Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
aka Gojira vs. Biorante
Article 5505 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-8-2017
Directed by Kazuki Ohmori
Featuring Kunihiko Mitamura, Yoshiko Tanaka, Masanobu Takashima
Country: Japan
What it is: Kaiju

When Godzilla reappears, the leaders of Japan must contend with finding a way to destroy it, but the situation is complicated by the appearance of a giant plant monster.

Whatever else you can say about this sequel to GODZILLA 1985, it does manage to accomplish three things. The movie has an adult air that sets it apart from the juvenile approach that generally took over the original series. It also comes up with an interesting and bizarre new monster in Biollante. It also works towards being a part of a whole series rather than just a stand-alone movie; it follows up plot developments from the earlier movie and sets up new ones for later movies to pursue. Godzilla himself also feels less mechanical this time out. On the down side, the story is cluttered with too many characters and subplots; at times, you’re not sure which characters are important and which story lines to follow, though you’ll probably be most successful if you concentrate on Dr. Shiragama and the development of Biollante. Certainly, I’d trade the three-way battle among various espionage agents for the Godzilla cells for some more development of the idea that we have a monster that is developed through a combination of plant, human and monster cells. The movie would also feature the first appearance of the Miki Saegusa character (a young woman with ESP) who would appear throughout this series. The movie certainly has a lot going on, but it’s one of those movies that, by the end of it, you’re not sure just how much of what has happened really matters. It’s an interesting and ambitious entry into the series, but it could have benefited from a little streamlining and trimming.

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Nebo zovyot (1959)

Nebo zovyot (1959)
Article 5504 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-4-2017
Directed by Mikhail Karzhukov and Aleksandr Kozyr
Featuring Ivan Pereverzev, Aleksandr Shvorin, Konstantin Bartashevich
Country: Soviet Union
What it is: Space drama

Two rockets are in a race to be the first to reach Mars. When one of them runs into problems, the other must change its course to rescue the astronauts.

I’ve already covered this movie in my review of the Americanized version known as BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN, and usually I won’t re-review a movie unless it has more than one listing on IMDB. However, my friend Andrew Kidd rightfully suggested that it would be worthwhile to give the original Russian print a look, as the American version changed the movie by grafting on some truly ridiculous monster footage (among other things). This type of modification changes the tone of the movie completely, and it really is unfair to judge the original film by that version.

This is not to say that the original version is a neglected classic; it really doesn’t have much of a story, and it’s stodgily directed. It is, however, sincere and modest, and sometimes it even manages to achieve a bit of lyricism. Somehow, this meshes well with the movie’s interest in exploring the issue of sensationalism; one of the rockets is making a big media splash, while the other is quietly trying to accomplish its mission before announcing itself. Given this is a Russian movie, it’s no surprise that it’s the American rocket that needs to be rescued, and that’s another aspect of the movie the American version downplayed. All in all, this movie is only so-so, but it does deserve to be judged on its own merits rather than those of the American version.

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The Somnambulists (2006)

The Somnambulists (2006)
Article 5503 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-27-2017
Directed by Kevin Lane
Featuring Tara Goudreau, Calvin Green, Jack Redmond
Country: USA
What it is: Horror short

A young woman who lives with her grandfather is tormented by strange dreams. Her grandfather has an idea of what is plaguing her… and the secret she is keeping hidden.

For the second time, a movie on the “Tomb of Terrors” movie set has caught my attention enough to inspire to me to give it a review, and for a good reason; I actually rather liked this one. Oh, it has its flaws; there are a few clumsy script problems, particularly in the way it handles some of its exposition. But it’s the closest of anything I’ve seen on this set to looking like it was professionally made, it’s only about 22 minutes long, and the concept behind it was novel enough to catch my attention. There’s also a few nods here and there to John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN that I liked. But, perhaps most significantly, this short was bereft of any of the annoyances that have plagued all the other movies on this set. There is no slathering of blood everywhere, no loud pulsating metal music with screeching vocals, no gratuitous sex, vomiting, violence or viscera. None of the characters are engaged in cussathons. And there isn’t a single scene of people running through an underground tunnel with lots of ductwork. In fact, I found myself wondering what it was doing on this set.

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The Mechanical Man (1921)

The Mechanical Man (1921)
aka L’uomo meccanio
Article 5502 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-27-2017
Directed by Andre Deed
Featuring Giulia Costa, Andre Deed, Valentina Frascaroli
Country: Italy
What it is: Comic thriller

An evil woman has stolen plans for a mechanical man, which she builds and uses for a wave of criminal activity. Can she be defeated?

Only about a third of this film is extant, and if it hadn’t been on my suggestion list, I might have chosen not to cover it. However, since it was on my suggestion list (and since the remaining footage does feature a wealth of mechanical man action), I did, and I’m glad I did. The opening of my print of the movie features a complete rundown of the plot, which helps in following the thing, since the remaining footage jumps right in the middle of the action. It doesn’t look like I really missed a lot; the first two-thirds of the movie seems to use the plans for a mechanical man as a Gizmo Maguffin for a story about criminals trying to get hold of the plans (albeit one with a comic sensibility), which would be the dull part of the movie. However, once the mechanical man is made, we have plenty of robot fun. Less fun is the comic relief character, who mostly seems to engage in unmemorable slapstick antics. However, the highlight of the movie is comic in nature; the mechanical man shows up at a party where it is mistaken for a man in costume. The actual battle between the two mechanical men is a bit disappointing, as they look more like the they’re dancing rather than fighting. Still, for a movie missing two-thirds of its footage, the extant material is entertaining enough to warrant a look.

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The Phantom Creeps (1949)

The Phantom Creeps (1949)
Article 5501 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-23-2017
Directed by Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind
Featuring Bela Lugosi, Robert Kent, Dorothy Arnold
Country: USA
What it is: Feature version of serial

The evil Dr. Zorka plans to take over the world with his giant robot, his invisibility belt, his meteorite with secret powers, and his crawling spiders that put people in suspended animation.

For some reason, I never got around to covering this feature version of the serial of the same name, but there’s a reason for that. Most feature versions of serials had different names from the serial themselves, so when you saw it listed, you could tell from the title alone whether it was the feature version or the serial. This one used the same title, and my sources rarely specified if it was the serial or the feature version, so I assumed the former.

Actually, as far as these things go, this is one of the better ones insofar as it feels more like a feature than a condensed serial, and there are reasons for that. For one, unlike the many Republic serial features of the mid-sixties, it wasn’t obsessed with capturing every single action sequence at the expense of the plot, so it doesn’t short-change the plot or inundate you with abrupt scene changes. However, this serial itself was much easier to adapt. All you had to do was concentrate on the plot development in the first two episodes and the climax from the last episode, and then have just enough of the middle episodes to capture the flavor of the three way struggle for the meteorite between the spies, the law and Zorka that makes up the rest of the serial. The ugly robot and Lugosi’s presence are the main attractions here. It’s no classic, but for what it is, it’s passable.

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Agon, the Atomic Dragon (1968)

Agon, the Atomic Dragon (1968)
Article 5500 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-19-2017
Directed by Noria Mine and Fuminori Ohashi
Featuring Shinji Hirota, Asao Matsumoto, Nobuhiko Shima
Country: Japan
What it is: Small screen kaiju

A dinosaur mutated by radiation emerges from the sea around Japan and terrorizes the country.

From what I gather, this was filmed in 1964, but finally popped up as a TV miniseries of four episodes in 1968, and was eventually edited into a movie during the 1990s; I have no exact year for the latter. Granted, the movie looks pretty much like they did little more than edit the episodes together and remove some credit sequences. As a TV series, it must have looked a bit like “Ultra Q” with the same monster every time. The monster resembled Godzilla just enough that Japan Radio Pictures was almost sued by Toho until it came to light that the designer of the Agon suit was one of the designers of the original Godzilla suit, so they let it go. There’s very little in the first half of the movie (or the first two episodes, if you parse it that way) to set it apart from your average kaiju, but the last half (or two episodes) weave it into a subplot about two criminals holding a boy hostage to make a diver retrieve for them a suitcase that has fallen to the bottom of the sea. This complication leads to some of the sillier moments here, such as having the monster walk around for about thirty minutes with a boat in his mouth as well as a truly bizarre plan to kill the monster. It’s enjoyable enough for kaiju fans, but it’s hardly one of the better ones out there.

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Gojira (1984)

Gojira (1984)
aka The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla 1985
Article 5499 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-14-2017
Directed by Koji Hashimoto
Featuring Ken Tanaka, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Yasuko Natsuke
Country: Japan
What it is: Godzilla movie

Godzilla reappears and begins terrorizing Japan.

This was Toho’s resurrection of the Godzilla franchise after letting it founder in the late seventies. It was an attempt to return to the scarier, nastier non-heroic version of the monster. When it was released in America, the powers that be decided to emulate what had been done for GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS in the fifties by bringing back Raymond Burr as reporter Steve Martin and editing him into the movie along with a few other American actors. Unlike the earlier adaptation, though, this one seemed to be playing for camp and featured heavy product placement for Dr. Pepper, touches I found so annoying that I decided to wait until I could see the original Japanese cut instead of that one.

Sadly, the Japanese version isn’t really the vast improvement I was hoping it would be. It’s certainly less campy and more serious, but it also has some major problems. There’s a couple of scenes that are strong; the opening ten minutes are effective, and Godzilla’s first appearance is memorable. However, the movie gets muddled in a variety of uninteresting subplots, and it’s all too self-conscious about its Godzilla/Nuclear Warfare theme; the scene where both the Americans and Russians wish to use nuclear weapons on Godzilla when it comes ashore in Japan is drawn out way too long. But the biggest problem to me is Godzilla himself; though they no doubt improved the special effects of his presentation, he’s never felt more mechanical and characterless than he does here. Despite the fact that the movie is trying to recapture the magic of the 1954 original, it fails to do so. However, it would yield a few sequels, and some of those are improvements over this one.

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Sport Chumpions (1941)

Sport Chumpions (1941)
Article 5498 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-12-2017
Directed by Friz Freleng
Featuring the voices of Jim Bannon, Mel Blanc, Robert C. Bruce
Country: USA
What it is: Warner Brothers cartoon

A series of blackout gags are made about sports.

This is pretty much the same thing as the previously reviewed FONEY FABLES except that sports is the theme rather than fairy tales, and though that doesn’t lend itself to fantastic content as well as the earlier one did, it gets by because one of the gags involves a mermaid. It’s also even less involving than FONEY FABLES; the only gag that worked for me involved the types of popular dives used in swimming. There isn’t even a running gag to add to the fun. Granted, I’m not a sports fan, and it might be funnier to someone who was, but I found this one dull. However, there is one point of interest; some of the animation is particularly convincing, especially during the swimming events. This does leave me wondering if a certain amount of rotoscoping was used to make this one.

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Foney Fables (1942)

Foney Fables (1942)
Article 5497 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-11-2017
Directed by Friz Freleng
Featuring the voices of Sara Berner, Mel Blanc, Frank Graham
What it is: Warner Brothers cartoon

A series of gags are made about fairy tales.

One common type of cartoon Warner Brothers churned out was the “blackout gag” cartoon. These consisted of a set of blackout gags on a specific subject, and usually featured one running gag in the mix. In this case, the theme was fairy tales, so it offers at least some fantastic content in the form of a genie and a two-headed giant. However, the gags aren’t particularly memorable, and many of them haven’t aged well because of the topicality of the many WWII gags would need explanation. I remember seeing this one as a kid, but the only thing I remembered about it was the running gag, which had to do with the Boy who Cried Wolf, and I’m guessing if you saw it as a kid, you might remember it as well. This is not Warner’s at its best.

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Porky’s Garden (1937)

Porky’s Garden (1937)
Article 5496 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-9-2017
Directed by Tex Avery
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc, Earl Hodgins, Charles Judels
Country: USA
What it is: Porky Pig cartoon

Porky gets into a competition with his Italian neighbor as to who is going to win first prize at the county fair for the largest product.

This one is pretty marginal when it comes to the fantastic content, but when the cartoon came up with three moments that pushed the envelope a bit, I went ahead and decided to review it. The first moment has Porky using hair tonic to make his garden grow huge vegetables. The second moment has a baby chick eating spinach and getting super-strength; yes, I know that I rejected that in the Popeye cartoons themselves, but I was amused enough by the fact that the chick turns into a miniature version of Popeye (thereby having the cartoon parody a character from another studio) to let it pass in this case. The third item is when a huckster hawks weight loss pills that are powerful enough to turn an elephant into a mouse. On a side note, I can’t help but notice how the neighbor looks like a big version of Mario. It’s nice to see one of Tex Avery’s earlier works here, but he didn’t really hit his stride until he moved to MGM. All in all, this is an okay Porky Pig cartoon.

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