The Beast In Space, Atragon and what not.

Well been busy busy busy these last few days no real time to ponder or write.

Anyway this will have to be quick.

One of the problems with doing any kind of soft core movie is that you have to find people who a) can at least act a little and b) look good and are willing to be naked on screen – this is of course not a problem with Hardcore where plots – if they exist – are along with the lines of people like to screw.

Anyway – the Europeans along with their superior health care have long been a lot better at the soft-core sex with some kind of story film than the US has been. Why? Blessed if I know, maybe they aren’t as screwed up about sex as we are – and just to add from what I’ve seen, sexual hang ups are the LEAST of the Japan’s problems.

The exception that proves the rule is a rotten little Italian/German/someothereuropeancountry production of The Beast from Space – a low rent combination of Star Wars, a little Indiana Jones tossed in and soft core sex poured all over it. It should be a guilty pleasure/utter hoot but it isn’t. For one the acting is really really bad as in: can we read this line with any less emotion maybe? Or with a little more stilted in your voice –please? And since this is in Italian and not dubbed you can't blame this on the dubbing.

The story is utter gibberish about looking for some kind of metal on an alien base on Venus – there’s a robot brain, hordes of extras who die over and over and over again (we’ll show the audience they are robots then they’ll understand why they all look the same –it’s brilliant!) a dream sequence that puts you to sleep, some sort of space pirate who wanders about; tons of dialogue like “check the R56 condenser.” “The R56 condenser reads alpha sir” (Side Note: up until star wars sci-fi films would waste what felt like years with this kind of nonsense ) – and there is a guy made-up to look like a Satyr: Horns. Lots of hair, cloven hoofs for feet and the film gives us several loving shots of his package.

Listen I know a lot of people who want to be actors and a lots of people who want to be in movies but really, when you find yourself agreeing to have extra hair pasted on your butt with the addition of wearing cloven hooves while otherwise naked while the cameras are rolling , well at that point I think you need to make some major decisions about your career choice.

No of course the story in one of these soft core epics is really not important. The only reason that I mention it was that sex scenes were, well how shall I say it – pretty damn boring – even for soft core early 80’s – it looked like gobs of pale white flesh wiggling for some reason – not very attractive, for a few moments I thought maybe this could be shown to teen agers as part of those abstinence only classes:

“See kids? Does that look like anybody is enjoying themselves? Of course not adults only do it because they loathe themselves and this helps.”

But it wouldn’t work – Teenagers aren’t that stupid – utterly self absorbed yes – stupid no.

Meantime got to finally watch front to back one of Toho’s non-Godzilla sci-fi films –Atragon about a Japanese SuperSub vs the Mu Empire (Mu being the Pacific Ocean version of Atlantis) the film was made in 1963 as Toho’s golden age was getting in full stride and features the aforementioned Super-Sub Atragon which can go deeper underwater than any submarine, fly and burrow underground like a steel mole. In short the usual impossible machine that only Toho can make – a version shows up in Godzilla Final Wars but let’s let that go. No sense in getting full on geek this evening.

The film is interesting for a couple of things – For one it features Manda, who most folks only remember from a cameo in Destroy All Monsters. Manda isn’t much as Toho monsters go – it’s looks a lot like a traditional Asian dragon long and thin with little legs ; it’s worshiped by Mu and it’s destroyed rather easily by Atragon’s cold cannon (something to do with absolute zero don’t ask what). It suffers the same fate in Godzilla Final Wars but again let’s not geek out too much.

Actually the most interesting part of the film is a debate or an examination of Japan Then/Now. The Atragon has been developed by a group of Japanese Sailors and scientists on an isolated Pacific Island, The conflict comes between the attitude of the Postwar Japanese and these isolated Sailors (including the Captain) – they at first refuse to use the sub against the Mu Empire because the sub is designed to attack Japan’s enemies (Mu was saying bad things about Japan, but had not by this phase in the movie done anything specifically rotten to Japan)- the word they use to describe their feelings is translated in the subtitles as patriotism but that’s not quite accurate but there really isn’t a word in the English language or exact combination of words that can describe pre-war Japan’s mind state – it was part Samurai code of the warrior , part reverence, part religious duty towards the state/emperor, part nationalism run amok but however you define it, it was why Japanese fought to the death on the islands in the pacific and were willing to strap themselves into airplanes loaded with bombs and dive them into ships. Post war Japan when through massive changes and part of that was a rejection of this mind set which to the more modern Japanese way of thinking had brought only heartache death and misery to the people.

There is a rather angry debate in the middle of the film about this as both sides state their case. Honda comes down in the end on the more we’re part of the world modern Japan but he does give the other side its innings.

I have to say I found it rather sly of I. Honda the director to slip all this into a Sci-Fi movie and make it a rational part of the plot rather than a “message” that he wanted to paste onto the film – like some of the more embarrassing original Star Trek episodes Eden for example.

Well that’s enough for Sunday

Details on our new shows and other things coming soon.

Until then – Peace Love Manda!