's got a script but it's the wrong one. He's got a writer but he can't remember his name. He's got a big star but he's a drug addict. He's got a director but he's crazy. He's got a starlet but she shows up two weeks before the shoot 50 pounds over weight. Good thing Peter knows about Dr Lee. It's one problem after another for Peter. It's a tough business, it nearly kills him, and it drives poor Wendy out of town. It a darkly funny and cruel show with a good amount of payback. The show only lasted 13 episodes but they wrap things up in a good way and the show exists as a nice slice of Peter's life. The writing is really great and the characters well drawn. It's nicely produced and well made. Something worth seeing, especially if you like self referencial heavily sarcastic kinds of stuff. Sure made me laugh but I like a bit of the dark side in my comedy.

Science Fiction Sunday 154

 

Number 7 in the Godzilla series is Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Seas or Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster as it was released here in the US. It's a 1966 movie that was directed by Jun Fukuda. He had directed many movies before he got his first crack at the Godzilla series. He would direct 4 more Godzilla movies before the long break in the series. He does an ok job, the movie moves along pretty briskly, things happen and there's danger and excitement even before the monsters appear. The first half of the movie seems more like crime or spy genre. Ebirah appears briefly but the big G doesn't show up until the 45 minute mark. He's sleeping in a cave and they still have to wake his ass up with a bolt of lightning before he starts rampaging around. Sadly, being as they are on an island, there are hardly any buildings for him to trash. I miss the buildings going down and bursting into flames. I have the Sony/Columbia TriStar DVD of the uncut Toho International version from 2005. It's got a nice letterboxed picture and it's in Japanese with English subtitles. Or you can listen to the fairly typical English dub track which changes tiny bits of the dialog. The pan and scan version of the movie hosted on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is 4 minutes shorter than the 87 minutes of the Sony DVD and that version has a different dub of the movie. I also have a Video Daikaiju bootleg that came to me on vhs tape. It has some slightly different subtitles. The picture is letter boxed, and the movie is uncut, but it doesn't look nearly as good. Some guy's brother disappears at sea and an old lady who talks to the spirits of the dead tells him that his brother is still alive. He steals a boat with the help of a couple of tired marathon dancers and a thief with a brief case full of stolen cash. Everyone has a story, huh. Their new combined story gets worse as a storm strands them on a deserted island that isn't so deserted. It contains a secret lab run by the Red Bamboo. They are a bunch of crazies who have captured the islanders from Infant Island and are making them work as slaves in their heavy water factory. The stranded guys team up with an islander woman to wake Godzilla and set him against the giant crab Ebirah. The islanders call up Mothra for added fire power. The island is destroyed and the good people mostly escape. The effects had a different guy working them and they are pretty entertaining but there just aren't enough monsters. Godzilla doesn't finally appear until the 55 minute mark. There is a giant condor tossed in to take a turn against Godzilla but he's soon roasted. Originally the script was written for a King Kong movie but it was changed to Godzilla without enough rewrites. That's Toho for ya. It's not a bad movie, fun in fact, but the movies start changing here under new leadership, becoming more kid friendly.

 

You can really see that change in Son Of Godzilla a 1967 movie again directed by Jan Fukuda. Titled Monster Island's Decisive Battle: Godzilla's Son in Japan the movie opens with some reporter washing up on a small south seas island where some science guys are conducting a weather experiment. There are several large critters on the island and a pretty girl. The giant praying mantis, the pretty girl, and the giant spider are entertaining but baby Godzilla, man o' man, a face only a mother would love! Minilla looks pretty poorly sculpted and people complain about the character all the time. I like enough of the other parts of the movie that this small bit doesn't bother me much. The boy and the big guy have some touching moments as Godzilla teaches junior to use his atomic breath. The human story is mostly ok, the scientists are having their problems, especially after the first big test. The giant praying mantis gets larger and there are three of them now. The people are in jeopardy, as is Minilla, lucky for him his cries attract Godzilla. He raises up from the sea and tramples the science camp with a quick dash to junior. He blasts the bugs, the condor and the giant spider before the scientist's weather controller buries the island in ice and snow. Godzilla and son settle down for a snooze until they ware thawed out next year to appear in Godzilla's Revenge or All Monsters Attack.  SOG isn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, I've seen so many worse, it's just not great but that's ok. Mostly something is happening and it kept my interest, even for the umpteenth time. The music, by Masaru Sato,  is pretty good. He did the movie score for Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster and they are fine. These movies are more for the fan of the genre, most people just wouldn't care to see them, but I'm still enjoyin' them.