Edit: Short and Long Version (long version is the best).
Edit Part Deux: Added "Gamera: Friend of Children"
Edit Part Deux: Added "Gamera: Friend of Children"
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Mostly sketches. Occasionally a painting. Nothing political other than caricatures reinforcing the truism "Politics is Show Business for Ugly People".
8 comments:
I never saw the originals, only heard them described. Looks fun to me.
A gigantic, fire-breathing, tusked-turtle who flies when he retracts his legs and head (with flaming jet-fire coming out of shell, no less). It's as crazy and awesome as it sounds!
I watched some clips on YouTube of the original Gamera in flight. I assume that the modern version will be a little less... hilarious?
I like the big cgi movies OK. But the culture changes that have occurred make them less as movies. They really seem incapable of producing anything with a vibe of a children's story. And these big monster movies are kidding themselves if they don't think they are Children's stories. That's why something like the Bryan Cranston Godzilla goes so far wide of the mark. All that gritty social malodorous back story. Then we hunker down to Monsters destroying cities and themselves. Bad mix. You need 'real' characters to be cartoons so they belong in the same film with the other cartoons.
Another thing that the Cranston film and this film seem to be doing is just shovelinh child tragedy at you. What a sick string puller.
I'll watch it on Netflix streaming whenever it shows up for the same reason i watch parts of transformer movies. For the FX.
I watched a Gamera flick from the early 90s with my wife a few months ago and it was right where it needed to be: The actors played it straight and were very earnest, but the premise was ludicrous and the movie made absolutely no sense. The creatures had been modernized to look as good as budgets and tech would allow for that era (i.e. not horrible, but not ILM-Jurassic-Park-level, either). It was a solidly entertaining flick that had lots of charm.
I am hoping that this new Gamera film will hit the same notes and will be a mix of good FX and utter, absolutely-nonsensical silliness. If it takes itself too seriously, that might make it unintentionally hilarious, but I can abide seriousness if the overall tone of the movie isn't overly Christopher Nolan-esque with the dark and somber. I don't think that's going to happen here for some reason. The Japanese don't generally mess with the formula too much.
Showa guy....not buying it. Haven't seen a kaiju flick since 1975 worth it's salt. SFX have gotten slicker and overdone, Stories have gotten preachy and bloated. They don't do nothing for me now.
What's "Showa guy"?
The 'reboot' of Gamera in the '90s (do I have that right?) are interesting but a little plodding. They were well received in Japan from what I gather and the director went on to make All Monsters Attack, which I think was meant to be sort of like Destroy All Monsters... all the Toho monsters in one huge movie. The original set of Gamera movies were all strictly kids fair, although Gamera usually would take some sort of huge damage that you'd think would be crippling if not mortal (nearly cutting off an arm or impaling his stomach). I found those a little disturbing as a kid, but I guess it was made for a different audience.
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