Cynical Cinema

At first, it may seem incongrous. Alliance Films is releasing a box set of two classic Japanese monster movies from fifty years ago on October 14th. And I gave one of those movies, Rodan, three stars. And I gave the other, War Of The Gargantuas, one star. And yet the box set itself gets eight. I know what you’re thinking. That doesn’t make sense. Packaging two terrible movies together does not make for a great box set. It is merely a whole lot of garbage packaged together to make a slightly bigger heap of garbage. And you would be right. However, that garbage is absolutely glorious. And it really does deserve a positive rating, one that will likely be appreciated only by the few people who have a highly developed sense of irony, or the few people who are obsessive over Japanese monster movie history. Like me. First, the movies themselves.

Rodan (***3/10): The first major monster movie after Godzilla for Toho studios in Japan. The original director of Godzilla, Ishiro Honda, was at the helm for this one as well, and much like Godzilla, the movie is a fairly thinly-veiled political and social comment. Of course, there are nuclear experiments off the coast of Japan that harm the Earth. And the Earth responds to these attacks by releasing Rodan, a giant pterodactyl-like beast that besieges Tokyo. (There are also some giant man-eating bugs.) This is the standard Japanese monster movie set-up. The human impact on the environment creates a massive blowback that threatens to consume mankind. We human beings do violence to the Earth, (like a nuclear test), and the Earth returns the favour by creating a strange, unfamiliar menace. We don’t know how to react to that menace, and we respond to that with violence as well. The violent reaction of the human beings makes the situation worse, and we’re left to wonder at the end of the movie - who is the bad guy here, the monster or us?

That being said, this is not a very good movie. In that old guy-in-a-monster-suit destroying a miniature city tradition of Japanese cinema, there are a lot of obvious blue screen shots and some hilarious smashing of toy tanks and helicopters and boats. For it’s time, 1956, the special effects are pretty good, especially the amazingly detailed miniature cities. But that was the entire point of the movie. After the special effects, the story is weak at best, featuring human beings running away from the creature, the army going after the creature, more people running, more army intervention, and then the big finish. The narration and the dialogue are ludicrous. The dubbing into English is hilarious. The final narration, when the whole movie is done, must be seen to be believed. It is one of the most cheesy, nonsensical speeches delivered on film this side of Ed Wood. And yet, it manages to somehow achieve a sort of poignancy. Bizarre!

War of the Gargantuas (*1/10): Again, Ishiro Honda took the helm for this one, which is far worse than Rodan. First of all, there is no social comment in the film whatsoever. There is an attempt, toward the end, to create in the audience a bond with one of the giant destructive creatures, in the vein of King Kong. It doesn’t work. The movie opens with a weird, froggy looking octopus in the sea attacking a ship. But at the last second the crew of that ship is saved by a monstrous green giant who rises from the sea and kills the octopus. Then HE sinks the ship. And that sets the tone for the entire movie. A guy in a green gorilla suit capsizing toy ships and flipping over houses and throwing tiny trees at another guy in a brown gorilla suit. These are not, technically, gorillas, because that had been done in King Kong. Instead, these are “gargantuas”, a term that appears to be arbitrarily chosen to describe two giant hairy humanoids that are destroying Tokyo.

The dialogue in this movie is weak, even for badly-dubbed Japanese monster movies. The plot contrivances are terrible, even for badly-thought-out Japanese monster movies. You see, the good, kind gargantua escaped from his cage where he lived with humans, caught his flesh on a rock, that flesh floated out to the sea where it bonded with plankton and created the new, sea-dwelling, evil gargantua. The military plan to trap that evil one by luring it into a trap, where they can shine lights on it and make it run away. Ummm….what kind of trap is that? The bad gargantua growls a lot, and it sounds a LOT like a jet engine. But here’s what makes this movie entirely enjoyable for those with a highly developed sense of irony:

This movie looks, a lot, like it was written, produced, directed and acted by seven-year-olds. That explains the bizarre plot contrivances and unintentional red herrings. There are laser guns, and electricity being shot at these giant creatures in the form of lightning bolts. But the real idiocy (or, genius, if you will) comes from the creatures themselves. Both of them move around as though there are un-coordinated four year olds in the suits. They shamble around like very, very small children who are still not fully accustomed to walking. The final showdown between the two gargantuas begins with them both posing AT each other, like two eight-year-olds doing “I know karate” moves. It is simply bizarre, but watched a certain way, it is amazing.

Bringing Godzilla Down To Size (*******7/10): This is a 70-minute documentary included in the box, on the Rodan disc. The history of Japanese monster movies, from Gojira (Godzilla) in 1954 until today. The documentary focuses on the craftsmen who created these movie worlds in the 1950s and 1960s. They speak passionately about the tradition of their monsters and their movies. The guy-in-a-rubber-suit style that so many North Americans make fun of today is essential to the ethos of the Japanese. And that’s exactly what I love about it. Yes, it’s cheesy. Yes, it’s OBVIOUS that it’s a guy in a rubber suit. But the craftsmanship that went into that suit, and into the little city that was incredibly rendered over many months only so it could be destroyed in a few hours, is unbelievable. The love these artists have for their creations is wonderful. And the tradition is magnificent.

The tradition arises from the context of World War II, the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan, and the American nuclear tests that took place near Japan in the 1950s. The tradition also arose from the American film King Kong in 1933. The Japanese did not have the time or the budget to do the stop-motion animation that created King Kong, so they were forced to create the man-in-a-beast-suit effects. Which some would suggest are far cooler. Then there was the politics and social environment. In the early 50s, there was a real-life nuclear scare. After an American nuclear test, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat developed radiation poisoning. There were tuna boycotts across Japan, and many demonstrations against war and against the bomb. Ishiro Honda, the original Gojira director, was an avowed pacifist, who saw Godzilla as a great way to put his anti-war, anti-bomb protest up there on the screen. If we do this to the Earth, it’s only a matter of time before the Earth does this to us.

There is one scene in this documentary that brings together three guys who have played Godzilla, that is, have been the guys inside the rubber suits in different movies. Listening to them recall the mishaps that took place on the sets, when they couldn’t see in the suits and fell over and wrecked the sets before it was time, or when they almost drowned in the water scenes, is priceless. These guys absolutely love the fact that THEY have been Godzilla. Not CGI, not stop-motion animation, they have been THAT guy in THAT suit. Their love for this creature and this tradition is palpable, and this entire box set might be worth it for that scene alone.

The Japanese monster tradition goes far beyond Godzilla, beyond Mothra and King Ghidorah and Gigan. All of it is worthwhile, for one reason or another, and this box set is an excellent place to start.

Paramount Home Entertainment is in the Christmas spirit. A little early, if you ask me. But they didn’t ask me. They just went ahead and released the Holiday Treats DVD today, October 7th. It’s billed as “8 heartwarming TV classics”, and it actually delivers. For although I have not yet become imbued with the Christmas spirit, and I will likely hold off on that until about December 22nd, these TV episodes stand on their own. I had just turned on the I Love Lucy episode to take a quick gander at the DVD, and I was joined by my nine-year-old stepson. And he forced me to sit there, through eight episodes of Christmas cheer. And, with the exception of the Frasier episode, he laughed the whole time.

There is an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ricky put up a Christmas tree while reminiscing about the birth of their child. Then The Honeymooners, where Ralph sells his bowling ball to buy Alice her Christmas gift, only to find out she bought him a bag for his bowling ball. The episode of Andy Griffith where they hold their Christmas celebration in the jailhouse. The Brady Bunch episode where Flo has laryngitis. A particularly funny episode of Taxi where Louie puts up his own mother in a poker game with his brother. The Family Ties episode where Alex is visited by the ghosts from A Christmas Carol. Then a truly heartwarming episode of Frasier and a silly episode of Wings that involves Fay throwing her late husband’s ashes out of a plane in a dustbuster.

I could have done without the Family Ties and Wings, but six out of eight isn’t bad. I would suggest saving the Holiday Treats DVD for Christmas, but it’s a gift that could well be opened before December 25th.

I am starting to think one of the reasons for the rise in gun violence in the world is the dumbing down of TV shows. When I was a kid, and the A-Team fired three thousand bullets at people, none of them hit anyone, and certainly didn’t kill them. Yet in the old days, guns killed people. And killing people came with consequences. Take Gunsmoke, the longest-running Western series of all time. Season 2, Volume 2 comes out May 27th from Paramount Home Entertainment. It’s a show where guns are a way of life and Western frontier justice is doled out one bullet at a time. And the thing is - this show was actually very good! Marshal Matt Dillon has become something of a pop cultural icon in the years since Gunsmoke.

Also iconic are Dodge City and the bizarrely detached attitude the marshal and others have toward human life. There is an episode in Season 2 where the “suits” from the big city come out to check on the practices of the cops in this town. They make an ordinance that forbids anyone from carrying a gun in Dodge. Of course, guns are not only essential to these people, they are the “air they breathe and the water they drink”. Dillon, of course, being a good, loyal NRA member, wants to show this suit that taking peoples’ guns is a bad idea, so he lets a bunch of people get killed to prove his point. Then there is the episode where a guy yells “I’m going to kill you” and then gets shot, and the man who shot him hangs. Two episodes later, a man yells “I’m going to kill you”, and gets shot by a woman, and the marshal escorts her out of town and says it was self-defense. Frontier justice is certainly not blind, like the kind we have today. Allegedly.

But frontier justice IS entertaining. And so is Gunsmoke. Considering how long this show ran, and how popular it was in it’s day, I was initially amazed that it doesn’t show up too often in reruns on TV. But then it occurred to me - perhaps that is because when the 80s rolled around, and censors and silly anti-violence monitors abounded, perhaps this show was kept off TV, what with the occasional killing and so forth. And what was left? MacGyver and the A-Team. Gunsmoke makes me happy, in that it hearkens back to a better day for television, the type of TV we are only recently beginning to get again. Season 2, Volume 2 comes out May 27th, and is worth it.

One of the great things about older movies is the fact that without the special effects we have today, the movies had to be good. They were carried by acting, scripts, direction and cinematography. Today’s horror movies are special effects crap-fests and bloody gross-out flicks. I used to think that was because we as an audience had become so desensitized to violence and scary scenes that they had to become more and more over the top before they elicited a reaction out of us. I no longer think that’s the case. I now think the reason is more simple. We use special effects because we can, studios know really gross movies are cheap and make their money back, and that way we can just churn out movie after movie without ever writing a real script or creating real tension. This is a blanket statement, and I apologize to such films as 28 Days Later and the first Saw.The best horror movie I’ve seen in a while is The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Not the 1978 version, which I have never seen but which seems to be more well known, but the 1956 original, which was truly intelligent. In the old days, every monster movie, zombie movie, alien attack film, was done not only for shock value, but also as a broad social commentary. Body Snatchers is no exception. The social comment, in a way, presages it’s own future in today’s horror movies. The idea is that we as a people are becoming so desensitized that our emotions are becoming almost invisible. There are no big scares in the film, you don’t see anyone die, but the tone and the script are so well executed that you are riveted to your seat the whole time.