I've been working my way through the Criterion Godzilla Box Set. I bought it last year for half off because there is always a sale on B&N or Criterion.com. Before the purchase I had only seen the original as well as some of the more recent ones (Minus One is incredible)... and also the incredibly bad one in the '90s with Matthew Broderick. Other than that, any images in my head of Godzilla and his enemies were a mashup of random tv moments, early internet pictures, probably MST3K, and whatever else 80s and 90s culture thought to bubble up from the Japanese classic(s). I fear that much of what was out there was in jest or mean spirited but luckily I always took Godzilla seriously. Watch the first one if you haven't seen it and tell me its not a great film in its own right, full of social and political commentary. Go ahead and try to tell me that. 

The movie starts, as many films do, with a Giant Blue Egg. It washes ashore after a typhoon. A young photographer takes pictures of it and later the CEO of Happy Enterprises buys the egg! for exploitation and profit! This is the main driver of the plot, such as it is, and the best thing to say about the pair of regular folks pushing the plot forward is that... its all pretty brief.

Godzilla always has a way of making an entrance. In this one, the fourth in the series, we find him just sort of coming out of the dirt... and shaking it off, like he had been drunk at the beach and some kids decided to bury him. Its really great. Then there is a wild scene with some miniature women (apparently called Shobijin) who come pleading for the blue egg, which of course turns out to be Mothra's egg. The CEO tries to catch them but they evade him with ease. They sing a bunch too. I'm going to take a moment to mention how much I absolutely love forced perspective in film. If there is a giant or a miniature alien/creature/person/etc. you can believe I'm watching it. So with the introduction of the Shobijin... this one shot up the list to my favorite Godzilla film. Its just something that gives me unreasonable joy... I love giant and little things in film so much that I have no desire to analyze it further. 

The folks who are trying to get Mothra's egg back to Mothra seek out the help of the Shobijin on Infant Island, a site of old nuclear tests... The Shobijin were played by a singing duo called The Peanuts. Anyhow they agree to plead for the regular folks to Mothra and after a short song and tbh very little convincing.... Mothra agrees to help them against Godzilla. The egg hatches and THE LARVAE fight Godzilla!

All of it is very very good. 

This one was a movie club pick. I've seen it 2 times before. It has always been great. It is still great. I pick out different things to notice each time. This go-round the kids stood out. The movie is nothing without the kids... its also nothing without the rest. It has all the things. The mood(s). The music. The sadness. The strange moments of hope. The picture of LA in the 70s.... it all feels familiar and impossibly far away. 

Love it. 

First off. Amazing poster. I wish I were more than 1 year old in 1982 when this came out. Second off(?)... this is definitely not the wonderfully moody Jacques Tourneur (a house favorite!) film from 1942 starring the truly wonderful Simone Simon (also in Devil and Daniel Webster... another house favorite!). Third off (third-ly?) I truly wish they made insane movies like this today. Honestly, even things half this bananas would be an oasis in a desert. I had to watch this one over the course of two naps (actually "quiet time" which we are still trying to enforce b/c JFC we're tired on weekends). I would guess it is even more potent in one single viewing. 

I'll first list a bunch of things that should get your antanae twitching... The cast: John Heard (of Big fame.... "I don't get it! I don't get it!"), Natassja Kinski (ha chacha cha.. not really for me but in that 80s way...), Malcom McDowell (underused tbh... though I guess I'm glad his character didn't get weirder/grosser/etc.), Ed Begley Jr. (Gets his arm bitten off THEN DIES! from it. Seems like he could have been saved imo), John Larroquette and Ray Wise in very supporting roles. Basically a stacked cast all around but did I forget to tell you that DAVID BOWIE does the song for this movie (Video). Why? No idea. Don't fight the early 80s erotic thriller! All this madness is brought together by Paul Schrader who decides to open with a weird prologue of people from BC times... and also panthers lounging in a tree.

OK so after the opening in Europe(?) during the Dark Ages(?)... we fast forward to an awesome New Orleans in the very early 80s. This time capsule alone is reason to watch the movie. So we find Irena (Natassja Kinski) showing up on the train to go live with Malcom McDowell, her brother who seems pretty into her. :-/ ... also a woman, maid? housekeeper? lives there named `Female` which is pronounced Fuh-mal-ee. Thats pretty bizarre. She ends up in jail later for some reason.

So anyways Irena shows up and after getting creeped on by her brother she wanders around New Orleans by herself a bit during the day and night. While this is happening a panther is skulking around in the night and is killing folks. This whole sitch raises the arm hairs of the zookeeper (John Heard). Irena wanders the French Quarter and it is completely empty in the evening so it must have been an off year for New Orleans. Later she goes to the zoo (as one does... obviously) and John Heard meets her and of course immediately falls in love with her because I guess he had just watched Body Heat and Irena is a lot like Kathleen Turner in that.... The he courts her a bit (they go eat oysters and things) and then gets her a job in the gift shop (lolololo). She loves it! 

[Spoilers Ahead]

So then we meet Annete O'Toole at the zoo who used to date John Heard (IRL she is married to Michael McKean which is fantastic). We find her as she's hosing down an elephant in an 80s erotic thriller way. LOL. We glean that she used to date John H through subtext but she's cool with him moving on. At some point Ed Begley Jr gets his arm bitten off! and we find out he bit the dust later but don't see it. Sorry bout it EBJ. I may be out of order here but then John H and Irena go to the bayou for a little getaway but she won't sleep with him b/c she is starting to be suspicious she's a cat and will eat him after sex... but before all that that there is this awesome exhange:

[Alligators roar(?) and flop in the water]

JH: That's alligators. They're going to eat us.

[blank stare from NK]

JH: There's only one way to keep them away...

NK: ...whats that...

JK: We have to make love...

LMAO... so stupid. The good news is she doesn't fall for it. 

Next they find Malcolm McD (as a panther) and shoot him :( and there is a wild autopsy part where JH saws open the panther with a scalpel (literally saws! scalpels shoudl just slice...but maybe not in the 80s??) and Malcolm McD's ARM flops out of the panther corpse! The corpse then turns into GAS! and melts completely. Truly incredible. There is a weird intermission where Irena tries to leave through the really awesome Amtrak station of 1982 full of wonderful design and red lockers everywhere. She gets like... 21 dollars away but turns around for some reason and is back lickidy split... then is kind of a much bigger creep looking for JH. There is a pool situation (ripped directly off from the 1942 version... but in that 80s sexy way...) and then she finds her man and they smash. She turns into a panther in the grossest way possible right next to JH in bed but she doens't eat him because he's like "Its me".... She then rocks somebody and turns back into a person but goes back for more with JH. He ties her up b/c she'll turn into a panther afterwards and he knows it. Sex panther. 

JH and Anette O'toole get back together. You are left not knowing what happened but it turns out he PUTS IRENA INTO THE ZOO. Thats why he tied her up! F'ing diabolical...

Fade to black. :(

Been meaning to watch this for a while. I know folks were pretty mixed on this when it came out. I suppose the folks still are, though I don't hear a lot of discourse about it lately. One of my friends had the experience of seeing a screening of it (maybe at Music Box?) right before or when it came out. My memory is that he saw it on 70mm but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm sure that was a fun experience, the Music Box always is.  

Babylon is an incredibly pretty film with incredibly pretty people... with a sprinkling of revolting behavior and images. I suppose that is the point. Excess all around. Coming hot off of my Blood Meridian experience I was slightly surprised to have enjoyed this as much as I did; certainly more than i was expecting. Perhaps I am the demographic for this.... The demographic for the magic hour light filled indulgent pseudo-history of Hollywood that this film presents, and most other folks don't care(?). I don't know.

The first half of the film definitely gripped me more than the second half which turns into more of a depressing melodrama (not in the Douglas Sirk way) and includes the eventual and obvious decline of our (pro?)tagonists.

I'm happy I sat through it and it is definitely worth watching for the spectacle alone, especially if you enjoy Hollywood stories. Watching the technical wizardy of both the first party sequence and the next filming sequence in the desert was like discovering you enjoy getting slapped by your partner. Shocking, slightly painful, and thrilling. 

I had been interested in watching this one for years. I'm not sure I have sorted my thoughts about it yet but I haven't posted in a bit so figured I'd at least mention it with some scattered thoughts. 

The opening of this film, in the dingy downstairs nightclub, with dingy downstairs people is truly one of the most beautiful sequences I've seen in a while. A hell of a way to open a movie, letting the audience know everything about the world these two mermaids inhabit. The music is hit or miss but absolutely service the film beautifully... and the literal translations are quite a bit of fun. The Polish title of the film is bit better but more on the nose, "Daughters of Dancing",  and has nothing to imply the aquatic motif so I guess thats why it was Americanized in the US release. 

I didn't adore the second half in the same way as the explosive opening but all the actors are perfect in their roles. The music and set design is flawless. Overall a really fun 92 minutes.