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.