Hot Day and Turtles
Hot Monday – the sun had a mean and nasty look to it this morning – and even at 8:30 the subway platforms were hot. Going to be bad one out there. My mom remembered growing up back in the days before a/c that when the temperature got over 95 degrees in the summer companies just sent people home – made sense no work was going to get done anyway – let them sweat back at home.
Was a fan boy yesterday with a friend and was pleasantly surprised by Gamera the Brave the most recent guys in a rubber suit movie from Japan – it had not done as well as the prior 3 modern Gamera films (which I have to confess – in terms of writing and effects and the like are the best series of kaiju (Giant monster films) I have seen.) It was said to be more kid oriented than the prior three and this was given as the reason for it’s relative lack of success in Japan in 2006 – It never got a us release and as isn’t on DVD yet here - It looks to be on DVD in Hong Kong but as a guy we were standing in line with waiting for the theater to open explained – (fan boys what ya gonna do about them fan boys) – everything ever filmed is on a DVD from Hong Kong – probably even your parents wedding if they filmed it.
So we saw the film and yeah it’s a lot more kid oriented than the last three – the main character is a boy Turo. But the story isn’t that – for a monster movie – that absurd. In the film Gamera blows him self up in 1973 to destroy two other monsters – then cut to present day where Turo (who has lost his mother in a car crash some unspecified time ago and in not much of a shock, is finding this hard to deal with) finds on an island a turtle egg on a nest made of a red rock – the egg hatches and the boy and turtle bond – yeah this was a little slow for me as well. The turtle shows some unusual aspects – one it can fly, two it grows really really fast (although we never see it eat).
Meantime there is some toing and frowing with the boy and his friends – Turo says “want to come and see my turtle?” to his buds in scene. It just sounds so wrong that I’m going pop that into my failed pick up lines rant for Wanna get laid (damnit). There is also an older teenage girl with a heart condition next door who is going to have an operation (no they don’t stop the melodrama) who is kind of surrogate big sister to Turo.
Granted the lead up to the monster bit isn’t the best I’ve ever seen – I was starting to mentally yell “Come on! Make with the death!” just before the monster shows up but I want to side track a bit here. Cause while it wasn’t perfect the film did right the right note for kids.
Childhood is a very different time and place – I have no great Wordsworth-style nostalgia for it (frankly a lot of my childhood sucked rockets) but I do remember it and the feelings – you fell helpless and over whelmed and there is an intensity about things you don’t often get in later years – and so much of your world is controlled by adults who, if you are normal kid, suspect of being completely crazy – so much so, that what you can you hide from adult eyes, you do. And that’s what rings true in this film – the kids actually act like kids – not smart mouthed little adults – and make decisions like a kid would, so I’d just like to say well done
So when the death comes it comes like in a good (i.e. bad) package the monster Zexus or some such I forget the exact name – comes to town and starts eating people – you don’t actually see this happen but you don’t need to see some things – sound effects, the sounds of chewing then seeing the monster with red teeth – that’s all you need. Then just before the kid get’s eaten as well – Gamera – the little turtle almost grown up shows up and its rumble time.
The battles are well done and exciting – you look at the care these folks put into this and the shoddy work in the U.S. Godzilla (which had a much bigger budget) and you want to cry.
The rest of the film is a series of battles (once they get Gamera up to size) with the little red stone being a plot point – it’s with the girl in the hospital and it was to get to Gamera – so in a bit of oh well this is really just a movie anyway – a chain of kids run the stone from the hospital to Turo who then finally gives it to Gamera – after an endless isologues that makes Gamera promise not to blow himself up – at this point in the film Gamera has been jammed into the upper stories of an office building and has been stabbed several times by the heavy (in this as in a lot of Gamera films – the turtle gets the living shit cut out of it ) and is bleeding pretty badly – this was the other time I was saying to myself “get on with it!”
He does of course and the bad monster is destroyed then after more stuff with the kids, Gamera flies away.
There was a lot of juice in the fan boys about the new cute Gamera look as opposed to the 90’s bad ass G – well yeah it wasn’t my fav look either but – given that this Gamera is only a few weeks old at best at the end of the movie – of course he’s going to look younger.
Confrontations galore in DC as the White House in hunkering down behind the divine right of presidents – sorry executive privilege to not answer any questions. Congress is talking about a contempt of congress finding.
I don’t think this will end well – it’s going to go to the supreme court which currently has 5 reactionary cranks on the bench who seemly lament for the days of absolute monarchy (which would include large multi-nationals) and I suspect will toss out the Nixon era understanding of executive privilege in favor of W’s version – that executive privilege is anything the president says it is.
After that we will have to see what happens.
Hot days coming.
Peace love, flying turtles
Was a fan boy yesterday with a friend and was pleasantly surprised by Gamera the Brave the most recent guys in a rubber suit movie from Japan – it had not done as well as the prior 3 modern Gamera films (which I have to confess – in terms of writing and effects and the like are the best series of kaiju (Giant monster films) I have seen.) It was said to be more kid oriented than the prior three and this was given as the reason for it’s relative lack of success in Japan in 2006 – It never got a us release and as isn’t on DVD yet here - It looks to be on DVD in Hong Kong but as a guy we were standing in line with waiting for the theater to open explained – (fan boys what ya gonna do about them fan boys) – everything ever filmed is on a DVD from Hong Kong – probably even your parents wedding if they filmed it.
So we saw the film and yeah it’s a lot more kid oriented than the last three – the main character is a boy Turo. But the story isn’t that – for a monster movie – that absurd. In the film Gamera blows him self up in 1973 to destroy two other monsters – then cut to present day where Turo (who has lost his mother in a car crash some unspecified time ago and in not much of a shock, is finding this hard to deal with) finds on an island a turtle egg on a nest made of a red rock – the egg hatches and the boy and turtle bond – yeah this was a little slow for me as well. The turtle shows some unusual aspects – one it can fly, two it grows really really fast (although we never see it eat).
Meantime there is some toing and frowing with the boy and his friends – Turo says “want to come and see my turtle?” to his buds in scene. It just sounds so wrong that I’m going pop that into my failed pick up lines rant for Wanna get laid (damnit). There is also an older teenage girl with a heart condition next door who is going to have an operation (no they don’t stop the melodrama) who is kind of surrogate big sister to Turo.
Granted the lead up to the monster bit isn’t the best I’ve ever seen – I was starting to mentally yell “Come on! Make with the death!” just before the monster shows up but I want to side track a bit here. Cause while it wasn’t perfect the film did right the right note for kids.
Childhood is a very different time and place – I have no great Wordsworth-style nostalgia for it (frankly a lot of my childhood sucked rockets) but I do remember it and the feelings – you fell helpless and over whelmed and there is an intensity about things you don’t often get in later years – and so much of your world is controlled by adults who, if you are normal kid, suspect of being completely crazy – so much so, that what you can you hide from adult eyes, you do. And that’s what rings true in this film – the kids actually act like kids – not smart mouthed little adults – and make decisions like a kid would, so I’d just like to say well done
So when the death comes it comes like in a good (i.e. bad) package the monster Zexus or some such I forget the exact name – comes to town and starts eating people – you don’t actually see this happen but you don’t need to see some things – sound effects, the sounds of chewing then seeing the monster with red teeth – that’s all you need. Then just before the kid get’s eaten as well – Gamera – the little turtle almost grown up shows up and its rumble time.
The battles are well done and exciting – you look at the care these folks put into this and the shoddy work in the U.S. Godzilla (which had a much bigger budget) and you want to cry.
The rest of the film is a series of battles (once they get Gamera up to size) with the little red stone being a plot point – it’s with the girl in the hospital and it was to get to Gamera – so in a bit of oh well this is really just a movie anyway – a chain of kids run the stone from the hospital to Turo who then finally gives it to Gamera – after an endless isologues that makes Gamera promise not to blow himself up – at this point in the film Gamera has been jammed into the upper stories of an office building and has been stabbed several times by the heavy (in this as in a lot of Gamera films – the turtle gets the living shit cut out of it ) and is bleeding pretty badly – this was the other time I was saying to myself “get on with it!”
He does of course and the bad monster is destroyed then after more stuff with the kids, Gamera flies away.
There was a lot of juice in the fan boys about the new cute Gamera look as opposed to the 90’s bad ass G – well yeah it wasn’t my fav look either but – given that this Gamera is only a few weeks old at best at the end of the movie – of course he’s going to look younger.
Confrontations galore in DC as the White House in hunkering down behind the divine right of presidents – sorry executive privilege to not answer any questions. Congress is talking about a contempt of congress finding.
I don’t think this will end well – it’s going to go to the supreme court which currently has 5 reactionary cranks on the bench who seemly lament for the days of absolute monarchy (which would include large multi-nationals) and I suspect will toss out the Nixon era understanding of executive privilege in favor of W’s version – that executive privilege is anything the president says it is.
After that we will have to see what happens.
Hot days coming.
Peace love, flying turtles
Labels: Gamera
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