Ahh! It's Ishiro Honda!

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the death of director Ishiro Honda.  It's a sobering thought if you sit back and think about it – twenty years without the father of the Japanese Giant Monster Movie.  Objectively I can say (like most people) that Akira Kurosawa was the greatest Japanese film director of all time (in fact, he was probably the best director ever, period) but if I had to be completely honest with myself I would have to say that after quite a bit of reflection that Honda is my favorite Japanese film director of all time... his movies have resonated with me ever since I was a kid and have been responsible for more joy in my life than any of his countrymen, talented as they are.  Today I thought I would just share why I like Honda's movies so much and why you should check them out too.

Of course Ishiro Honda will always be remembered primarily for unleashing on the world that atomic behemoth, the radioactive flame-shooting grey dinosaur Godzilla.  For this alone he deserves to remembered more than he is... especially since the first Godzilla film – which was released in 1954, not even a decade after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – is such a serious movie.  There is nothing conditional as to why this should be included in "All-Time-Greatest" lists ("Well, you know, it's cheesy but it's *fun*, man" or "Yeah, the story is crap but the special effects are revolutionary!").  This is just a great film, period, and the reason that it is so great is because the story really isn't about Godzilla per se but about the effect that he has on society and everyday people, and the ramifications of trying to destroy such a threat to society and what methods are acceptable in doing so.  The movie does it with great atmosphere, too.  Everything feels so deadly and somber... there is none of the lightheartedness that permeates the later Godzilla movies (and indeed later kaiju films in general) – here Godzilla is a terrifying, primordial force of destruction and anguish.   Is it perfect?  No, of course not.  Some of the acting later on in the film can be a little overwrought and some of the film comes off as a little crude (it's a Japanese film made in the early fifties).  But by the end of the whole thing you will feel like you have seen something special.

It's a testament to Honda's film craft that he could go from this somber type of film to more light fare, especially in the same film series.  While the first Godzilla movie is deadly serious the ones that followed ended up becoming more geared towards children, but that didn't mean that the quality necessarily went down (at least until the seventies under different directors).  Honda managed to keep things entertaining and well-made for the next decade is a testament to his talent (okay, King Kong vs Godzilla wasn't that great but that's mainly because he let things get a little too silly with that shoddy gorilla suit... ugh).  Mothra vs Godzilla is the highlight of the Sixties Godzilla movies, with the big G still being the bad guy and the story going into fantasy territory with the giant lepidopteran and her twin singing fairies (introduced previously in their own movie, directed by... you guessed it) taking up a good chunk of the run-time.  The best Godzilla film of the Seventies, Terror of Mechagodzilla, was also directed by Honda, and while featuring the star mutant lizard as the hero brought back some of the seriousness of the early days while still being a fun movie.  I recommend both movies in addition to the first highly.

But really I can recommend any Ishiro Honda movie, especially if you have children or just want to relive a little part of your childhood yourself.  In addition to his monster movies (he also gave us Rodan) Honda also made general fantasy and adventure films, like Atragon which is about a flying sub that battles the ancient undersea kingdom of Mu.  That's the kind of movie they need more of these days, especially movies aimed at kids - less product placement and overloading of the senses, and more good, old fashioned adventure.

But the final praise that I think I can give the main is that he was capable of more than just harmless fun – he knew how to put real drama on the screen, and he didn't always need a giant black & white reptile to do it.  I mentioned the horror movie Matango in my first Halloween post a while back, and it is still one of the masterpieces of the genre... not because of the titular mushroom monstrosities but because of the effect that the mushroom monstrosities have on the people in the story... and more importantly the effect that those people have on themselves.  Matango is Honda's most adult film – there are undercurrents of power, hate, lust and primal savagery right beneath the exteriors of all of these island castaways... if the fungal menace didn't start getting them they would kill each other.  It really is Gilligan's Island in Hell... or to say Gilligan's Island in Real Life (Hell, Matango came first... Toho could've sued).

The point is that Ishiro Honda was perhaps the most versatile Japanese director of all... he could do just about anything, from serious drama (his first movies before he did Gojira were simple dramas) to action to horror to science fiction to pure fantasy.  It's no wonder Kurosawa had him as his assistant on Kagemusha and Ran.

So here's to you, Mr. Honda.  Hopefully there are still a lot of people who remember you and cherish your contribution to the moving picture, from children who delight in your fantasies to adults who value your dark drama to the children in all adults who just enjoy a good movie and a little fun.

Roses Are Red, Spacemen Are Blue

You know, I have done holiday posts for this blog, but I’ve never done a Valentine’s Day post. Maybe it’s because I think of Valentine’s Day as a crass commercial holiday, pushing an artificial and hamfisted idea of Romantic Love on the populous so that they can consume all of their sugar-coated crap. Or maybe it’s because I would have to review a romantic comedy, a genre I generally hate outside of a few movies like The Princess Bride.  Or maybe it's just because I have no love life and and I project that through refusing to honor a holiday that reminds me of my constant failure.  Well, in my continuing quest to do away with the negativity in my life I’m going to actually do a Valentine’s Day Review this year and talk about a romantic, heartwarming film from one of America’s most underrated directors. Prepare to feel the love as I review

Film, 1984 

Director: John Carpenter 

Story 

After a Voyager space probe is intercepted by aliens they send one of their own to planet Earth to check us out. Things don’t go so well though as its spacecraft is immediately shot down over North America (where else?). This alien then clones a body from the DNA of a dead man and enlists his widow’s aid in getting to Arizona where it can make a rendezvous with its comrades and go back home. Along the way the Starman will learn about the gamut of human emotions, from fear and hate to joy and… love. 

Review 

Sometimes you come across a movie that’s not good, but not bad either. It’s… okay. Starman is one of those movies. I was mildly entertained for two hours but at the end of the day couldn’t claim that I had just seen something special. On the plus side this film has some great acting, especially from Jeff Bridges as the titular alien. Watching this guy you really will believe that he’s from another planet. Everything, from his curiosity and attitudes to his gradual grasp of English will seem completely realistic and exactly like what would happen if an extraterrestrial were to visit our planet.

In addition, there are quite a few laughs to be had at Starman’s misunderstanding of Earth customs, which means that this film never gets *too* somber. Karen Allen does a good job too, ably portraying a woman who sees an alien morph into her dead husband right before her eyes, freaking the fuck out and then gradually learning to accept and even love the strange being that is dragging her halfway across the country on a road trip that is as far from normal as you can get outside of a Hunter S. Thompson novel. Special effects are generally very good (including the aforementioned morphing scene) and don’t overpower the story, as some 80s sci-fi flicks are wont to do.

Unfortunately, this movie completely lacks subtlety… everything is in-your-face and obvious – as is the norm for most Eighties movies. The US Government is EVIL as they attempt to track down Starman and capture him for medical experimentation or worse. I hate it when movies do this. If we did encounter a being from a civilization more advanced than our own, wouldn’t we want to be more diplomatic in case they would take violent offense to our actions? Watching this you clearly know who the good guys and bad guys are. Everything else is obvious too. You can definitely tell when you’re supposed to cry or laugh or go “aww.” The religious symbolism is hamfisted as well. Okay, I get it, Starman is Jesus – could we move on please?  The romance is pretty sappy and obvious too, but most movie love stories are.

I guess my biggest beef with Starman is that it doesn’t feel like a John Carpenter film. Most of his movies you can watch and tell who the director is (and not just because he puts his name before the freaking title for every one)… he’s a very individualistic director who usually makes (or made, I haven’t seen any of his latter-day movies which aren’t supposed to be that good) unique and entertaining celluloid gems. But Starman just seems like your average 80s Hollywood movie. Carpenter has said that he made this film so that he could continue to work in Hollywood, but couldn’t he have put a little more effort into it? Come on, man, you made Escape From New York! Oh, and the music score is bland and forgettable – and in a movie called Starman they didn’t even include the David Bowie song anywhere in the movie. What’s the problem guys, too obvious for you?

In the end I can only recommend Starman for someone who is a John Carpenter completest or someone who wants to watch one of the best acting jobs of Jeff Bridges’ career (just behind, you know, his Academy Award winning performance in Tron). Oh, or anyone who want to see either Karen Allen in her panties or Jeff Bridges in the buff.


Well, that's my Valentine's Day post.  Don't expect another romance movie post for a long time, because I can only take so much Hollywood lovey-dovey sugar in one year.

We Just Cannot Live In That Negative Way

I'm gonna try not to be too wordy with this post.  I was originally going to a huge, verbose and angry rant on a movie I had recently seen and wanted to vent about, but then I decided against it.  I'm trying to get rid of a lot of negativity in my life, and while negative movie reviews can be great if they're funny this one wasn't - it was just a hateful, toxic rant about how offended I was by the movie and it's topic.  My complaints were legitimate in addition to being vitriolic, but I want to be more constructive with my life.  Especially seeing as how this is the first post of the year.

So today I thought I'd share a movie I really love.  I mentioned it in my post about adult (no, not that kind) anime a while back but didn't go into detail about it because it isn't available commercially in the US and therefore cannot be easily obtained.  Well, you can get it out on the 'net if you look hard enough, and I suggest you do because Angel's Egg is a supremely awesome film, one of the greatest animated movies ever made.  It reminds me of why Mamoru Oshii is my favorite anime director - it is well animated, insanely gorgeous and makes you think.  I'm not going to attempt to analyze the movie (because that would take weeks).  I'm not even going to attempt to explain the plot (which would be like trying to explain the plot of a painting).  I'm just going to let the pics from the movie below speak for themselves and let them entice you into seeking it out.

And if you are American like I am you can email Criterion after you are done watching it and ask them to get the rights to it and release it on video over here, like I did after I first saw it.

Goin' Over The Cliff

Well, as I sit here, waiting to go over the fiscal cliff with the rest of my country I look back on the last year and just think about my lack of activity on my movie blog (you thought I would be worrying about more money being taken out of my paycheck?  I'm unemployed again so I don't HAVE a paycheck, suckers!  Ha!  Showed you-wait a minute....) and how much it saddens me.  Well, next year I resolve to do at least one post a month if not more, and I'll do it to movies I already own, because I have also taken a vow not to buy any movies (or any other entertainment or non-essentials) in an attempt to finally get my life on track.  Can't get out of my parents basement if I'm constantly worried about acquiring things.  Well, that's it, a happy new year to all three of my imaginary readers and keep on not reading the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre!

Merry Straussmas!

Everyone has a Christmas tradition. Even Jews and Atheists – I smell cheap Chinese food and a bad holiday horror movie! If you’re me you sit on the couch and watch Richard Strauss operas all day. This is a personal holiday tradition that goes back a long way, all the way to today, because that’s when I made it up. Anyways, to compensate for a total lack of posts in November (still recovering from the election, actually) let’s get a double dose of great music and warm and fuzzy feelings from the composer of Also Sprach Zarathustra. So sit back, get yourself a nice mug of hot chocolate and cookies and enjoy this Super Review of

-and-

Films, 1974 & 1981

Director: Götz Freidrich

You know, it’s too bad that more operas aren’t made into movies. Sure, there are plenty of tapings of live performances (and some damn good ones, I might add) but for me complete immersion in the drama only comes when I can’t see any curtains or orchestra or hear the really annoying COUGHING in the audience. These two films, both from German director Götz Freidrich are a revelation: both visually and dramatically engaging. The direction by Freidrich is very good – you feel like you are watching a film instead of just a performance. Sure, sometimes the dude rips from Sergio Leone and gives us some unnecessary extreme close-ups

Cue Ennio Morricone.

but most of the time it works and really sucks the audience into the drama, which is the whole point.

All of the parts in these two movies are acted by the people singing them (which is not always done with movies like these), and they do a really good job at both.  I especially want to give props to Leonie Rysanek in Elektra, who nails the title character and gives the most intense operatic performance that I have ever seen.

With special mention to Catarina Ligendza as Elektra's sister,
who really sells us on her gas pain.

And there are even good musical performances to boot! There is always a danger in any musical film that the director will be so caught up in how it looks that the music (you, know the important part) will suffer. Well, the music in these movies is superb which is a given considering that a) the orchestra for both is the Vienna Philharmonic and b) the conductor leading them in both is Karl Böhm, who was the student of the composer himself. All of the singers are first rate with not one dud in the casts.

Coming to CBS this fall: Hans Beirer and Astrid Varnay in
everyone's favorite new sitcom, Everybody Hates Herod!

I’m not going to go into the stories of these too much since they have been around for quite a long time (before being made into operas the stories of Salome and Elektra came from the Christian and Ancient Greek mythologies, respectively). Needless to say that if you want a story about a cute but disturbing spoiled teenage girl who decides that she’s not going to let anything get in her way of, like, totally making out with that *hot* wild religious guy and gets her way with bloody but like-the-dude-totally-had-it-coming-to-him results than Salome is the opera for you.

"*yawn* Being slutty and evil is such hard work."

But if you thought Salome was cute, wait ‘til you check out this little hottie

and her equally hot MILF of a mom

Who looks like something right out of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

who have a minor tiff because, well, Mom sort of murdered Dad a while ago and took a new lover to rule the kingdom and that makes her daughter *sad* and now she sort wants to, well you know, use her little brother to murder their mom in a plot that would make Freud deplete a box of Kleenex more rapidly than a kindergarten class in the middle of cold season. Did I mention that Elektra is a warm and fuzzy story? 

Whoa, whoa!  There was enough of that in the last opera, babe!

Watching these both back to back I have to say that Elektra is the better of the two, both musically and as a film – Salome actually almost seems like a warm-up. Everything in Elektra is expressionistic and done bigger and better. It has larger sets (it seems more spacious and real) that expand the drama, being less "stagy" than its predecessor.

Compare: above, Salome.  Below, Elektra.

It has better camera work and better dramatic unity.  That’s not to knock Salome; it is still one of the better opera films out there, it’s just it is merely very good whereas Elektra manages to impress me to the level where it has become for me not only a great opera film but a great film, period. Even if you don’t like opera (and why not? What’s wrong with hearing people sing their lines rather than speak them?) you should still see Elektra. Don’t be put off by people telling you that it’s some weird, dissonant opera. Yes, the music is revolutionary and does not really follow traditional operatic tonalities that much – this ain’t no Marriage of Figaro – but it is supremely dramatic and in some spots even beautiful.

Kinda like this blood orgy.

So take some time off this holiday season and do what I do to celebrate this joyous season: watch a demented princess strip for her perverted step-dad before making out with a severed head then watch a demented, vengeance driven princess obsess a little unhealthily about her dad for an hour or two. Come to think of it, both of these main characters are princesses… hey, why doesn’t Disney make some movies out of these two than add them to their Princess line of merchandise? Little girls would *so* love to have an Elektra doll, am I right?

Anyways, I leave you with the most Christmassy picture of all, and to all a good night.

Merry X-Mas!

Happy Horror Movie Day

Time for Halloween again! Here are three more movies that you won’t see on television – well two, one of them shows up from time to time.

Jigoku (1960) – A college student is racked with guilt after he witnesses his friend commit a hit-and-run. While waffling over whether to go to the police everything goes hideously wrong: his fiancée is killed in a car wreck, his sick mother gets worse in a poorly run nursing home and his new girlfriend and her mother start plotting to kill him – turns out that they are the relatives of the hit-and-run victim, who also happened to be a yakuza. In the end everyone dies and goes to Hell.  Yup.

This is another weird Japanese horror movie. I’m not spoiling the ending for anyone: everyone coming into this movie knows what happens at the end, mainly because of the title of the film itself. Jigoku is the Japanese word for Hell, and boy is this Hell a doozy: filled with all sorts of surreal imagery and gory, hideous tortures. It’s interesting that all of the films characters end up there: perhaps director Nobuo Nakagawa is commenting on how everyone in life has baggage and we all end up in our own private Hell – no one is perfect, and in a moral universe everyone is guilty of something and therefore everyone who ever was and is and shall be will suffer for eternity in a universe of pain and agony. Heartwarming.

Young Frankenstein (1974) – Frederick Frankenstein (that’s Frahnk-en-steen) is an American surgeon who inherits his infamous grandfather’s Transylvanian castle and laboratory. After showing initial reluctance to follow in his ancestor’s footsteps he decides to make his own Creature, unfortunately his none-too-bright assistant Igor (that’s Eye-gore) supplies him with a bad brain (“Abby Normal”) and the resulting monster goes on a rampage with results both pathetic and hilarious.

This one is actually popular (it comes on the TV every so often) and is technically a comedy making fun of horror, but I’ll let it in here just because it’s so damn fun – plus it nails all of the Frankenstein tropes brilliantly so I had to include it. What makes this film work is that it’s not just another mindless parody – Mel Brooks obviously loves the old Frankenstein movies and it shows. The lab equipment is right out of the 1931 Boris Karloff movie and the whole thing is filmed in black-and-white. Everyone nails their roles, and makes the characters more than just comedic caricatures. The humor in this film is more subtle than normal for Brooks (it’s not as obvious as Blazing Saddles, for example) but that works to this film’s advantage, not its detriment.

Vampire Hunter D (1985) – In the FUTURE vampires have entrenched themselves as Nobles, preying on human society with only the elite Vampire Hunters keeping them in check. One of these Hunters, a mysterious dhampir (half human/half vampire) known only as “D” encounters a young woman in a remote village by the name of Doris who has been assaulted by an ancient vampire lord. Together they fight the evil count and his minions in order to prevent Doris from being taken as an unholy bride in a wedding from Hell.



This is a dumb but fun eighties anime flick. It’s by the same director who brought you Fist of the North Star, so you know that it’s going to involve buckets and buckets of blood. And it does. There is also gratuitous nudity, freaky villains, and just weird shit in general so, you know, your average anime horror fare. This is based on a series of Japanese young adult novels, but you don’t need to seek them out as they’re not that well written. You might want to seek out the illustrations though, seeing as the artist for those books (and the character designer for this movie) is Yoshitaka Amano, who has an interesting art style (he also did the character design for the first six Final Fantasy games).


Well, there you go. One American horror spoof and a double-dose of weird Japaneseness.  I worry sometimes about the Japanese, but then I remember that I am American and that my country is the strangest in the world – and to many, the scariest.


Happy Halloween.



Next Month:  There will be no next month.  The Pharonic Fantasy Theatre will take a break for November while I cower in fear under the sheets and wait for the election to be over.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Well, here we are, at the end of September, and thus at the end of Shakespearetember.  This project hasn't exactly gone as planned, what with getting the hang of my new 8-5 job and budgeting my time and everything. Hopefully in the future I can take some more time during the week to write out more comprehensive reviews rather than trying to bash out reviews over the weekend when I have fifty other things to get done at home now that I can no longer do them during the week.  What pains me is that I haven't been able to write more in this of all months, since I have been doing Shakespeare movies... and of all of the subjects that I have written about on this site the Bard deserves more than what I have been giving him.  Well, if I do another Shakespeare month next year I will definitely try to do him more justice.  Anywho, let's get to our last Shakespeare review for the month (and, alack, it will be another short one for the aforementioned reasons) and partake in

Film, 1935

Directors:  Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle

Story

Theseus, the Duke of Athens is marrying Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons (which sounds like a bitchin' name for a rock band, by the way) amidst much Athenian joy and revelry (and presumably much throwing up).  But what's important is that a couple of young lovers, a couple of young not-quite-lovers and a troupe of amateur actors have gone into the woods about a mile outside of town.  This is important because while there they will be mixed up in a marital war between Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of the Fairies. Also, they will be massively fucked with by the most annoying fairy of them all, Prick–er, I mean Puck.

Review

As I have said, this will be short.  I loved this movie.  The acting was good; all of the principle roles are done well and conveyed the humor in Shakespeare's play.  James Cagney in particular stands out as Bottom, both before and after assification.  Yes, Mickey Rooney is annoying as shit, but you know what, he is supposed to be.  It's Puck.  The little bastard pranks other people for his own amusement.  If they made this movie today they would probably get some irritating modern celebrity douchebag to play the part.  One can also see why the nineteen year-old Olivia de Havilland went on to fame and fortune later on (this was her first movie).

What I like the most about A Midsummer Night's Dream though is the production.  First, they use the incidental music composed by Mendelssohn, which is awesome – I can't imagine any Hollywood production doing this nowadays.  Second, the sets and imagery are fantastic, and I mean that in both the colloquial and the original sense of the word.  The screenshots I provide in this review do not do this film justice.  You have to see this film to truly behold its dreamlike wonder.  The black-and-white only adds to the charm.

To sum up, see this.  It's fun, it's funny, it's easy to comprehend (something not all Shakespeare movies can do) and it is truly wondrous.

Screenshots

All I have to say about that getup is... wow.

Are we sure this isn't one of Cagney's gangster movies?

I don't know, looks like a perfectly normal forest to me....

Oh. 

Oberon, the King of Bling.

"Screw you guys, I'm goin' home."

"...and that's why the Chicago Cubs will never win
another World Series.  What?  Was that statement
too shocking for you?"

Titania wakes up next to an ass.  I bet most of you ladies
can relate, am I right? 

I leave you with the most disturbing screenshot of all.