No Shelving Left: Demeking (2009) and Giants & Toys (1958)

Every once in a while, you have to take a chance. (I'd use the phrase "leap of faith," but that just gets you holy wars.) I get restless and impatient when I hear about a film and know that it is available on DVD (and sometimes has been out for a good while in that format), but cannot find it on Netflix. Actually, you can usually find it on Netflix, but it comes with one of those annoying green "Save" rectangles, the result of which is very little information as to when Netflix might be getting that title.

And so I hit Amazon. If that is a bust, then it becomes a search for the movie company's website or even eBay, though I cannot stand that site. But I can generally find that for which I am searching on Amazon.

Thus it went for two titles I came across about a week ago whilst flitting about the 'nets, both of of which were Japanese releases about which I had previously heard nada. This is not unusual. I am not a haunter of other film or DVD sites (except those which see fit to return the favor), and so new releases or film trends tend to only hit me in a glancing way. I am rushing past everything in my world these days -- where time has increasingly become a premium -- and so I only pick up on things in the periphery.

However, I am very good at following up if something even catches my interest slightly, and so it was that I ended up ordering, sight unseen, two Japanese films whose premises intrigued me enough to warrant a swift purchase from Amazon, once I surmised that Netflix was going to fail me utterly once again. Luckily, I was able to grab them for less than $30 total (always check the alternate new and used versions underneath the retail price area, where I always shoot for "new" if I can help it), and since I have Amazon Prime shipping set up, I already have them in my possession.

It's true. I will never truly grow up, and I will certainly never grow out of daikaiju films. For the uninitiated, that means Japanese giant monster movies. No matter what strides I have made in my overall taste for quality filmmaking, I still need to see some stunt guy mucking about in a rubber costume every once in while, knocking down cardboard buildings and making a general wreck of everything in sight. It's some form of therapy, I suppose, and it represents a large portion of my internal happy place. But while I revel in the simplicity of the form, I am always open to filmmakers attempting to take the basic kaiju formula and expounding upon it, bringing some new elements into the mix or attempting to take it to a more exalted level. Such was my delight, whatever demerits others might give them, in Cloverfield and The Host, two recent exercises in doing just what I described.

When I ran across the title Demeking the Sea Monster [Demekingu], I thought "Oh, it looks like just another kaiju film," which translates in Rik speak to "I've got to see this right away!" Even warnings that the titular monster only appears late into the film and only sparingly at that did not sway me. The premise was interesting enough -- a man in 1969 uncovers a prophecy relating to the attack of a creature from the stars which won't occur for another 50 years, and begins preparations to do battle with the creature -- and the few images I could find of the creature seemed fun enough to warrant spending 11 bucks (since Netflix was an epic fail in this department) on getting the Cinema Epoch DVD release via a seller on Amazon.

Having now watched the film, there was so much more to it than expected. There is a vibe not unlike Stand By Me (perhaps intentional, though still very different in execution) to the proceedings, and seems to make darkly satirical comments on the nature of "the hero's journey." I quite enjoyed the film, though yes, the comments about the length and attention actually paid to Demeking are accurate, though she has a pretty goofy but cool design to her. (I am guessing her since she lays eggs everywhere, but then you know how twitchy those space monsters that land on earth via asteroid can be sexually.) I am not regretting my purchase in the least, but it does make me wonder if there is a sequel in the works out there of which I am unaware. The story comes from a popular manga, and you know how long some of those things can be. That things are left relatively up in the air is pretty definitely laid out, so maybe there is potential for more?

The second film is a Japanese mass media satire from 1958 called Giants & Toys [Kyojin to gangu], directed by Yasuzo Masumura. I had honestly never heard of the film before last weekend, though I had seen two of Masumura's films previously, both of them far more sexually oriented in nature: the absolutely crazy, psychosexual horror epic, Blind Beast [Môjû] from 1969, and the middle segment of the Hanzo the Razor films, Razor 2: The Snare [Goyôkiba: Kamisori Hanzô jigoku zeme] from 1973.

I won't get around to watching Giants & Toys until this weekend, but the basic setup is that a trio of candy companies are doing battle over the selling of caramel, and one of them introduces a new "fugly" spokesperson for their candies. The tomboy with hideous teeth becomes an overnight sensation via some campaign which seems to involve spacesuits, ray guns and squirrels, but things apparently begin to go awry from there. The film is said to satirize just about everything in sight: business ethics, media culture, commercial advertising. Perhaps to push this point, the Fantoma DVD box not only goes so far as to compare it to Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, but also name-drops its director, Frank "Tish Tash" Tashlin (the former Warner Bros. cartoon director), as well as Billy Wilder and Dr. Strangelove.

Hard to say if any of this holds up with my eventual viewing, and I could be out 15 bucks if it ends sucking, but its certainly a lot more promising than waiting around for Netflix to start carrying the film. As I said, sometimes you have to take a chance. I blew $16 four weeks ago to watch what turned out to be a crappy, mostly-2D but supposedly 3D Wes Craven film in the theatre, so sometimes these chances backfire. But that whole "cracking eggs and omelet" thing holds up pretty well over time, so the only thing to do now is watch the movie and see.

[Editor's Note: When Giants & Toys was first looked up on Netflix over a week ago by yours truly, I did indeed get one of those annoying green Save boxes. However, it now has Add instead. I don't know if something occurred where it went down briefly and long enough for me to go hellfire crazy and order it, but I have found other reviews since where the writer had rented it via Netflix. So, no one's bad, but confusion all around. And by "all around," I mean just me...]

Countdown to Halloween 2011, Week #2: Stuff That Helps Me to Not Be Afraid of No Ghosts

The stuff that helps me to not be afraid of no ghosts (apart from the fact that I do not believe in the supernatural at all) comes courtesy of the local Ghostbusters chapter wthin my own home. What that translates into is that I have my own Ecto-1 at hand -- also known in some quarters as the Ecto-Mobile -- still on call for "cleanin' up the town."

I have figures of all the main Ghostbusters (technically, Real Ghostbusters) figures, but they never quite made it out for Halloween, so their time will have to come next year. However, for some obscure reason, I always seem to have the figures of Louis Tully and Janine Melnitz inside the Ecto-1. Slimer and Stay-Puft are also forever lurking about my place on one shelf or another, in the same way that the Ecto-1 is always on display, so they made the picture as well.

Gotta be ready in case "Paranormal Activity" suddenly becomes a real thing...

Countdown to Halloween 2011, Week#1: What do you mean, "The party's over?"

Halloween is over, and while Grover is not the sort of monster one normally associates with the holiday, here he perfectly expresses my sentiments about today...

What to Watch, What to Watch...

My plans for the weekend did get switched up quite a bit yesterday morning when the early Saturday double feature I was planning at the Starlight Cinema City Theatres (where they run cheaper than anything pre-noon showings of all films in their lineup) was canceled by torrents of rain. One of the films I had been planning to see was Saw 3D, after catching up with the last three installments in the torture-laden series over the previous few days. Keeping in the Halloween spirit, I was going to follow that up with Paranormal Activity 2, having just seen the first film a couple of weeks back.

But it was not to be. I was already feeling run down from a quite stressful day at work on Friday (in which everything was handled just fine by EOB -- and that doesn't mean Edgar Octopus Burroughs), had some possible follow-up in the a.m., and then the rain hit around 5:30, just as I was setting up plans for the day. The rain was actually a relief since I was feeling so tired, and it became a very easy thing to burrow into the blankets on the couch and knock out a couple of movies.

Knocking out movies is what I tend to do well, and since I last posted my October genre-related choices on October 21, I have added many more films to my roster. Here's the update:

10/21/10        Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl        2009

10/22/10        Black Sheep        2007

10/22/10        Dead Silence        2007

10/22/10        Monster Beach Party A Go Go [aka Stomp! Shout! Scream!]        2005

10/23/10        Silent Scream        1980

10/23/10        Boogens, The        1981

10/23/10        The Hills Have Eyes 2        2007

10/23/10        Darkness Falls        2002

10/24/10        Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film        2006

10/24/10        The Boogeyman        2005

10/24/10        The Boogeyman 2        2007

10/24/10        The Satanic Rites of Dracula [Elvira edition]        1973

10/24/10        Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy        2010

10/24/10        Five Million Years to Earth [aka Quatermass and the Pit]        1967

10/25/10        Resident Evil: Apocalypse        2004

10/25/10        Feast        2005

10/25/10        X the Unknown        1956

10/26/10        Resident Evil: Extinction        2007

10/26/10        Evolution        2001

10/28/10        Saw IV        2007

10/29/10        Saw V        2008

10/29/10        Saw VI        2009

10/29/10        Trail of the Screaming Forehead        2007

10/30/10        Happy Birthday to Me        1980

10/30/10        Frankenstein Created Woman        1967

10/30/10        Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed        1969

10/30/10        Red: Werewolf Hunter        2010

10/31/10        Scared to Death [Elvira edition]        1947

10/31/10        The Haunting of Molly Hartley        2008

10/31/10        The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters        1954

As you can see from many of the choices in the past ten days, one of the themes for me this time was to make my peace with much of the modern horror that I have been avoiding so much over the past decade. This drive is probably going to carry over into November for a couple of weeks, now that my interest has been piqued and there are some films that I definitely want to see while the genre is still holding my full attention. To be sure, it hasn't all been pretty -- there are a lot of films that I would have been better off not seeing -- but one of the pleasures of focusing exclusively in one genre for any length of time is divining that clear line between the sublime (however ridiculous in execution) and the pure dross, the dreck, and the utter crap. 

I am still planning on hitting the Saw 3D/PA2 combo, but next weekend instead. And as I often do at this time of year, I use September and October to fill in some noticeable gaps in my sci-fi/horror DVD collection, not least of which was picking up copies of the Nightmare on Elm Street 8 movie box set, Bigas Luna's mind-warping Anguish, Romero's Day of the Dead, the Night of the Creeps Director's Cut and the Pumpkinhead Collector's Edition, with the film presented in widescreen for the first time, as opposed to the original MGM release in pan-and-scan which made so angry after I bought it. (All pan-and-scan releases are to be considered automatic garbage if there is a widescreen version readily available, and especially if it is just due to studio-driven idiocy.) And I finally did get my copy of Teeth. I figure if I rent a film four times in six months, it is probably time to get my own disc.

So, what to watch for the rest of Halloween? Hard to say... so many choices, so little time. Jen and I are planning to watch at least a chunk of the recent Kids in the Hall mini-series on IFC, which is reported to have some horrific elements (the Grim Reaper is one of the main characters). Jen is not a horror fan in the least, so I have to find shows and movies where I can get her to dip her toes in the chilling waters without totally immersing her in a way in which she would not be happy. The Kids in the Hall help to forge a compromise in that area. Until then, the day is mine. I will likely choose a triple threat of films from the ones shown in the stack in the picture above, all of them purchases I have made in the last couple of months.

Or I might just end up reading some Poe or Lovecraft. After all, it's my day, just as it's all yours wherever you are. The point is to enjoy yourself.

Halloween! ["Happy" adjective only applicable depending on your situational POV...]

Oh, so this is the big thing to which we have been counting down? Anything feel noticeably different now that we are here? Do you feel any different?

Me? I am doing the same thing that I always do, 365-12, 24-7. Halloween might be a date on the calendar to the general public, but for the vast majority involved in this Countdown to Halloween blogroll, our great love for the traditions of the holiday is something we tend to celebrate throughout the entire year.

Speaking for myself, counting down a mere 31 days until a calendar point is actually rather, for lack of a better term, pointless. Not that I haven't had fun concentrating on blogging once again, but being in the Countdown hasn't garnered me one single comment out of the normal few friends that are kind enough to stop by and pay a visit to my too long dormant working notebook. Sure, I can't wait for Halloween to roll around, but chiefly because it convinces people who would normally "tsk, tsk" such obsessions to drop their guard a little bit and let the rest of us fly our freak flags without judgmental commentary. Not that I don't enjoy being given a chance to tell "the general public" to shove their negativity up their collective ass, but it is nice once in a while to hide unnoticed amongst the phonies dressed up for what they consider to be just another holiday.

But I don't feel any different today. There is no power in waking up into a holiday, except that which you have created within your mind. I got up like I normally do on a weekend, watched a movie, wrote a little bit on a short story I started a couple of weeks ago, took a shower, fed the dogs, and saw Jen out the door and off to work. I stacked up a few DVDs of which I have passing interest in viewing today and made some breakfast.

Nothing different, nothing ghostly, and nothing spooky except that which is derived from dwelling within the atmosphere I myself created within the apartment for the holiday. A lot of monster toys, some minor decorative effects and glowing devices, and a grinning, big-eyed, triple-fanged lit pumpkin. Perhaps there will be trick-or-treaters knocking on my door today; perhaps not. I will not be attending any parties or performances. I am going to just spend a quiet, relaxing day doing what Michael Scott on The Office, in what might be the most brilliant line recently written about October 31, suggested: "Halloween should be a day where we honor monsters and not be mad at each other." 

Agreed...

Random Abode Spookage & Monsters #7: Inactive Model Division

As a child, I made models by the dozens. Always had something being glued together... cars, jet fighters, dinosaurs, monsters. It wasn't that I really loved doing it, but every month or so, I would convince one of my parents to purchase one or two new model kits for me. Suddenly, I found myself putting together some tank battle set or T. Rex, but the truth is that I was never very good at it.

To me, it was always like putting together any other puzzle, like a jigsaw, but you don't have to glue jigsaws. Well, some people do, but that has always seemed silly to me.  Model-wise, I was sloppy. I never had the patience needed to build one to perfection. I hated the smell of the glue, I hated getting it on my fingers, but my real downfall was in the painting. Zero skill with the brush and too many other things to do not to rush the job. I would begin to paint, something would drip no matter how careful I was, and I would see other models that master builders would do and it would drive me crazy. Why can't I do it that way? Why do I always end up with blobs of glue at all of the critical seams and joints? Honestly, I had never considered sandpaper at that age, but as I said, it was more about having the model rather than completing it, so I never ventured too deep into gathering tips about doing them better. Mine was a cursory interest; my real love at that time was baseball cards, and the modeling thing was probably just a way of getting my parents to buy me more stuff.

Eventually, I wearied of the hobby, but to this day, I still have a soft spot for the idea of model building. Like most hobbies, deep down it's merely a silly and addictive time-filler, but also lovely when done right. It was with just such an attitude that I forged through life, and when the time came that I had mad money to burn, I would go back to trying out model building. But a twist came with my new purchases in adulthood: I never actually built them. I have a handful of kits that I have bought over the intervening years between childhood and now -- mostly monsters -- but the fear of screwing up a paint job to the point where I would cause physical destruction to my surroundings in my frustration always loomed too large for me to get over it. Which is where the appeal action figures laid for me. They were already finished, they came with swell accessories, and best of all, unlike most models, you could play with them.

I have gone onto a couple of model boards recently and read some of the disdain for Tsukuda's officially licensed horror/sci-fi model kits of the late '80s and early '90s. Large, vinyl kits of the sort to which I never had access as a kid. As a monster nut, when these were released, I was naturally drawn to them. Bosco's, the only real game in town as regards comics and collectibles in Anchorage, Alaska (and home base to many of my very good friends -- and my little brother -- at one point or another), sold these kits pretty regularly in those days. I would stare at them up on those higher shelves in the store every time that went in (which was then about three or four times a week), but the price tag of roughly $50 a shot gave me pause.

Finally, after mentioning it briefly to my then-spouse, she surprised me at my birthday with the Frankenstein kit, based on the Jack Pierce-designed Karloff makeup of the original Universal film. Awkwardly titled "A Monster of Dr. Frankenstein," Tsukuda Hobby Jumbo Figure Series No. 38 may have its drawbacks according to finicky, nit-picking hobbyists, but to me it has always proved to be a daunting figure of horrific beauty. Once again, though I was happy to own the damnable monster, my fear of totally screwing up the paint job meant that I was doomed to let him lie in his giant cardboard coffin for the next 20-plus years.

Every few years, I would pull him out of the box again, snap his limbs and hands into place (he is meant to have some articulation points) and stare intently at what I had always felt was a pretty accurate sculpt (though apparently, I am so wrong), and muse about the purchase of new paints and brushes. And then, after a few days of display on my dining room table which was meant to provide the impetus for my to actually complete my monster, he would end up back in the box and back up on a shelf in my game closet. I couldn't make the leap.

However, finally owning the Monster kit opened up the floodgates just enough where I was determined to get the other Universal monster available at the store, Tsukuda Hobby Jumbo Figure Series No. 39, "Mummy Man." I had my eyes on the Tsukuda King Kong model as well, but it ran for $100 at the time, and so I opted for the half as costly Mummy figure, with the intention of saving up for Kong (which never happened). This model seems to be based on the Kharis figure from the later Universal series, not the 1932 Karl Freund classic with Karloff as Imhotep. It didn't mean anything to me when I bought it, however; the main thing was that I had a Universal model kit. A kit which I stared at a lot. A kit which I would think about completing. A kit which never got painted.

And so now the monsters and I live thousands of miles from where we started, and we are now at this juncture where I have them up and out of their boxes on our apartment's dining room table. There is a lot of staring going on as I think about what is involved in bringing these creatures fully to life. I have been looking up paint colors online and reading hobbyist tips and tricks. But I have also begun to feel the eventual frustration looming in the near distance.

It's enough to make you quit while you are still behind...

Attack of the Seriously Slutty Princesses: The Disney Halloween Party 2010

Honestly, for the first hour or so at the Disney Halloween Party at Disneyland Tuesday night, I didn't even really notice the costumes. Sure, I did mention to Jen the astounding amount of younger kids I saw dressed as one of the Super Mario Bros. (and even at least four people dressed as mushrooms from the games), and I also pointed out a couple of truly cool costumes here and there. But in noticing the usual feast/horror for the eyes that comes with younger women dressed, body-appropriate or otherwise (and it is more than often that "otherwise," hence the horror side of the equation) in too tight or absolutely revealing Halloween costumes of their favorite characters, I was very negligent.

But Jen wasn't (and she didn't believe me that I hadn't noticed, but I indeed hadn't). She was the one quickest to point out (or at least smirk) when some particularly slutty version of Alice in Wonderland or Pocahontas swung into view. It was at the exact moment when I mentioned I hadn't really seen all that much in the way of rampant sluttiness, or at least a handy amount of décolletage, that the gates burst open. As this is not that sort of site, I have nothing in the way of visual proof of the onslaught that then took place over the next three hours, but suffice to say that we had several hours worth of decent chuckles in watching the series of bastardizations of character designs into handy excuses to either increase the population of Orange County or to put you off your food. The best part was a particularly hurried Cinderella who actually began to fall out of her dress. This shocked even the great Carnak...

Jen and I were mainly there for the atmosphere and the fireworks, but there is a note to make regarding the attractions (i.e., the rides, in Disney parlance). The big secret about attending the Disney Halloween Party is that you can pretty much walk on and off even the mega-popular rides like Indiana Jones and Space Mountain because almost every kid in the place is concentrating on standing in line for candy, which frankly, is the opposite way to trick-or-treat. There should be effort put into it. Patrons of the event stand in endless lines throughout the park to receive their treats, and as far as we are concerned, they can have it.

As a result, in the first 75 minutes we were there, we had already ridden Indy, the Haunted Mansion, the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Space Mountain (the Ghost Galaxy version for Halloween), and this was with a bathroom stop, a soda purchase, and a very relaxed gait, enjoying the  mood of the park. The longest line was Space Mountain, and that was a mere ten minutes, as promised on the gate sign (possibly the first time the wait announcement ever actually matched that which actually occurred on that attraction).

I will say this now, and it will come as a shock to my friends who know how thoroughly I love The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I am tired of the annual reworking of the Haunted Mansion into its holiday form featuring Jack and his pals. The truth is, I wish they would start up the Nightmare version just after Halloween (you know, the way the movie starts), and let us have the real Mansion back for the actual month containing Halloween. It's not that I don't enjoy the Jack house (I actually do love it), but one of my fondest park memories was a full on Halloween midnight ride a few years back, and now I can't get even close to matching that feeling with the outright whimsy of Burton's creations overriding the place.

And the fireworks? A massively cool success... Zero flying through the air behind the castle, animation of a giant Jack Skellington on a balloon hanging over the proceedings, and the discovery of some new aerial tricks in Disney's ever-expanding fireworks bag. I thought there would be more concentration on the Mansion itself, but they managed to work in a lot of more obscure references even with the overall Jack theme. (A side note: it was also neat to see ol' Clara Cluck at the rear of the Halloween Parade. I wondered how many of the guests actually know who she is.) I shot some video of the first couple of minutes of the fireworks, but as it was on my crappy phone, I am not too happy with the results.

But we were quite happy with our evening out at the Disney Halloween Party. The fireworks alone made it worthwhile, and for us, the price wasn't bad (Jen's status at the park got us tix for $35 apiece). And it is truly amazing to ride Indy and Pirates back to back and not run into a single kid or teenager. That alone was a magic trick worthy of the Disney name.