Gojira

I didn't even take into consideration the recent events in Japan when I decided to watch the original 1954 Gojira, directed by Ishiro Honda. It was late at night, and I was looking for a movie to watch on Netflix. But once it started, it was hard not to think of all the terrible things happening there right now.

By the way, I'm calling it Gojira, but if you want to read it as "Godzilla", that's cool. I just like Gojira better. The way it sounds. Godzilla to me reeks of a bunch of cultureless old white guys in an office trying to come up with a title for a Japanese monster movie that would A: imply the movie will put the fear of God into a 1950's audience, and B: be easy enough to dub into the mouths of the Japanese actors.

This version is the original Japanese version, with subtitles, not the release Americans are familiar with with the white guy edited into the movie.

Okay, back to the movie.

So, Gojira is a live dinosaur that had been living in the Pacific, mutated by radiation from nuclear bomb testing. I'm sure we all know that. He stomps all over Japan causing destruction everywhere. And as cheap as the model Tokyo sets look, you know what? It's pretty stirring. This was a film made when the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fresh on the nation's collective minds. It's a movie made by people who remember. There's one shot after Gojira goes back into the sea, where we just get a view of the wreckage of Tokyo. It looks like the sky is on fire.

Another fascinating facet of Gojira is the way it is also serving to educate. There are scenes of exposition that are scientists literally instructing the audience of the effects radiation can have on land, the world around us, and living things.

The most interesting human in the movie is Serizawa, a brilliant young scientist with an eyepatch who has invented a device that can destroy Gojira with a power equal to that of an atomic bomb. He feels guilty having created such a device, and wants to make sure it never falls into the hands of anyone else.

Overall, I'm not sure if Gojira was a great movie or not. It's very interesting from a historical perspective, and I don't think it's importance can be denied. And it's certainly a good deal of fun at times . But there are actually some pretty long stretches where the movie just dies, and some of the shots are so dark that it's hard to figure out what's happening in them. It's still worth watching, though, and it does stay with you. B


Hey, March is over! I just thought I'd tack on a little update on how the blog is going. I'm quite happy with it. My hit count is going up a little, but not really that much. Obviously, I get more hits on current movies, which I'm slowly beginning to see more of. We're going to see a bunch of new stuff in the next couple weeks.

I think my writing has gotten better. Sure, sometimes it's not up to snuff. Sometimes I can't think of anything to say about a movie, but I force myself to write on it anyway. Sometimes I'm watching something on TV while I'm writing, or I wait too long to write it and the movie isn't fresh on my mind. Hopefully there will be less of that, but I can't guarantee it.

Thanks for reading, all (on average) 12 of you! Comments are encouraged, but not required.

Whisper of the Heart

Whisper of the Heart is a film by Studio Ghibli, the animation company owned by Hayao Miyazaki, the director of 9 or 10 masterpieces, but best known over here for Spirited Away. Miyazaki didn't direct Whisper of the Heart, though it bears many of his trademarks. The director was Yoshifumi Kondo, who worked with Miyazaki on everything Studio Ghibli did from its inception to his death in the late 90's.

When I bought this DVD last week, the cover featured a picture of a girl on a porch, with a boy leaning out of a window talking with her. The back cover featured the girl flying through the sky with a cat dressed in a tuxedo and wearing a top hat. I wondered why the front cover was so mundane, and why Disney would want to sell the movie with that, rather than a crazy fantasy with well dressed flying cats.

Turns out that was a good move. Whisper of the Heart isn't a fantasy. It's set in the real world, and contains only a couple imaginary minutes of flying cats. It's a coming of age story about a girl of 13 or 14 finding herself.

Though not a fantasy, fantastic elements sneak their way into the story. The girl even observes when something happens is like it's from one of the books she reads. Nothing magic happens in the movie, but it's plenty magical. There's a wonderful scene where the girl sings the John Denver song "Country Road" accompanied by the boy she's falling for on violin.

Sorry this review was kind of lame. It was one of those movies I did really like, but didn't really have much to say about it. Whisper of the Heart is a nice, uplifting movie, and it's probably something an open-minded kid of 10 or 11 would like. Adults should like it too. A-

Paul

Oh, Paul. What a disappointment you were. You had so much going for you. Greg Mottola, the director of Superbad. A script and performances by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. A great supporting cast. A really good premise. What went wrong?

I'm sure we've all seen the trailers, so we know what it's about. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are two geeks on a cross country trip to all the UFO hot spots, where they pick up a friendly fugitive alien. They then help him hide from the government agents and signal his people.

The first ten or fifteen minutes are a lot of fun. Pegg and Frost are one of the best comedy duos out there, and their natural chemistry is evident. They're playing different characters from their other movies, which is pretty cool. They're probably playing pretty close to themselves.

The main problem with the movie is Paul himself. He's voiced by Seth Rogen, who is playing him as Seth Rogen. I like Seth Rogen a lot, but my problem is, once Paul comes into the picture, he takes over the movie. He robs Pegg and Frost of the spotlight, and they're the characters you really want to watch.

The rest of the supporting cast is varying from fine to kind of wasted. I like Kristen Wiig as Simon Pegg's love interest. Jason Bateman and Bill Hader don't have a great deal to do. Joe Lotruglio is in it a lot more than he's ever been in anything before (besides Wet Hot American Summer, come to thing of it), but he's not as funny as I usually find him. I'm glad he's being used, though.

There were things I did like about Paul. I liked the John Williams-esque score. Most comedies are loaded with soundtrack music, so that was really cool to hear. It was generally well made, the character animation on the alien is top notch.

There are some funny homages to Star Wars, E.T., Close Encounters, Alien, and other classic science fiction films, but they do lean kind of heavily on them. They're not as woven into the story as Pegg and Frost's films with Edgar Wright are.

Paul is one of those movies that falls just shy of being good. If only Paul didn't get in the way of things, I would have liked it a whole lot more. C-

High Noon

Do you remember when you were younger and when people asked you what kind of music you like and your inevitable response was "Everything but Country"? Westerns were, appropriately enough, my "Everything but Country" for movies. Over time, I grew up and learned that good country music does exist, and I have since revised my response to "a little bit of everything but mainly glam rock, punk, and new wave from the 70's." That last part was irrelevant. My point is, it wasn't until recently that I finally decided to give westerns a try.

After now having seen Sergio Leone's hyperstylized deconstructionist takes on the western genre, I'm trying to learn a little more about the American movies that inspired them. The first one I watched is one of the more famous ones, and a huge influence on Leone, Fred Zinneman's High Noon.

In High Noon, Gary Cooper plays Will, an all around good guy and the marshal of a small town. He just got married to Grace Kelly and is on his way off to celebrate when he catches wind that some bad guys have blown into town, and they're waiting for the 12:00 train to arrive, because Frank Miller is on it. Frank Miller is bad news, so the Marshal postpones his honeymoon to fight the bad guys, even if he has to do it alone, because it's the right thing to do.

This movie might be one of the best uses of the ticking clock device I've ever seen. They tell you right off that shit hits the fan at noon, and that's what we as viewers are all waiting to see. Marshal Will spends the movie trying to recruit help from the townsfolk, who have all turned yella, and getting his affairs in order, since he knows he might not make it through his showdown with Frank Miller. The showdown at noon does pay off, too. One man vs. four. Those odds don't sound that bad nowadays, when we have heroes that take on a hundred faceless bad guys on their own, but it feels like a big deal in this movie, as it should.

The final scene is great too. I expected a big speech or something, espousing 1950's values, but instead, the scene plays out silently, infinitely more powerful.

I'm glad I have seen High Noon. Before the other night, I just assumed it was directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne (like all westerns). Now, I feel a little bit more educated. Plus, it was a helluva fun movie. B+.

Son of Frankenstein

Over the last couple of months, I've written posts discussing the first two Frankenstein movies, and how they compare with the versions in the minds of those of us who only had parodies, homages, and pop culture as our reference points. It's crazy how referenced the first two films are. It was like when I saw Citizen Kane or The Godfather for the first time and realized how much of those films had been tweaked in The Simpsons. The third film in the series, Son of Frankenstein, is not referenced as much, but it's still has many important touchstones from the Frankenstein canon.

Son of Frankenstein is the third and final Frankenstein picture starring Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster. Rowland V. Lee steps in as director, replacing James Whale, who made the first two. Also joining in on the fun are a couple of greats: Basil Rathbone as the new Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi as Ygor (finally!)

The story is actually the basis for Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. Rathbone plays Baron Wolf von Frankenstein, the son of the original Henry von Frankenstein. He lives in the shadow of his father, who lives on in the minds of the people as a madman who unleashed a monster upon them. He foolishly revives the monster to prove the people wrong, and of course it all goes crazy from there.

The most intriguing character is Bela Lugosi's hunchbacked Ygor. I'm happy to finally see Ygor introduced to the Frankenstein mythology. His backstory is very interesting. His hunch is a deformity of birth; it's the result of a broken neck caused by a botched hanging. He was hung for grave robbery.

Karloff kind of gets the shaft in this one. After the depth and pathos he brings the monster in the first movie, and the character growth and ultimate redemption he gets to play in the second one, they just revert him back to the monster the third time through. I can see why he didn't want to return a fourth time.

Karloff's character's devolution is part of what's wrong with Son of Frankenstein. They clearly wrote themselves into a corner with the awesome ending of Bride of Frankenstein and tried to reset things to the way they were. Overall, it's still a pretty entertaining movie, but director Rowland V. Lee doesn't quite have James Whale's visual flare. The three lead actors are what makes the movie worth watching.

And finally, another great pop-cultural touchstone: Lionel Atwill plays the one-armed Inspector, who lost his arm a generation earlier in the monster's original rampage. He has a fake arm that clicks as he moves it with his other hand. I had no idea that this was from an original Frankenstein movie! It was so odd and such a well realized piece of physical comedy in Young Frankenstein, that it never occurred to me that it was from anything but the minds of Mel Brooks and Kenneth Mars. Son of Frankenstein even has a scene with Baron Frankenstein throwing darts. Young Frankenstein makes a lot more sense to me now, having seen these three movies.

So overall, Son of Frankenstein is still a lot of fun, but inferior to the first two. B-

I'm not sure if I'll watch the fourth one. It doesn't have Karloff and it's not on Netflix at the moment.

Hausu (House)

Well, that's it. I can quit now. I don't ever need to see any more movies, because I have now seen Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hausu.

I hesitate to even write about Hausu, because I can not do it justice. It's the kind of movie I want to show all of my friends, one at a time, because I want to have a reason to watch it in the presence of fresh eyes over and over again.

Hausu is a surreal, absurdist horror comedy from Japan made in the late 70's, experimental director Obayashi's first narrative film. The premise: Seven adorable Japanese girls with names that describe their personalities (Gorgeous, Fantasy, Kung Fu, Prof, Melody, Mac, and Sweet) go stay at Gorgeous' aunt's house for the summer. They are then consumed one by one by the house in equally funny and horrific ways. That's it!

Visually, I've never seen anything like it before. Obayashi uses a combination of collages, animation, and all sorts of wild practical effects to create a dreamlike world that slips treacherously into nightmare. And when I say dreamlike, I really mean it. Hausu really captures those dreams you have that start out nice and happy and something triggers in your mind that turns everything around. You get trapped in the weird dream's backwards logic, and it doesn't let you wake up.

Sorry this isn't one of my more well-thought-out reviews. I was really on a roll with the last few. The thing is, I really don't want to go into detail, because I don't want to ruin a thing for anyone. Even if I wanted to elucidate, I don't think I could. Not a moment went by that I wasn't flabbergasted by what I was seeing in front of me. In closing, if anybody wants to watch one of the weirdest movies ever made with me, let me know, because I'm totally up for it. A+ times a million!

Once Upon a Time in the West

My love affair with the films of Sergio Leone is surprisingly recent. I just got the Man with No Name trilogy in December, knowing full well that I should have seen it a long time ago. Things like this used to embarrass me. When I was in high school, I would even occasionally lie and say I had seen certain movies, just because it was expected of me. It's a good thing people didn't press further.

Anyway, last year sometime, I read about a special screening of Evil Dead 2 held by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright (his name comes up from time to time in this blog, doesn't it? hmmmm...) When he asked the audience if anybody hadn't seen Evil Dead 2 before, some people in the audience raised their hand. They got JEERS from the rest of the audience, as if to say, "what are you, an IDIOT? How could you not have seen Evil Dead 2?" Edgar Wright then hushed these people and chastised them, saying that there's nothing wrong with not having seen an amazing film before, and think of how great it would be to see Evil Dead 2 for the first time in the theater with a huge, loving audience?

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, that story stayed with me, and helped me get past any embarrassment I would have once felt about not seeing The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I've been having so much fun over these last few months watching all these classic movies that I've missed and telling you about them from a fresh-eyed perspective.

So, Sergio Leone's next film after The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was another Spaghetti Western: Once Upon a Time in the West. It was his boldest statement on the American western yet. He was even able to shoot scenes in Monument Valley, the Utah location where so many John Ford movies were shot.

The movie follows the G, B, and U formula with Charles Bronson filling in for Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, Henry Fonda playing completely against type as the villain, and Jason Robards as the roguish-but-likable third. Also, for the first time in a Leone film, a woman has a prominent role with Claudia Cardinale as the hooker-turned-widow upon whom the entire story hinges.

Leone's films are all very slowly and deliberately paced, and this is the slowest one I've seen yet. That's not at all to the movie's detriment, mind you. He trusts in his audience's patience, and rewards them with some of the most memorable and iconic scene payoffs they ever will see. His sequences form a dialogue with us, and give us some of the most engaging viewing experiences in film history. His tight close-ups on his actors pick up every minute detail of their faces, and every little twitch they make speaks volumes.

Charles Bronson, who apparently was born at the age of 75 and died at 150, is full of machismo and bad-assery as the ghostly protagonist. He was also made of old, rain-damaged shoe leather, judging by his skin. We don't at first know who he is, or what's in his past, but he's haunting the cold-as-ice Henry Fonda character for some evil deed that Fonda himself can't even remember. His presence is always signaled by a few melancholy notes on the harmonica he carries with him everywhere.

Speaking of the harmonica, let's talk for a minute about Leone's greatest collaborator, composer Ennio Morricone. His scores in Leone's films are an utterly unique experience. Strange, otherworldly instruments mix with 60's surf guitar riffs, and dance with the images on the screen. I feel like the music has as much dialogue as the characters do.

The ending of Once Upon a Time in the West, as Leone's films always do, features a duel. With each film, his duels got longer and more intense. Time stretches on and on and on, as we see every tiny movement the characters make, every thought that goes through their minds, and then, suddenly, they draw, and it's over just like that. I think if Leone were still making films today, they would just be three and a half hours of 16 guys standing in a circle squinting at each other, and then in the last five seconds they all shoot and 15 of them fall. And it would still be compelling.

I think you know I liked this movie. It's a classic. A.

Arthur (1981)

As a total comedy nerd, it's pretty hard for me to find a major comedy (post 1960's, anyway) that I haven't seen. I don't know how it happened, but Arthur was one of them. It must have escaped through my fingers all through my childhood. I'm sure I would have happily watched it then, since it starred the funny elf from Santa Claus: The Movie who shared my last name.

I have been meaning to watch Arthur for a while. It wasn't the upcoming Russell Brand remake that made me interested, although it did give me the kick in the butt I needed to finally watch it.

So was it worth the wait? Yeah, it's pretty good. Lots of funny, quotable one-liners. Very sympathetic, likable characters. Lots and lots of heart. A little too much heart. Ok, it's a bit schmaltzy. Especially that theme song.

Arthur is a spoiled drunken heir to almost a billion dollars. He spends all his time drinking, picking up prostitutes, throwing money around, and embarrassing himself and his family. He is given an ultimatum: get yourself together and marry this girl, or you will be cut off from your fortune. The problem, of course, is that fate has chosen this moment to throw real love his way, in the form of Liza Minelli (I know, I don't get it either).

Dudley Moore is really funny. I knew the drunken character he played from parodies and such, but I guess I've never seen him do it himself. I was relieved that he wasn't drunk and obnoxious the whole movie, because it would have worn thin. Just three or four times, when the audience most needs it. Kind of like The Hulk.

I know I just swiped at Liza Minelli earlier, but she actually is pretty likable in this. You can see why they're a good match. He comes to her rescue after she's caught stealing a tie to give to her dad. I actually really liked her whole relationship with her dad.

The real heart and soul of the movie, though, is John Gielgud as Arthur's lifelong butler, Hobson. He genuinely cares for Arthur, since he practically raised him, and can see the sadness underpinning his misbehavior where nobody else can. He wants nothing more than for Arthur to be happy enough to pull himself together. He's also pretty funny, as the only one who can really penetrate Arthur's armored shell.

Speaking of which, I think that scene in Iron Man 2 where Tony Stark is drunk at his birthday was a little bit inspired by this movie.

Now that I've seen the original, I'm all ready to give my thoughts on the remake. I like Russell Brand, and he seems like an obvious choice for the role, but I think Will Arnett may have been a more fun choice. That may have been since he played a character pretty close to Arthur already on Running Wilde. The whole remake seems kind of unnecessary, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Maybe I'll see it in a few weeks, and I can do a proper comparison.

Overall, it's pretty schmaltzy, but the characters and the gags make up for that. My arbitrary letter grade for Arthur will be a B-.

Brewster McCloud

Brewster McCloud is a weird movie by people who were on drugs. I thought about it hard, and that is absolutely the easiest way to describe it.

Of course, it was made in 1970, when lots of people were making lots of great movies on drugs.

So, I'm not sure if a lot of people even know about this movie. This is the movie that Robert Altman made between M*A*S*H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. For some reason, it's never had a proper DVD release. I found a VHS at a thrift store a couple years ago and quickly snatched it up. But, being a VHS tape, I just as quickly set it aside, and left it to collect dust. Last weekend, I finally popped it into the old VCR and gave it a shot.

It's a pretty good movie, although I admit I'm not 100% sure I get all of it. It's definitely an original movie. It has all of Altman's trademark moves; the large cast, the overlapping dialogue, the punny signs in the background, the caustic outlook.

So, what is it about? Birds, mostly. It's about how we are like birds, how we are not like birds, and where we fail to be like birds. The title character, played by Harold and Maude's Bud Cort, is a young man secretly living in the Astrodome, constructing his own set of mechanical wings. Sally Kellerman is a mysterious woman who may or may not actually be a bird (?) who has lost her wings. There is a detective on the trail of a serial killer, whose victims are found strangled to death and covered in bird shit.

The whole film is narrated by a professor (Rene Auberjonois), whose lessons on bird behavior are intercut with human behavior that resembles the bird he is describing. He also slowly transforms into a bird-man throughout the movie. Yeah, it's that kind of movie.

Also of note is, this is Shelley Duvall's first film, as an Astrodome tour guide that Brewster falls in love with. She's very birdlike in appearance. With her long neck and the way they give her like 4 big lashes around each of her big round eyes, she reminds me of the ostrich ballerinas in Fantasia. Not a slam, mind you, just an observation.

The ending is pretty awesome. Altman builds and builds his story to a triumphant crescendo, only to burst it like a balloon, and then thumbs his nose at us, the audience. In so doing, I think he's making a statement about where we're heading as a people. Maybe man was never meant to fly, you know?

Sorry this review is kind of scattered. Brewster McCloud was kind of scattered too, so it's appropriate. I do love Robert Altman when he's on, and this is a pretty wild movie, even for him. I'll give it a solid B.

If you are interested in seeing it, the only way it is available on DVD is on the Warner Brothers Archive website, where DVDs are made-to-order of catalogue titles that they didn't sense enough demand for. There's some other good stuff in there, too. I'm sure it has popped up on Amazon by now too. It's not on Netflix, unfortunately.

Follow that Bird

Hey, look! Remember the Big Bird movie? I didn't really remember it. I know I've seen it when I was little, but not since. I'm going to count it as new-to-me and worthy of a short review.

Follow That Bird was from Sesame Street at its Elmo-less prime, back when Big Bird was the character that kids all loved. Surprisingly, it was Ken Kwapis' directorial debut. He has directed a lot of movies that aren't really on my radar, but also a lot of television that is, including lots of episodes of The Office, and a couple of Freaks and Geeks episodes.

The movie opens with a group of bird social workers deciding that Big Bird, an orphan, needs to be surrounded by birds. They place him in a house of Dodos. Big Bird can't stand it and decides to run back to Sesame Street. Meanwhile, all our friends on Sesame Street go on a cross-country chase looking for him.

I liked seeing Sesame Street turned into a movie set. It was already a pretty magical place, but in movie form, it is infused with a life that public television could never afford. It looks like a real inner city street, but in it, humans and muppets intermingle and go about their daily life like it's nothing.

Follow That Bird is, of course, a G-rated movie, made specifically for kids, but, just like Sesame Street, there is plenty in there for the adults to enjoy too. Lots of fun cameos, including a funny bit by Chevy Chase and Kermit the Frog, and SCTV greats Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty play the villains. They seemed to be having a good time. Ken Kwapis clearly gave them a lot of freedom to mess around.

Grover and Cookie Monster get all the best stuff. Grover gets to be Super Grover through most of the movie! The Count drives a pretty rockin' car that I wish I had. I think I had a Happy Meal toy of it.

The score is pretty nice. It's by Van Dyke Parks. It was just an interesting coincidence that I watched this so soon after watching Popeye, the only other movie I've ever seen scored by him.

I feel a little ludicrous writing about Sesame Street like this, but I don't know why. I still watch videos on Youtube. Check out the Monsterpiece Theatre bits, they hold up as well as any other great sketch comedy. They even did a parody of Twin Peaks back in the day.

So, hey, Follow That Bird holds up as well as the Muppet Movies of the 80's. It's probably more enjoyable with kids in the room, but I don't have kids and I enjoyed it plenty. If you don't experience a wave of joy every time you see all these beloved childhood friends of ours, then you need an inner child injection, STAT.

Follow that Bird: B

Rango

Hey, everybody? Where were you during Rango? The theater was nearly empty here in Chicago on a Friday night, but the movie was AWESOME.

Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy, The Ring) brought us a stunningly animated, smartly written spin on the spaghetti western. Johnny Depp is our Man with No Name, a neglected, nameless pet chameleon who is thrown out of a car driving through the desert and sent on a spiritual journey to discover his identity, and with that, some water. Along the way, he stumbles across the town of Dirt, and stumbles his way into the role of Sheriff.

I think the reason the theater was so sparsely populated was that nobody knew who this movie was for. The little kids there were talking through the whole movie, it was clearly going over their heads. There was lots of bouncing around for the kiddies, but the movie would slow down at times for the grown-ups, and the kids didn't really care (or often understand) what the characters were talking about.

What I'm saying is, this is not really a kids movie. It contains things that have not appeared in kid cartoons for decades: smoking, drinking, gunplay, even some killing. It's probably the closest we in the modern era have gotten to achieving the grown-up mayhem of the classic Looney Tunes. It's loaded with innuendo and references to pop culture that no kid would understand.

The above is not a criticism: it's exactly something I want to see more of.

The animation is beautiful and imaginative, and the character designs are some of the most original I've seen. And once again, maybe a little too much for kids. The townsfolk are ugly, scary, and gnarled. A rabbit missing an ear. A bird with an arrow stuck in his eye and coming out the back of his head. A roadkill armadillo.

Stylistically, it's all about Sergio Leone. Lots of expansive landscapes mixed with tight closeups. In fact, it's kind of like A Fistful of Dollars all hopped up on Homer Simpson's hallucinogenic Guatamalan Insanity Peppers. There's a bit of Terry Gilliam thrown in there, and quite a bit of Coen Brothers (Roger Deakins was even the cinematography consultant). There's an aaawweeeeeeesome Raising Arizona homage in there. I won't spoil it. There's also a great little nod to Johnny Depp's other hallucinogenic spirit quest movie at the beginning.

The whipcracking, surf guitar-y Ennio Morricone style music by Hans Zimmer is a highlight. It's performed by a mariachi band of owls who act as the movie's Greek chorus. They assure us, from the start, that Rango's going to die.

I hope the screen at my local theater tonight was a fluke. I hope this movie does well. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a best animated picture nomination next Oscar year.

Rango: A+

Thanks for reading!