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I mean not to SMG this all up, but shrinking movies literally ARE Giant Monster Movies in every possible sense. The humans situation is being messed up by creatures that are giant to him, this definition could not possibly apply more. That being said I understand why no one would want to watch more than one Honey I Shrunk movie.
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Jan 22, 2017 02:14
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Bringing this over to the next pageBurkion posted:So
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Jan 22, 2017 02:26
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The Lost World is def. worth seeing, if primarily for the historical value. Dramatically I think the adaptation suffers a little- instead of whole villages of ape-men and humans, you get just one ape-man who acts like the classic silent melodrama villain, and that business drags on a bit. Still it's a fun film. Also of note that as the film entered public domain, it became a popular go-to choice whenever a movie or TV show wanted to show a character watching something random on TV.
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Jan 22, 2017 10:48
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Man that fucken destruction montage in Rodan is unparalleled. The hurricane miniatures effects are cool as heck
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Feb 1, 2017 04:26
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DeimosRising posted:Man that fucken destruction montage in Rodan is unparalleled. The hurricane miniatures effects are cool as heck Rodan is really just about second only to the original Gojira. Outstanding movie all around.
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Feb 1, 2017 04:39
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:Rodan is really just about second only to the original Gojira. Outstanding movie all around. Yeah I just rewatched it and it's tremendous, even if TCM decided to air the English dub for some reason. My son insists the monster is called Guilala though cause I showed him X From Outer Space First.
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Feb 1, 2017 04:42
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One of the voices in the English dub is George Takei in one of his first screen roles iirc.
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Feb 1, 2017 04:45
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:One of the voices in the English dub is George Takei in one of his first screen roles iirc. While watching it I thought, drat is it racist that all I can hear when the professor talks is George Takei? The voice actor probably isn't even Asian...
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Feb 1, 2017 04:53
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DeimosRising posted:While watching it I thought, drat is it racist that all I can hear when the professor talks is George Takei? The voice actor probably isn't even Asian... The one really nice thing about most of the early dubs, can't speak for all of them of course, is that they did go out of their way to cast Asian American actors. For both the dubwork, and in Godzilla King of the Monsters, they made sure all of the body doubles and all of the extras that were meant to be Japanese were played by actual Asian people. Which is really commendable for the body doubles, considering you never see their faces.
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Feb 1, 2017 05:04
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Rodan is indeed a great monster movie. None of the later Rodans, with the possibly exception of the '64-'65 design, are anywhere near as good. It's amazing that the Rodan from 1993's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II looked so, so much worse than Rodan '56.
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Feb 1, 2017 05:16
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I'll also say now, I do not care for the dub of Rodan for much the same reasons I do not care for the dub of Raids Again- they over narrate every goddamn thing and suffocate the actual narrative in the process. It's kind of startling how engaging and character driven the story of Rodan is, and how absolutely easy it is to miss that over having the main character narrate the entire movie to you. I'll go more into it when we finally, eventually, get to that era. First up is Sea Bat. Man I hope Sea Bat is a lost gem that no one talks about and is secretly really, really good.
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Feb 1, 2017 05:30
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I'm still about halfway through Lost World, but I wanted to pipe in that Rodan was the movie effects-master Eiji Tsubaraya was most proud of regarding his miniature work. He very painstakingly researched and copied the cityscapes down to the roofing tiles--with the express interest of destroying all that work in moments. There's a man dedicated to his craft. Unrelated, but shouldn't Sh! The Octopus be on this list soon?
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Feb 1, 2017 09:17
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So finding the Sea Bat is proving a headache and a half so we likely will be moving onto King Kong for the next movie. I might have secured a copy of the original Mysterious Island though, but we'll see how that works out. Sh! The Octopus isn't really what I'd consider a giant monster movie- a movie with a monster in it no doubt, but 'eh. I may throw it in though, just because of how weird it is. Also it has some nice makeup effects you just don't see anymore. So one reason why this little project of mine is going so slow, is because I'm working on another giant monster related endeavor that eats up a good portion of my free time not already taken by real life nonsense. Specifically, I'm working with a Polish artist, Jako-M, on an original giant monster/alien invader comic book series. We're hoping to get it picked up by Image or Dark Horse, but online distribution isn't out of the question either. It is a 6-7 issue mini series very much inspired by 1950s Sci-Fi and giant monster movies. It's also a bit of a critical take on that era and its flaws. The plot is super simple- alien invader comes to a small Alaskan town, Point Hope, and cuts the area off from the rest of the world with an energy dome. Within, the invader unleashes various giant monsters and otherworldly horrors, and the only hope left to the town is a mysterious charred object that fell from the sky. The title of the work is Charred, and here is the first page, still a work in progress and uncolored-  So yeah. We're gonna make this happen one way or three. It's a bit hard to make out what is going on exactly, especially in panel 2, but I'm still curious about initial impressions. The King Kong review and retrospective will be coming relatively soon, hopefully by this weekend. Kong is such a big thing and so important to the genre that it deserves a very well thought out review. Also we get to talk about the racial stuff in Kong which is always fun!
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Feb 20, 2017 20:25
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If anyone gets Me-TV, Svengoolie's been programming Godzilla movies the past few weeks. So far they've shown Godzilla, Godzilla Raids Again, and Godzilla vs. Mothra. This week they're scheduled to show Godzilla's Revenge. If you get Me-TV in your area, definitely tune in this saturday. http://svengoolie.com/ https://twitter.com/doc_freak/status/831885059883954176
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Feb 20, 2017 21:00
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Kong and Son of Kong reviews going up tonight. I'm also seeing Skull Island tonight, though I won't be talking about it in depth here. Will definitely have to give it a shout out though.
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Mar 11, 2017 18:54
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Burkion posted:Kong and Son of Kong reviews going up tonight. Stay after credits for a preview of another biggie
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Mar 11, 2017 18:59
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Yeah, I had a good time with skull island yesterday. It doesn't try to be anything more than it is. Also def stay after the credits.
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Mar 12, 2017 00:21
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King Kong, 1933 Where to even begin with this one. Ghosts on Slumber Mountain was the start. The Lost World was the evolution. This is the final production. Just, how to begin to approach this. It is impossible to overstate just how important and monumental this film is. Mental is a good word for it- this is a big one. There is only one other giant monster film in the history of cinema that rivals this for importance, influence, scope, scale and sheer power, and it wouldn't be made for another 21 years. 84 years old, having been the host to four remakes, several follow up films between them, comic books, cartoons, inspirations and knock offs... This is a hard one to talk about. Smaller movies are easy to tackle. The Lost World was fun to take on because not a lot of people talk about the Lost World and, for as vital as it was for the creation of this film, being in all intents and purposes a prototype of this very movie, it just wasn't as important as this movie. It wasn't as talked about, it wasn't as well remembered and discussed. There is a lot of gears to this movie, and the most important of them is the pathos it carries. There was a recent interview about the new Power Rangers movie coming out. It was about what they did with the monster Goldar, and why they did it. If you are looking forward to that movie, I'm glad for you. If you have seen it and are reading this after this review has been written, I hope you did enjoy it because I genuinely do not like for people to waste their time on things they don't like. But everything in that interview, every sentiment they carried and implication they let loose, offended me as a monster fan. To sum up, they admitted they removed Goldar's personality, and in fact actively removed any personality from him at all, to turn him into a kaiju menace that acted as an extension of Rita's evil. The implication being that kaiju do not and should not have personality. Which is complete and total unimaginable horseshit. The two biggest kaiju ever, Kong and Godzilla, are bastions of pathos and character. And Kong was first. The character of Kong is a fascinating one for this movie. You know the plot, regardless if you've seen the movie or not. People learn of Special Place, learn of Thing at Special Place, voyage to get to Special Place, arrive at Special Place and find Thing and bring it back to their home where everything goes wrong. The special place in this movie is Skull Island, which is an extremely different beast compared to the lost plateau of The Lost World. The Plateau was a natural place, a place of the world, just one removed from time. It had an ecosystem, and it felt alive. The scope and scale of it was really amazing for the time, and it felt real. It felt alive. Everything felt balanced and natural. There weren't just A Monster and a bunch of smaller things. There were multiple dinosaurs of every species and they coexisted and acted like living, breathing creatures should. They were animals. Skull Island is not a natural place. Is not an island lost to time. Skull Island is death personified, a beacon of loss and destruction, where only monsters reside. The creatures of Skull Island may look like dinosaurs, but in reality are monsters. They seek to kill and attack and destroy any living thing that crosses into their land, without exception or hesitation. There are no scenes of families or co-existing species, just horrors and nightmares bursting from the forest to rend and tear whatever they find. The few natives that manage to survive on the island only do so because of an incredible wall, and their only safeguard, their King- Kong. Kong is the most humane character in the film. He could easily break down the barrier and attack the villagers, let loose the hordes of nightmares that reside within his jungles, but he doesn't. Whatever we learn in the sequel, this Kong is alone, his only companion being whatever bride the villagers offer to him. He doesn't harm them but we know why they have to keep offering him brides- because the forest is death. While with Kong, Anne is nearly killed by a different kind of monster nearly every minute she is there. If not for Kong, she would have been dead many, many times over. We see this most efficiently when a group of twenty or so men go into the forest after Kong and Anne, and only one man returns. Skull Island is death, and Kong's existence is that of unending combat against his fellow monsters. Kong is lonely, and seeks affection and to keep Anne safe. However Kong is also violent, jealous and dangerous. A good five or six of those twenty men were killed by Kong himself, either crushed, thrown off into a ravine, or even chewed up and spit out. Kong is without mercy. Anne is his sole concern, the only thing he can turn to and the only one he shows a softer side for. She is also doomed to die with Kong, no matter his best intentions, because the forest is unrelenting in its attempt to murder any living thing in it. So she gets taken away and Kong gives pursuit, only to be incapacitated by gas bombs and brought to New York City a slave. I think it's very important that Kong is presented entirely in a sympathetic light in this film. There's an important reason he is effectively crucified for the enjoyment and entertainment of the masses. Kong personifies the tragedy of the monster, as espoused by Ishiro Honda. "Monsters are born too tall, too strong, too heavy—that is their tragedy," and almost none bear this out more than Kong himself. Kong is too strong to be contained, though again notably he does not break out for his own sake. He only breaks free of his chains when he believes Anne is in danger. Because of course he believes Anne is in danger. He comes from a world of monsters and horrors unending. Of brutal night and day fighting where rest is short and seldom. Of course Anne is in danger, she is always in danger. So he summons the strength to break his steel chains and pursues her, seeks her out to find and protect her. He is too strong to be contained, too big to be stopped safely, and too heavy to survive what is ultimately his fatal fall. He cannot coexist with humanity, no matter how much he may wish to with Anne. On Skull Island, fighting for God knows how long, he survived for eons. In New York City, he doesn't last a night. The effects of this movie are absolutely top notch. These are, without question, the best effects of O'Brien's career. Some of the shots integrating the stop motion with the live action are near seamless. Time has done nothing to diminish the power and impact of the work done on this film, helped incredibly by the scale of the physical effects. The wall feels massive because it is massive. There are shots of all the villagers climbing up the wall and resting atop it that show just how grand they were. A full sized Kong head puppet and hands puppets were created, and the head puppet, while not looking great DESIGN wise, is untouchable otherwise. It is incredibly impressive, extremely emotive and utterly massive, able to fit grown men between its jaws. It is a level of craftmanship that wouldn't be attempted again for decades. Even beyond the monster effects, the blending of sets and pieces is remarkable. Most of the boat scenes are done on a stage as you would expect, but the way the ocean is worked in is near flawless. You can tell what the effect IS due to years of conditioning, but it is without error. In a lot of ways, the movie still holds its own today. Yes you can tell the monsters look fake, but it is no different now with CGI, nor was it different in the 80s with animatronics. Once effects get to this scale, its simply a matter of style. Do you prefer this look, or do you prefer the other. This wasn't done purely with stop motion, nor should it have been. That's what makes it work best. A blending of effects to make it work in the context of the movie. Kong 33 looks just as good as Kong 2005, and arguably better than 75, because it has aged so incredibly well. You cannot point to another movie of the same era and get anything close to the same level. Mighty Joe Yong, 1949, is the only movie close to Kong's age that approaches the scope and scale of what it did, and it was drat near two decades after the fact. There's a reason why stop motion monster films did not become more popular and more noticeable until the 1950s, and that's because this film set a standard so high as to be impossible to reach. Kong 1933 is unique in history and unique in the world, and should always be cherished for what it did and how. That doesn't mean it is without flaw. The movie is especially of its time. There are some unfortunate racial themes running through the movie, the most obvious of which being Kong himself. Kong is, in effect, a black man. We'll stow the talk about Jack Johnson or if the film has hidden meanings at all, and just get down to it. A giant black man. Who wants the affections of a white woman, and is uncivilized about such feelings before being gunned down by the authorities. You can read much more into it, and you can take positive things from it as well, but that fact permeates Kong and his entire franchise. This is without touching the unfortunate problems that the villagers bring with them, and we will be going over that believe you me, or reading further into what Kong represents as a character. This racial tension with Kong is either a core component of the film come the future, or it is forgotten entirely in favor of making things more child friendly and super hero-y. You have those two extremes. Kong VS Godzilla tackles the issue in a very unfortunate manner, Kong 77 tries to avoid it as much as possible but still has issues, 05 has...well yeah we'll get there. The positives that can be said about this movie and its treatment of the natives of Skull Island is that they are not violent or savage. They are backwards, and they are treated in a condescending manner, but they are not the heathens the film names them. They reason, they barter, they communicate. They try to take Anne for, in their view, noble reasons, and do not harm any of the boat crew even when they come to take her by force. They are never villains. They also speak a made up language, are unrepentant sexists, though so are most of the cast for that matter and the lead character of Carl Denham, but I want to save that for Son of Kong to have something to loving talk about there. And they are the classic Hollywood black tribesmen natives that never existed anywhere, with African war masks despite the whole thing happening somewhere in the Pacific ocean. This is a horrible film to try and remake really because there is so much to it. For the 1930s, this film stands out as one of the most ambitious and epic. It, years later, would help to kick start what we know as the Kaiju era with a little help from a certain Beast. But to come back to this movie years later and try and remake it? I do not envy anyone who makes the attempt. This movie is a towering monolith of talent and skill, that great directors have burned themselves on trying to accomplish the same things it has done. For a lot of the nuances and more in depth story discussions, I've decided to hold off on fully tackling until we get to those remakes and interpretations and ideas. How the natives are handled in one film VS the other, how Kong is different and how he remains the same, all of that will be gone into in greater depth. To compare and contrast what was done with what they had. The first of which is perhaps the one that failed the hardest to live up to the original. Next time, we talk about Son of Kong. Released in 1933. A few months after Kong itself. God help that poor, doomed film.
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Mar 12, 2017 07:36
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Great post, great movie. I think you're right on the money Kong's sympathetic nature and how that's a make-or-break quality for giant monster films - its one of the reasons I love the genre. As for remakes, ripoffs, etc, 1949's Mighty Joe Young comes the closest to matching the original, with Harryhausen's animation being top notch. It only really loses out by not having the great, tragic ending of the original. Skull Island is its own beast and is honestly pretty rad too, having seen it yesterday. Kinda wish more goons were discussing it. I was going to make a thread like this once I had free time in a couple of months, focusing solely on the kaiju films, but I'm just as happy to follow along with this one. I definitely did not know about some of the earlier, pre-Kong films.
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Mar 12, 2017 08:39
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King Kong is one of my favorite movies. It's just so well put together. Really broke out of the kind of stiffness movies were forced into by early sound- the camera's still pretty static but it's not half as stagey as stuff that was coming out a year or so before, and this is the film that re-established the importance of incidental music (which Cooper paid for out of pocket because the studio didn't think it was worth the extra investment.) Robert Armstrong is so drat good as Carl Denham. There's a really good tension in the movie with how Kong is viewed and what we, the audience, are invited to think of him. Cooper really wanted to emphasize him as a fearsome beast, but still wanted the women crying for him in the end- he actually opposed O'Brien's efforts to give Kong a bit more humanity and vulnerability, but he couldn't really stop him, because he was the animator and no Kong, no movie. And Denham's capturing Kong and chaining him up on display is treated as at worst a bad decision, instead of a villainous act- you can't really have a character like that be sympathetic nowadays, and both remakes had to contend with that. So there's a real complexity in Kong being both a terrifying monster and kind of tragic, and it's something that emerges almost organically. (And this ties into the racial readings- a deliberate anti-miscegenation story wouldn't portray its Other so sympathetically.) Keep up the good work!
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Mar 13, 2017 03:14
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I need to see every movie in this trailer reel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7J5iv03NEk quote:INVISIBLE MAN APPEARS (1949, Daiei) 00:00
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Mar 14, 2017 19:29
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ruddiger posted:I need to see every movie in this trailer reel. The Green Slime owns so hard.
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Mar 14, 2017 23:59
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drat, I wish there was a proper trailer for King Dong (1985) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uitl_a79zq4
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Mar 16, 2017 00:04
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Son of Kong 1933 Released just 8 months after the original King Kong. Made in less time. How to even touch this. This may or may not be the first ever super rushed out there to cash in immediately quickie sequel in the history of cinema. And just like every other movie like it, it is a work. This movie is barely an hour long, and has about, maybe, twenty minutes of plot. Now one thing I will make very clear, right now. The plot isn't a bad one. A sequel isn't a TERRIBLE idea. This is not an inherently awful concept that should never have been attempted. Going back to Skull Island makes sense, especially given the plethora of other horrific monsters that aim to murder and devour everyone and everything that lives and breathes. It's not a smart idea but let's be real, that wouldn't stop any one. Ever. This movie could have worked. The problem is that they did it in every wrong way they possibly could short of reviving Kong with a mechanical heart giving him a love interest and making the movie about him boning before he dies. Don't know where that came from anyways. The plot is WE GOTTA GO BACK TO THE ISLAND and then the movie stops for four hours so we can watch tiny monkies dance and some chick sing. We get to the island and poo poo happens and the islanders are there for like five seconds and they meet baby Kong and then the island sinks killing everything everywhere forever because gently caress you relatively friendly and nice natives, gently caress you every living thing on the island, gently caress you baby Kong Carl got his diamonds he's set for life. To sum up, white man visits colorful tropical island, everyone but him dies, he makes a fortune. The end. There's also this thing about one character killing the father of the monkey singer only no one really cares and no one really wants anything to do with it and then he gets eaten by a terrible looking bastardization of a good model from Kong and fucktido no one cares. I don't think she even finds out that her fathers murderer was killed. I don't think she cares? This is just a pretty bad movie. It's strength is the fact that it is one hour and three minutes long, but forty minutes of that is spent doing absolutely nothing. Really the rallying cry of this movie is that nobody cared. I'm convinced they didn't even have an actual script for this, just a vague idea and then they boozed up the actors and let them loose. Carl is our focal point for this story, even more so than before. In the first movie, he was a morally complex, interesting character the likes of which we will never see again. Here he's just some dipshit rear end in a top hat who gets the biggest happiest ending of all because gently caress you and gently caress the audience. The actor tries, he does, he really tries with some of his guilt over what happened with Kong, but the writing betrays it entirely. He's not sad about Kong dying and destroying all that poo poo and killing all those people, he's sad because people don't like him and are suing him into oblivion and he may be arrested. Gone is the sentiment behind "Twas Beauty that killed the Beast" and now rises the "ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME" portion of the story. Everything about this whole adventure is one of selfish horse poo poo as he seeks out treasure that couldn't possibly exist on the literal death island that murders all who step upon it. He doesn't even want to help Kong Jr., Monkey Singer does. Far as he's concerned Kong Jr. can just go rot in the quick sand. It's almost ironic given what happens to the poor thing in the end. It's just incredibly atrocious what they did with this character and how his arc plays out. Because he doesn't get an arc, that would require effort and writing which this film does not have. His arc is I'm Poor And Being Sued to I Have Diamonds and I'm Wet The first movie captures a really dynamic kind of character, who by the end is filled with regret for what he has done and the damage it has brought. He would be, in any more modern context, a villainous character, but due to the time it was made is presented in a very different and interesting light giving him more complexity and dignity than what his archetype usually gets. Enough depth that you cannot simply write him off as being a rear end backwards character written in an uglier time. This iteration of him you can do exactly that. And you should. I would laugh my rear end off if the diamonds he recovered were actually just glass. But what about the monsters you ask I'm sorry we still have another fifty minutes of singing and monkeys get back to me in a bit. Oh alright. Skull Island in the first movie is foreboding, dangerous, and most of all alive. It is a dynamic hellscape of which there is no return and fantastic in every regard. Skull Island in this movie is never seen from afar, removing the entire point of the name and the coolest set up shot in the history of the world, and is just 'eh. The best model and effect in the movie is our good friend the styracosaurus, who still absolutely loathes anything it sees for no reason what so ever. That's because it's brought over wholesale from the original King Kong, and is the only thing Willis O'Brien put any effort into because holy poo poo everything else. Everything else is ugly as sin. I'll get to Junior in a moment, but the other creatures seen in the movie are just a marked downgrade in quality in every single way. Having a giant cave bear hanging around is neat, but the creature looks pitiful, especially the head, and the fight with it is just kind of sad. Same can be said for literally every other monster in the film, including the one that eats the dad murderer that no one cares about. Even if the quality of the models were not objectively worse and more cartoonish or just straight up ugly looking, the animation for them is pretty uniformly terrible. Compared to the fluid, life like animation of the original, this herky jerky bullshit some times runs at literal frames a second. To rush this mess out the door, what little corners could be cut were, and they are noticable. Gone are the giant set pieces of the original, gone is the integration of live action and stop motion. In the original King Kong VS T-Rex fight, which is a masterpiece of blocking, choreography, animation and design, Anne is made an active participant in the fight. She is directly affected by, and interacts with, Kong and the T-Rex as they throw down. In this film's version of that fight, the two live action actors are high up above and just watch Kong beat up a dumb looking lizard with short stubby legs for about two minutes. Junior is possibly the worst of it all. They bastardized one of the Kong models to make him, and he is ugly looking. He's also frequently the comic relief, the short time he's around, and just entirely sympathetic and nice. Which makes what happens to him, IE drowning because his island sinks for no loving reason, to save the life of Carl so Carl can get away with his riches and gently caress a presumably underage girl... just really detestable. There's no tragedy to it, it's not sad. It's just something that happens and then its done. That about sums up this movie. It's just something that happens and then its done. I wish I could say more positive about it. This isn't one of the worst movies ever made, not by a long goddamn shot, but it's about as unimaginative and uncreative as possible. Cheap, ugly cash in sequel that effectively killed giant monster movies for nearly two decades. We've got one more film from the 30s to talk about, but first we have to delve deeper still into the world of Kong. Next review will be far more hypothetical as we discuss that which no longer exists, Japanese King Kong 1933 and King Kong Appears In Edo 1938. May throw in discussion on the Mystery of the Loch 1934 as well, deciding.
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Mar 19, 2017 00:23
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You're not watching A.P.E. fix that
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Mar 19, 2017 16:42
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I've heard of Son of Kong but I've never seen it, I think I have to get in on this.
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Mar 19, 2017 17:27
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Unlike SO many other movies this early on, it's trivial to find. I'm having issues finding Mystery of the Loch by comparison even though it's from the same time period- though I'm still going to talk some about it due to it being pretty important in one respect. Sort of. If you get around to Son, let me know what you think of it as well. I love hearing other people's opinions BENGHAZI 2 posted:You're not watching A.P.E. fix that Don't worry Literally, I will be. Remember, I'm going in chronological order here for when the movie was released/made. No one is going to miss the A*P*E train my friend. That's just a long ways off.
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Mar 19, 2017 17:38
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Burkion posted:I'm having issues finding Mystery of the Loch by comparison even though it's from the same time period I literally cannot find anything about this movie. My google-fu must be weak. edit: no nevermind it turns out the problem was that the movie is called Secret of the Loch.
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Mar 19, 2017 17:42
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https://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Monsters-11-Movie-Pack/dp/B000H5U6F2
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Mar 19, 2017 17:56
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I meant to watch Kong after I watched the new Kong and realized I had never seen the original. Jesus it lives up to its reputation.
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Apr 9, 2017 06:04
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The original King Kong is as good as anything ever made. It's a stunning labor of love.
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Apr 9, 2017 07:29
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Burkion posted:Awesome OP Let's check this stuff out ! Ok, that sure is a frost giant. I'd forgotten how weird the early attempts to act to the camera instead of an audience looked. On to "The Ghost of Slumber Mountain" ! "I tried to persuade Joe to remove his clothes and pose as a faun." "Skeeters too thick," says Joe. "In the heart of the mountains lies the stone-covered grave and haunted cabin of a hermit known as 'Mad Dick." Ok. Mad Dick had himself a two-story cabin out in the woods. With a nice porch. Then these jerks came along. "...queer looking instrument" "...I thought of 'Mad Dick'." "The spell of Slumber Mountain came over us." "...I seemed to be aroused by a voice calling me." <time passes> "far, far away, at the foot of a cliff , a Thunder Lizard -- which must have been at least one hundred feet long -- appeared out of the mists of forty million years." Now here's a real difference between silent film direction and modern. That dialogue card is on-screen for long seconds before we actually see the monster. It's an herbivore damnit. There's an overhead shot where they used a snake. They got good motion shots of the head looking up at something, and then completely wave their hands over not having the fat body at all. It's a low-budget film, we expect that sort of thing. The bird is a pretty damned good stop-motion monstrous bird. They get good credit for this effect. Then there's a very passable triceratops. Intercut with all of this is footage of the uncle grooming his niece and nephew. Another triceratops ! They fight ! A T-Rex challenges the winner. It's not pretty. There's our menacing carnivore ! It was horrifying ! But it was all a dream ! The kids aren't any happier about it than the audience was. Wow. That's old school all right. For twenty minutes of stop-motion monsters made in any era, with any budget, that's not a bad film. For only the second film to ever feature a giant monster, that's incredible. I'll give them a vast quantity of credit for putting a ghost, a brontosaurus, a pre-historic giant bird, two triceratops, an a t-rex fighting a triceratops in a film. That's a really good ratio of kaiju to run-time right there. The framing story is... well, it probably wasn't as homoerotic and also creepy as it odes a century later. "Let me tell you a story..." is a time-hallowed family moment. This just does look odd from a technical perspective a century on. Both of these films are worth watching, if only to see where the genre came from. And it's there, these films created a genre that is still being explored today by artists and technicians who have enevr heard of these two films. "Kong: Skull Island" for example. I just saw this today. Wow. It's a love letter to a lot of films. Fortunately, it rises above being just a sequence of references and establishes its own identity. You can see the two century-old films in this here and there. How it's directed, some of the cinematography, just follows naturally from the fact that you're intercutting between shooting people-scale and kaiju-scale. Skull Island wins of course, it has a century of film technique to draw from. It's just dripping with references to Apocalypse Now, Aliens, and other classic films. It manages to be more than just a greatest hits compilation. Skull Island is a really solid production; writing, effects, direction, and cinematography all came together to make a film with a lot of memorable moments. tl;dr We've had a century of awesome monster movies. See Skull Island if you haven't. The two old school films are worthwhile, find 'em and watch 'em.
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Apr 10, 2017 01:13
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 15:12 |
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Nothing will highlight that better than The Devil Monster/Sea Fiend 1936/1946 but we'll get to that next review. Unfortunately. Speaking of Kong, what good is a popular, genre defying epic of all time, without some cheap quick cash ins! And this time, we're not talking about Son of Kong because who the gently caress wants to talk about Son of Kong. At least I'd like to say that. Well I sort of can for one of them, I guess, but the first one is something special. It technically does not belong on this list what so ever, but well, I'm not sure when else you could talk about Japanese King Kong, 1933. So the most important thing here is that this movie no longer exists. Some still shots are around if you want to look, but they kind of betray the film. You look at the still shots and you go, wow, that looks awful and cheap! The thing of it is, it's supposed to. Japanese King Kong is not only a comedy, it's a kind of meta narrative comedy. Sort of. There are no giant monsters in Japanese King Kong, there are no MONSTERS, because this silent short is about some schlub who is too poor for his girlfriend, so he gets a job acting as King Kong on stage to promote the movie in theaters before highjinks ensue and he gets the girl. There's not a lot to say about it that you can't read on Wikipedia. The film is lost to time, but just, what a weird and kind of inventive idea for a comedy meant to promote the real movie. It is interesting that it's a silent film, but from my understanding Japan was lagging behind in film making for quite a while- though you could say the same about certain films we'll talk about soon. I wish I could say more but not being able to actually watch the film, all I can really do is bring it up so that it is not forgotten, which is not a fate this deserves. Maybe Son of Kong does though. King Kong Appears In Edo 1938 God I wish this film existed. This is some prime weird history of film right here. A movie that may or may not have a giant monster named King Kong. Now, an ape named King Kong is in the movie, portrayed more like a Yeti than an Ape, but what can you do. What the gently caress why can't this movie still be around. So the basic gist of this film is that it's a period piece drama, silent film, that is just kind of insane. Some kind of convoluted mess of a plot that I am not sure would be any better if we could actually watch it, but goddamn if I don't want to see it. This might be the worst Kong movie so far, but to be fair, from what it sounds like, it's not. This seems like a movie that was going to be made anyways, and then the 1938 Kong rerelease happened, so they named the pet ape in the film King Kong. It's unclear if King Kong in this movie was even giant sized or not. There are reports that indicate either way, and the plot of the film would lean towards him being human sized, but the guy who created the special effects and the suit says that he was giant. If I could have any lost film returned to us It wouldn't be this one, but it'd be on the list somewhere. But you know what's worse than silent films that doesn't exist anymore? Films made like silent films but aren't that do exist. Next time, we return to the land of films that are not lost with The Sea Fiend/Devil Monster 1936/1946
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Apr 10, 2017 01:49
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