Savant's new reviews today are
Piccadilly Milestone/Image
A Separate Peace Paramount and
Fighting Elegy Criterion
I feel like grousing about the Oscars this year. I tend to listen to them from the next room while writing instead of sittin through the whole thing, with the VCR going just in case something momentous happens. This year I join the folks who think the show is just boring. The idea of using hip young types like Chris Rock doesn't work for me as his attitude goes against the entire proceedings - why should stars dress up to have an angry comedian insult them? The presentation is geared as a TV show and has little to do with honoring talent or achievement in Hollywood. It will be better when it's no longer a beamed-around-the-world big deal. It's no longer worth the four months of media buildup.
Somewhere in the 90s they introduced a feature I really liked, an "In Memoriam" tribute to stars who have passed away. Now that's degenerated into a cheap show as well. It used to be that several dozen actors big and small were given their four seconds of film. Now the choice is obviously made by committee, with an AGENT or two thrown into the mix. The big names are saved for last so that everyone knows that the rest of the obits are lower on the "also ran" totem pole.
Back to important news ... you know, Mothra: The print last night at the New Beverly was splendid, with great color that made all video copies here look like dirt. The audio appeared to be mono. I'd seen the full length Japanese version without subs but the new subtitles explained a lot. The country called "Rolisica" is clearly a combo Russia-U.S.. Rolisica is the trouble behind everything - they assume control of the expedition to Infant Island, which they once used as an atomic blast site. Roliscia denies that the island is inhabited even after witnesses say it is, kind of a pre-echo of Radio Bikini. The Rolisican bad guy Nelson is an exploitative combo of Carl Dehham and Al Capone, committing theft and mass murder against native populations with the complicit backing of the Rolisican government (at least until things get too hot, with Mothra coming to wipe out "New Kirk City.") He uses semantics to wiggle out of charges of kidnapping and slavery by saying that the tiny princesses are not human but just merchandise. They like to sing and dance, so he's making them happy! Only the bare bones of this anti-U.S. fervor is left in the American redub. The Russian aspect of Rolisica can be seen in the combination of symbols on the flag of the Rolisican Embassy, and the Russian-looking uniforms of the Rolisican generals helping to fight Mothra. Maybe those were the only costumes Toho had.
The Japanese view of America is really funny. Every Anglo that could be rounded up (including familiar faces like Robert Dunham) is used to play Rolisican citizens - and New Kirk City has skyscrapers, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Harbor Freeway. We also see a short clip of the row of hotels where Santa Monica reaches the bluffs over the beach. Nelson's thugs are silly gangsters who speak in English every once in a while (the actor playing Nelson is said to be bilingual). He and his main crook pal laugh themselves silly: "Mothra is dead! Now we can be happy and filthy rich! Ha ha ha ha!" Nelson's last twenty lines are the same: "SHUT UP!" I hadn't noticed before, but when he's finally shot down, he's in the act of knocking a cane out from under an old man! I think there were some happy subversives at Toho that year.
In the original, the loveable Frankie Sakai's nickname is "Snapping Turtle," not "Bulldog." He never lets go, see, and is a master of the obscure martial art of slapping bad guys on the head with folded pieces of paper.
MOTHRA is a kooky combo of fairy tales, environmentalism, Kaiju and pointed anti-West criticism ... how can it miss? As always, the music is what makes it so magical. The print last night has the second song by the Peanuts, performed in kimonos on a little apple blossom set. Interesting that the huge audience watches them sing in rapt attention, when nobody beyond the first two rows should be able to see the tiny princesses.
MOTHRA plays one more night (tonight, Tuesday March 1) with the original subtitled GODZILLA at the NEW BEVERLY in LA.
From August Ragone on the Mobius forum, we're told that Columbia is doing the same theatrical restoration on BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE and THE H-MAN. The space movie has some new footage and a great original music score to restore. H-MAN is incoherent in its US release version, and not all that understandable at full length without subtitles (which is how I've seen these on old Toho laser discs). So besides being about fifteen minutes longer, a new subtitled version will hopefully explain what the heck's going on. Columbia restoration and their repertory department are certainly being responsive - I hope the Sony/Columbia DVD people notice the web attention and revival-house popularity and follow up on their new Godzilla series with these wonderfully amusing classics. Thanks! Glenn Erickson
Posted by DVD Savant at March 01, 2005 12:41 PM