Monster Movie of the Week: Gorgo (1961)

Like nothing you've ever seen before...unless you've seen Godzilla. Or King Kong. Or Mothra. Or Gamera.

Gorgo (1961)
Directed by Eugene Lourie
Genre: Anglo Kaiju

In the swinging '60's, every country had to have their own giant monster. Japan had Godzilla and co., Korea had Younggary, and America was frequently overrun by irradiated insects and spiders. Not to be outdone, En-guh-land came up with its own homegrown giant monster movie, Gorgo. Gorgo has all the elements of 1960's kaiju cinema: a giant monster, minature sets, landmarks destroyed, a kaiju single parent, military battles and even an annoying little kid.

Gorgo went on to start his own Skiffle band.

In Gorgo, an earthquake awakens a giant prehistoric reptile that has been slumbering off the Irish coast. When it comes ashore, it is subdued and transported to London to be shown off to the public by some people who have obviously never watched King Kong. They are also unaware of The Grendel Rule of British Monsters, which states that all British monsters have bigger more vicious mothers waiting in the wings. Kaiju-licious mama Gorgo comes to London in search of her son, and also enjoys some of the sites and attractions of the British capital. By "enjoy," I mean "goes all blitzkrieg on."

In Britain in the '60's, you could be a sex symbol and still have bad teeth. It didn't matter.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

Compared to the contemporary Japanese giant monster movies, the effects in Gorgo are pretty crude. This is particularly true of the minature work, which lacks the detail of the Japanese kaiju movies. It is interesting to note that Gorgo really features two scales: what we find out to be the infant Gorgo is about thirty feet tall and there are sets scaled to him and then there is the more traditionally gigantic scale for mama Gorgo.

The creature design is pretty unimaginative, Gorgo is typical of the upright vaguely saurian monsters we have seen a million times in giant monster cinema. Gorgo has some little finlike appendages on either side of her head that highlight her aquatic roots and give her a bit of a Nessy vibe. I'm surprised they didn't try to tie her more into the many legends of lake monsters that spring from Great Britain. She also has some big mitt-like hands, unlike the rather fine pianist fingers of Godzilla.

SEQUELS

None.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

This movie gets the Golden Meh Award.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

On DVD, and available on Netflix.

TRAILER

Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel

Monster Movie of the Week: The Fly (1958)

The Fly
Director: Kurt Neumann
Genre: Horror


THE MOVIE

Based on the short story of the same name, the original version of The Fly is a decidedly different experience than its more famous remake. The 1958 movie features classic horror icon Vincent Price, and the story unfolds as a murder mystery, instead of the body horror/love story of the 1986 David Cronenberg movie. The movie is set in Montreal, (making both this and the remake Canadian-set) and there is a lot of Quebecois flavor throughout, which is a little confusing at first.

When a local scientist is found brutally murdered in an industrial press, his wife becomes the sole suspect. She refuses to reveal what she knows, instead she is obsessed with locating a strange white-headed fly that has been seen around her home. Her brother-in-law and the local police investigator are tasked with finding out what happened, which is finally revealed in a lengthy flashback. The scientist had invented a teleportation device, which he decided to try on himself but when a common housefly flew into the chamber, he and the fly ended up swapping heads and arms. In order to reverse the condition, he must locate the aberrant fly and go through the teleporter one more time.

Framing the movie as a kind of detective story was a nice touch, which allows the audience to peel back the mystery of The Fly a little bit at a time, as opposed to the more direct approach taken by Cronenberg, which allowed us a more intimate look at the characters. I imagine for someone watching the movie, not knowing anything about the story, The Fly would be a wild, weird ride. Also, the presence of the smaller fly/hybrid is a horrific little subplot that is not found in the remake. One has to wonder, to what extent can the poor creature reason. We don't see it until the movie's most famous shot at the end, in which the tiny screaming human-faced creature is devoured by a spider.

THE CREATURE/EFFECTS

This version of the creature does not feature the full genetic transformation that was featured in the 1986 movie, instead we see a man with a giant fly head and an insect arm. The head is actually pretty effective and realistic, covered in black hair and with a quivering proboscis and multifaceted eyes. The total effect is fairly revolting.



This scientist has neatly traded heads and limbs with the fly and doesn't really undergo any kind of transformation, except perhaps a mental one. We see him late in the movie, losing the ability to write and think, shades of Jeff Goldblum's performance two decades later. The actor playing the scientist, David Hedison, does some very nice work physicalizing the creature, with erratic jerky body language.



MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

I really like the scenes late in the movie when Dr. Delambre really starts to really loose it. He begins having difficulty hanging on to his humanity. In these scenes lay the seeds for tragic horror of the remake.


SEQUELS

Return of the Fly 1959, and Curse of the Fly 1965

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

DVD and currently streaming on Netflix.

TRAILER






Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel

Hey Have You Seen The New Your Highness Trailer?

Everyone is talking about the Green Lantern trailer that was just released but I actually went with my gut and watched this trailer and in the words of the late, great, famous, somebody old who died, “Me likey.”

Oh the little things in life that make me laugh like a child, like cursing. I got a huge smile right at the 0:40 sec. mark in this trailer. Then what happens, Charles Dance shows up. “Who’s Charles Dance Ricky?” Who is Charles Dance? Charles Dance is “Sardo Numspa” the villain from The Golden Child!!! Don’t you people watch movies—Maaaaaaan get the f@ck outta my house!!! Actually come back, it’s cool.

Your Highness stars Danny McBride, not enough of Natalie Portman, and James Franco. (Little known fact, James Franco actually grew a new arm for this movie.) Rounding out the cast are Justin Theroux and Zooey Deschanel. (Littler known fact, Zooey Deschanel is actually pronounced “You Know That Really Pale Cute White Girl. No The Other One.”)

Hey Have You Seen The New True Grit Trailer?

Let’s get this out of the way. I’m not a fan of westerns. I can’t relate to them in the same sense that I can’t relate to musicals or movies set in Victorian times. And if a musical Victorian era movie ever gets made my head is gonna have a Scanners moment.

Josh Brolin may be the new go to when it comes to casting the role of a ”sonumbitch”. You just think “sonumbitch” when you see him. His teeth look like rotten corn. His beard looks like chewed up food, tumbleweeds, and “El Guapo” from The Three Amigos should be hanging from it.

Matt Damon! When I saw this trailer in the theater and he showed up onscreen I kept wanting to yell “Silverado! Silverado!”

But if this isn’t gonna be Jeff Bridges knocking it out of the park then you might be missing an eye just like Rooster Cogburn. If a Terminator could exist in the wild west I would imagine it would be in the mold of Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn. The relationship between him and Hailee Steinfeld’s character just seems John Connor-esque.

Hailee Steinfeld……somewhere Dakota Fanning sits, plotting, rubbing her hands together, wondering, “Who this B@&h think she is?”

True Grit opens on Christmas Day. It’s directed by the Coen Brothers. Never heard of’em.

Monster Movie of the Week: Monsters (2010)

MONSTERS (2010)
Director: Gareth Edwards
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama


With recent movies like Children of Men, District 9 and Moon, we seem to be having something of a renaissance in thoughtful social problem sci-fi . Now we have director Gareth Edwards' Monsters, which, while not as good as those movies, offers up a Mexican-set giant monster story which has roots in the current political situation between the US and its southern neighbor. While a lot of the political commentary is in the background of the movie, it is clearly extrapolated from real world current events and the (US-caused) alien monster outbreak in Mexico is cleverly layered over existing issues like illegal immigration and the War on Drugs. With a huge chunk of Mexico considered an "Infected Zone" in the movie, American conservatives finally got to build a massive militarized wall along the border, and, ironically, two Americans have to be smuggled to it.


The focus of Monsters is heavily on the relationship between the two lead characters: the daughter of a wealthy family who is stranded in Mexico and a photojournalist who is tasked with bringing her back to the US. It is really more of a quiet character-driven indie road movie than the orgy of action and special effects you might expect from the title . I've grown fond of calling it Lost in Monstration for its foreign setting and the weird quasi-romantic relationship at its core.

Monsters is a gorgeous-looking movie and it captures the particular beauty of Mexico, here often in ruins. The vivid Latin American color palette is muted with smoke and rubble. The movie presents us with a haunting apocalyptic vision contrasting ruined urban landscapes filled with architectural skeletons and jungles dotted with Mayan ruins and abandoned military hardware.

For a movie that gets a lot of mileage out its Mexican setting, Monsters makes some inexplicable mistakes about the country's basic geography. When the characters finally reach the US border near the end of the movie, they find the terrain covered in jungle and peppered with Mayan pyramids, which would more accurately be Mexico's border with Guatemala to the south. Anyone who has ever been to the arid American southwest will have a good idea what the US border would look like. C'mon, guys, look that shit up.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The movie handles its creatures in an interesting way. For most of movie, the monsters are either referred to, glimpsed in Cloverfield-like video clips, or seen in illustrations and photos, which is in keeping with the movie's emphasis on its human protagonists. The monsters are handled in a way that is refreshingly casual, instead of reverential. The movie is not trying to knock you over the head with CGI. As in Cloverfield, the creatures are kept mysterious, except for the fact that they crashed to Mexico on some sort of NASA sample return mission which immediately overran a large chunk of Mexico, the "Infected Zone."

Once we finally see them, they are somewhat of a letdown, though. While an octopus is a great starting point for an alien creature-the tentacles, the slimness, the soft boneless body-the aliens of Monster look a little too much like octopi. Other than their size, bio-luminescence, and their ability to walk on their tentacles, they are pretty much Space Octopi. Maybe they are from the Mon Calamari system. It is unimaginative creature design and somewhat of a letdown after being teased for the whole movie. But again, Monsters is not really about monsters.




HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Currently in select theaters and available On Demand.

SEE ALSO

Cloverfield 2008, District 9 2009

TRAILER







Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel

Superman! Superheroes! Superhero Movie Genres!

Superman: The Movie. Damn. It's one of my favorites of all time. All. Time. He's not even my favorite superhero but the film make you do exactly what the poster says above, it makes you believe son! That's what good movies should do. Alright here's two solid articles on the movie and more things Superman-centric.

First is an installment from Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" where he reflects on Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. You can talk to that here:

http://tinyurl.com/2bka5do

Second is also courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times and it's also about the big man in blue from the Max Fleischer cartoon all the way up to Donner's film. Fun reads. Enjoy:

http://tinyurl.com/34emy4y

The Superman: The Movie trailer

Hey Have You Seen The New The Last Circus Trailer?

Well look at me being all fancy letting you know about a foreign movie. Keep looking. Keep looking. Hold up, let me strike another quick pose…..BLA-KOW! Alright stop looking. Stop! Now check out this trailer to the upcoming Italian film The Last Circus. What’s it about? What’s everything about when you boil right down to it? If you believe, like I do, what One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest mental patient Mr. Harding believes it’s about “…form. I’m talking about content! I’m talking about interrelationships. I’m talking about God! The Devil! Hell Heaven! Do you understand! Finally!!!” Say that shit Harding! Say it!

Watch this trailer and see if it’s not about all of those things as well as it’s about clowns, machine guns, knives, lips, more clowns, and silhouettes humping. I know this word gets thrown around a lot and overused but damn this trailer really does look beautiful. And what is it that works so well when you combine a really pretty moving song with just hardcore aggressive violent imagery? Is it like a really sweet ballet of sound and imagery? Wow. I sounded like a real uppity douche right there. Let me go back and read those last couple of lines again. Yep. A douche that is uppity. I like it. Word!

The Last Circus is directed by Alex de la Iglesia. I’m not familiar with his other work if he even has any. If he does let me know and I’ll check it out but I am looking forward to this when it’s released in 2011.