Gandy’s Dream Girl (1944)
Article 5838 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-29-2020
Directed by Mannie Davis
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Terrytoons Gandy Goose cartoon

Sourpuss sees a photograph of Gandy’s dream girl, and wants the goose to introduce him to her, but Gandy only encounters the girl in his dreams. So Sourpuss enters Gandy’s dream in a bid to meet the girl.

It seems like quite a few of these Gandy Goose cartoons slop over into fantastic content above and beyond the anthropomorphic animal thing; since this one involves characters entering other people’s dreams, it qualifies. I have to give Terrytoons credit here; that’s a fairly novel concept for a cartoon, and they beat Warner Brothers to the same idea by two years (THE BIG SNOOZE was from 1946). The novelty of the concept as well as a few creative decisions in how Gandy’s dream world manifests itself make this easily the best of the Gandy Goose cartoons I’ve seen so far. Gandy himself is a bit dull, but his cohort Sourpuss (who is really the main character here) is much more useful from a story perspective. This is definitely one of the better Terrytoons cartoons, but I do have trouble figuring out how Gandy managed to get a photograph of a girl he only meets in his dreams.

The Galaxy Invader (1985)
Article 5837 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-27-2020
Directed by Don Dohler
Featuring Richard Ruxton, Faye Tilles, George Stover
Country: USA
What it is: Made on a budget

The landing of a UFO in the woods attracts the attention of a boy who calls in a scientist friend to investigate. It also catches the attention of a pair of rednecks who plan to become rich by capturing the alien.

There are some movies where you can point to the exact moment when you knew just what the whole movie was going to be like. This is one of them, and that moment occurred very early on when I saw the name of “Dan Dohler” in the credits. Having seen this man’s THE ALIEN FACTOR and FIEND, I was all prepared for a foray into extreme low budget cinema, sincere but dodgy acting, and since most of the plot descriptions prominently feature the word “redneck”, I figured this would have an extra layer of dumb added to the proceedings. And that’s pretty much what I got here; if anything, it looks even chintzier than THE ALIEN FACTOR, and since the main character is an unpleasant violent drunk who loves shooting guns, it’s really not that much fun. Still, I do find Dohler’s movies easier to bear than, say, Bill Rebane’s; they’re nowhere near as depressing. Still, I have to say that this is the weakest of Dohler’s films I’ve seen to date.

Georges Melies: Cinema Magician (1978)
Article 5714 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-15-2020
Directed by Luciano Martinengo and Patrick Montgomery
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: USA
What it is: Biography

Georges Melies tells the story of his own life in cinema.

This short biopic on the life of Georges Melies is presented as Melies telling us his own life story; I’m assuming an actor supplied the voice, but I saw no credit for one. It is an entertaining way to tell the story, but, at only 21 minutes it can only tell so much, and even then, the lion’s share of the short consists of clips of his films, often running without commentary. Nevertheless, the clips chosen are fun, and at least the movie doesn’t spend its whole length lingering on A TRIP TO THE MOON, so it finds plenty of room to explore Melies’s other movies. Those looking for a more in-depth story of the man will be disappointed, but as an entertaining overview, it has its uses.

Gumnaam (1965)
Article 5695 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-7-2019
Directed by Raja Nawathe
Featuring Nanda, Manoj Kumar, Pran
Country: India
What it is: Musical mystery

A group of people find themselves stranded in an isolated mansion. They are stalked by a killer who wishes to punish them for the roles they played in a murder conspiracy.

This one is rather marginal in terms of fantastic content, but it’s been awhile since I did a new review and I’ve covered other variations of “Ten Little Indians”, so I’ll cover it. And it does have a couple of scenes that have fantastic overtones; one in which a character sees phantoms of the dead, and another where a dead body seems to come to life. This one also has a nice sinister atmosphere – at least, when it’s not engaged in the usual Bollywood song and dance escapades. It has a twist or two that differentiates it from its source story, and it builds up to a decent enough ending. And, at two and a half hours, it may actually be a bit short for a Bollywood movie. Still, I can’t help but notice that if you cut out all the song and dance numbers, it would run probably a little more than an hour and a half, the accustomed length for non-Bollywood movies.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)
aka Gojira vs. Desutoroia
Article 5693 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-7-2019
Directed by Takao Okawara
Featuring Takuro Tatsumi, Yoko Ishino, Yasufumi Hayashi
Country: Japan
What it is: End of the Heisei series

When Godzilla becomes physically unstable, it becomes apparent that he is going to suffer a meltdown. He must do battle with a monster created by the oxygen destroyer, a mutating beast called Destoroyah.

It’s no surprise that this one is a vast improvement over the previous entry in the series (GODZILLA VS. SPACEGODZILLA); once the decision was made to climax this one with Godzilla’s demise, everyone probably knew they had to put their best feet forward. Still, I like the first half of this one better than the second half; the early appearances of Godzilla starting to undergo his meltdown are a bit harrowing, and I think Destoroyah is scarier when he’s a group of human-sized insects terrorizing human characters. The second half starts getting a bit repetitive with new mutations of Destoroyah popping up every fifteen minutes or so to do battle with Godzilla (or his son), and many of the scenes with the human characters are dull. Still, the actual meltdown is worth the wait and is the most memorable scene here. Much of the Heisei series was on the weak side, but it’s nice to know that it ended on one of the best movies for the series.

Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)
aka Gojira vs. Supesugojira
Article 5692 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-3-2019
Directed by Kensho Yamashita
Featuring Megumi Odaka, Jun Hashizumi, Zenkichi Yoneyama
Country: Japan
What it is: Kaiju

A space monster mutated from Godzilla cells arrives on earth and begins wreaking havoc. Can Godzilla and Moguera defeat him?

I try to be forgiving to these movies when the special effects aren’t quite up to scratch; after all, Toho didn’t have the equivalent budgets of many American movies. However, the scene that remains embedded in my memory for this one is the shot of SpaceGodzilla flying through an asteroid field that obviously consists of a bunch of rocks hanging from strings; it’s so unconvincing that it makes the whole movie look particularly chintzy. A meandering story line certainly doesn’t help (a scene involving the Japanese Mafia has very little to do with anything else in the movie), and the final battle is so protracted that it starts to get quite dull. On top of the creatures mentioned above, we get a fairy version of Mothra making what amounts to a cameo appearance, and a few scenes with toddler Godzilla. All in all, I think this is the weakest entry of the Heisei series.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Article 5681 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-2-2019
Directed by Michael Dougherty
Featuring Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown
Country: USA / Japan
What it is: American kaiju

A group known as Monarch is tracking the locations of an assortment of giant monsters known as Titans, but the military wants to know the locations so they can destroy them as threats to humanity. But some of the Titans are being revived…

Given what I’ve been reviewing lately, it’s probably no surprise that I’d make a rare foray to a movie theater to catch this one. Or course, there are a few things I don’t like; the hyped-up action-scene-every-thirty-seconds style of the modern American summer popcorn movie tends to exhaust rather than entertain me, and the giant monsters here pay a little too much attention to some of their human planet cohabitors; when they do that, it somewhat reduces them in my eyes. But I rather like the way the monsterverse here is set up, and I especially like the references to the earlier movies in the Godzilla canon and the use of Ikufube’s magnificent musical themes at key moments; I felt the movie sought to satisfy a long-time Godzilla fan like me. Yes, the ending of the movie proper may take its title a little too literally, but it made me smile and feel good, and I emerged from the movie quite satisfied. Nice to have these old friends back on the screen.

Godzilla vs Megaguirus (2000)
aka Gojira tai Megagirasu: Ji shometsu sakusen
Article 5680 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-30-2019
Directed by Maasaki Tezuka
Featuring Misato Tanaka, Shosuke Tanihara, Masato Ibu
Country: Japan
What it is: More monster antics

A new weapon designed to be used to battle Godzilla accidentally creates a hive of insect-like monsters. Who will prevail – the insects or Godzilla?

I rather like some of the touches in this movie from the Millennium series, such as the fake newsreel that fills in the history from the original 1954 movie to the events in this one. Its basic concept of a series of small monsters which eventually give way to a giant one is similar to the one used in GAMERA II: ADVENT OF LEGION, which is a somewhat better movie. There are some arty touches here that don’t quite work (such as the occasional use of a jagged slow-motion technique), and sometimes the special effects are very weak; there are moments where the strings controlling Megaguirus are painfully obvious. The final battle is a bit on the odd sign, and even seems to be playing for laughs on occasion. Though some people seem to hate this one (I saw one ranked list of Godzilla movies that places this one on the very bottom), but I find it interesting and a bit different, though not as good as the subsequent movie in the series.

Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992)
aka Gojira vs. Mosura
Article 5679 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2019
Directed by Takao Okawara
Featuring Tetsuyo Bessho, Satomi Kobayashi, Takehiro Murata
Country: Japan
What it is: Kaiju monster mash

Mothra does battle with his evil twin Battra, but what will happen when Godzilla shows up?

With this movie, I return to the Heisei Godzilla cycle, of which this is the fourth. I sense a real drop-off in quality here, at least with the English dub of this one. For one thing, it’s pretty heavy-handed with its message about taking care of the Earth. The plot also feels somewhat tossed together from various other movies; in particular, I’m a little tired of movies where the Cosmos twins are kidnapped by entrepreneurs hoping to use them to make money. The movie does introduce a new monster in the form of Battra, but this monster is little more than an evil version of Mothra. Fortunately, there’s plenty of monster action during the second half of the movie, so that helps balance things out a bit. However, from a story perspective, the series is getting very lazy here.

Godzilla 2000 (1999)
aka Gojira ni-sen mireniamu
Article 5678 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-22-2019
Directed by Takao Okawara
Featuring Takehiro Murata, Hiroshi Abe, Naomi Nishida
Country: Japan
What it is: Kaiju

An underwater meteorite begins to exhibit unusual properties. Does this have anything to do with the return of Godzilla to Japan?

This movie holds a special place in my heart as the first real Godzilla movie I ever saw on the big screen. I should point out that when I say that, I don’t consider the monster in the 1998 movie called GODZILLA (which I also saw on the big screen) the real deal, and though there may be a special place for that movie, it’s not in my heart. That being said, the other three movies I’ve seen from the Millennium series have all been above-average Godzilla movies; this one is fairly ordinary. In fact, the dubbed American version plays it mostly for comedy, which I consider an unfortunate choice. There’s a few nice touches here and there, but most of the movie is in very familiar territory, and the characters aren’t particularly engaging. So, despite the affection I have for this one, I do have to admit it’s a little disappointing.