It's been months since I last wrote an entry to this blog meme.
I don't know if anybody noticed, but yesterday marked the sixtieth birthday of Godzilla AKA Gojira. The first Godzilla film premiered on third of November in 1954 in Japan, and I helped organize the showing of one of the later Godzilla films, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, at the Finnish Film Archive screening here in Turku, Finland. It was shown on 35 mm film, in a Cinemascope picture.
The film is a hoot. It's very, very hilarious. It's fast-paced, it never slows down, which is a normal handicap for bad and campy pictures: they are slow. There's always something going on in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla even though none of it makes sense. Cigar-smoking space invaders in silver suits? Check. A huge cyborg pretending to be Godzilla? Check. An ancient Japanese god living inside a cave? Check. A woman singing praise to the said god on a beach with a nice orchestrated background? Check. A mysterious Interpol agent masquerading as a freelance journalist in a long coat trying very hard not to look suspicious? Check. Mysterious gangsters turning into monkeys when they die or even get hit? Check. Name it, and you probably have it in the film.
Highly recommended, lots of laughs guaranteed. More Overlooked Films coming up at Todd Mason's blog here.
I saw all those Godzilla vs .... at the local cinema in the 70's. Our mother would send us there with a coupon to watch for some cheap entertainment.
ReplyDeleteBill has a relevant post. Inspired by last week's THE NEWS QUIZ on BBC Radio 4, I had to raise the REPTILICUS question...
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