This Was My House A Few Nights Ago.

(I don't mean that literally, just the same scenario.)

A very short review of Gamera Supermonster as seen on Elvira's Movie Macabre

Strike one: unskippable commercial for Elvira's new reality TV show starts the disc.

Strike two: this disc doesn't appear to be properly licensed in any way, shape or form, as seems to be standard operating procedure for pre-1995 Gamera movies released in region one.

Strike three: The audio and video quality is very, very poor. Except for the fact that this is encoded decently, I'd think Mill Creek or East West put this out. Clearly, a commercial VHS was used as the master, but the English audio track (which given the Japanese credits was probably grafted onto this release) is worse than the bootlegs floating around. (Ironically, one of the host clips uses part of the movie and while it's pan and scan, the image quality is greatly improved over what we're actually seeing.)

Unless you are an Elvira fan, avoid this one. If your really want to see Gamera Supermonster, may I recommend the fine release from WTF-Films? Funny how a guy with a capture card and an eye for quality can put out a better release than a major company (Shout Factory.)

(Postscript, the other Shout Factory discs I own are very well done. Don't take my opinion on this disc as a blanket dismissal of the entire company. Also, if you read any other reviews of this disc and they claim no one would put the money into a decent release of this film, don't believe it. There's an excellent legit R2 version of this, and has been for years. This disc makes Retromedia's equally bogus Gamera discs look Criterion quality by comparison.)

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Now playing: Jimmy McGriff & Groove Holmes - Out Of Nowhere
via FoxyTunes)

Gamera and Godzilla Get the Munchies

Man, I'm hungry. I could go for a snack.

Yeah, me too.

Ooh! Chip Star!

!!!

"Happy Birthday Mr. President..."

Thank you for Smorking

Smorking OK after a long day like we had. Lots of traveling, more rain, less English.


To continue my last post, here's the bullet train. Ours was on the right. This thing really moves, and it's smooth as you can imagine. It didn't feel like the trip took any time at all, when in fact it took nearly three hours.


As you can see, Godzilla and Gamera are busy checking out the scenery. When we weren't in a tunnel, there was some nice country side to look at. Most of it was going by too fast to get any worthwhile pictures of, but that didn't stop me from trying. In fact, I did catch this interesting shot.


Seems someone forgot to climb in the luggage and had to make it to Kyoto on his own.

So, here we are in Kyoto. It's a lot less English friendly than Tokyo, but we're still getting around ok. Tokyo is super modern, but Kyoto is a bit more on the old side. It looks more like the stereotypical Asian city you think of with wooden buildings, narrow streets and electricity wires running everywhere.



The hotel also has the most complicated toilet I've ever seen.



The bottom thing flips down to reveal about half a dozen buttons that do things I just don't understand. All I want to do is just do my business and leave, but apparently the Japanese have elivated that to an art.

Anyway, we walked around a bit. A long bit, as it was. Ate lunch at a Korean place where there were no English menus and I haven't the foggiest idea what either of us ate (she had a soup of some kind, I had fried rice something. Both were very good, actually.)

After lunch, we walked around some more. Then the streets started filling. I think I mentioned this festival going on? Well, the people were coming in droves and pretty soon, it was like a wall of people moving through. Kristen tired earlier than I did, which is a strange thing as it's usually the other way around.

Took a subway, took a cab, got back, ate dinner and here we are. I got more to tell, we went to a Namco Wonderland arcade, ifor instance, but it's going to have to wait. I'm about falling asleep as I type this, so until next time...

Gonna make you Pocari Sweat 'till You Bleed

Mmmmm...sweaty. I'm somewhat relieved to report the famous Pocari Sweat does not taste like squeezed Asian man, but tastes kind of like lemon lime Gatorade.

Today was fairly low key. We'd planned on hunkering down for the typhoon, but it missed us. Regardless, we didn't do a lot today. A trip to the hotel spa was the big event. However, tomorrow we are going on to Kyoto for a few days, so we had to buy train tickets today. Looking forward to traveling on the bullet train.

Here's a couple of snaps from the train station near the Conrad:





CHOO-CHOO!!!! Here comes the train!!!



Saw this weird little bag in the train station. The family was coming back from Tokyo Disneyland. Seriously.



Here's another quirky piece of Engrish from the convenience store where we bought the beverages I showed you earlier. Note: this store was playing Guru when we were in there last, so I'll forgive them their weird slogans.



As we're walking back from our little venture, I noticed a rack of DVDs in front of a newsstand. A closer inspection revealed I'd stumbled onto the Japanese equivalent of the dollar store DVDs I'd been so enamored with a while ago. But, rather than a bunch of obscure Japanese movies I'd never heard of (which I really would have preferred), I found the selection to be rather familiar.



The top row there is all the classic Charlie Chaplin films. The second, every Disney feature up to Dumbo.



The racks were filled with pretty much every important US film up to about 1950. The only omission I found was Wizard of Oz, but you name it, you could find nearly anything else. (Note 500 yen is a little more than $4 US.)

Another little book store, another rack of DVDs. This one had a little more color anyway.



Who the heck is Mike Mizno? And what's he got to do with pirated DVDs of US films?



Really? I know nothing about Japanese copyright, but wow.



Is this revenge for all the pirated US Gamera and Street Fighter discs? Totally weird and maybe I'll bite the bullet on a disc or two just to see what the deal is.

Speaking of Gamera, ho-boy, I shouldn't have left him and Godzilla alone in the room because this is what I walked in on:



Hey you guys. What are you up to?



GODZILLA! You put that little tree thing down, right this instance!



*sigh* That wasn't what I meant.

Jet Jaguar was busy running up a bill with the adult pay per view, but I won't bore you with pictures of that. (Really ugly, trust me.)

Well, that's all I got for today. Bed is calling so according to the pink duck thing, this blog is officially closed for the night.

Behind the Brown Door

Konichiwa! There's some of that fine Mary Tyler Moore font I promised you. Yeah, that's our door. We didn't see much of the room today as we spent most of the day getting rained on in Akihabara. Thanks weather. Anyway, two geeks in the electric capitol of the world were probably need more than a little rain to slow us down.

There's Kristen just after we got of the train. You can start to see a little of the insanity in the back ground. The only way I can describe it is if you've seen Blade Runner, it's pretty much like that, without the artificial animal shops.

That was just a random street corner. Nothing really special, but just a typical image from the street. We hit it at about 10:30 and didn't leave until 6. Stores were packed solid with people and electronics. Of course, everywhere I went, I was wishing I'd paid a little more attention in those ten hours of Japanese I took at IUPUI as it is a little tough to look for the stuff I was really after (such as videogames.)

Konchiwa Sanders-san! Am I the only one who thinks some Japanese men start looking like Colonel Sanders as they age? Kind of like US guys looking like Kenny Rogers. Hmm...they both had chicken restaurants. Coincidence?

So most of the stores don't allow photographs, ironically enough. I had to sneak a few, like here, look who is thinking differently:

Sadly he wasn't for sale. (Gamera is humping an old iMac, in case you couldn't tell.)

One of the fun things I dig even at home are capsule machines. In Japan, they really know how to do them right.


Kristen is getting ready to drop some yen in the wall of machines we found in one store.


This Namco machine was my favorite. We tried in vain to collect 'em all. Collect what? you ask:

Alright, you can't really tell from the picture, but they're keychain fobs that make noise when you press the button. So the Pac-Man one does the wacka-wacka thing, Dig Dug makes the pumping sound, etc. I still need a Xevious...grrr.

That same store had tons of toys and I picked up a few:

Look! It's Gamera, Jet Jaguar and Godzilla in his '68 comeback flavor! w00t! I was wishing I was more into Ultraman, because this store had so much Ultraman crap, I just wanted to start buying stuff even though I had know idea what it was.

I won't bore you with everything we bought, but here's a highlight:

This is the Space Invaders Anniversary set for PS2. I'd seen this before, but become it came out so long ago, it was off my radar. You get a PS2 game with all the Space Invaders games and this cool little controller thing:


You stick a dual shock in there and play it like an old Space Invaders cabinet. Totally silly, but I had to have it and got it cheap used (750 yen!)

As you can see, I'm putting it to use immediately to broker a peace accord between Gamera and Godzilla. Rather than trashing Tokyo, they're settling their differences over a game of Space Invaders. Jet Jaguar has a quarter up, though no one really takes him seriously.

Speaking of Gamera...should I feel shame for dropping some serious coin on the first four Gamera movies? Why do I love them so? Why are the crummy pan & scan "public domain" versions we have at home not good enough? Further more, why am I now determined to track down the remaining three discs I need to finish this set. *sigh*



Here's my CD haul for today. I love Japanese reissues, as they tend to do them right. The mini-LP covers are the bomb and I'm noticing what started out as just a jazz thing is moving to all kinds of music as well. However, it's just the jazz I'm after. Highlights of this include Dave Pike and Les De Merle discs I've never seen and, though it pains me to rebuy anything, I finally have another copy of 1969Miles, which is my favorite Miles CD ever. I'm not letting this one out of my sight, as my first copy walked. Kristen bought some good CDs too but I'm sure she'll talk about that over on her blog.

Rob G. out. I got a monster game night to referee.

Free Movie: War of the Monsters

Thanks to my buddy at WTF-films, here's something kind of neat for you. It's the AIP-TV dub of Gamera vs. Baraugon in widescreen! Enjoy! (And take a shot each time they mispronounce Gamera.)

Stomp Tokyo

Some old thoughts on some of my favorite kaiju.


Can I just mention how much I love kaiju movies? I think over the last few weeks, I've seen Tokyo demolished at least 30 or 40 times by Godzilla, Gappa, Gamera, Rodan, Mothra, Megalon, etc. The movies are silly, silly and even stupid, yet I can't get enough of them.

Most of these movies have a similar plot. It goes something like this: a bunch of reporters and scientists are doing stuff. Somehow, something that group of people does ends up requiring a giant monster to defend or destroy Japan. Other monsters show up, often times in a clip recycled from a previous movie, and there's a fight leading up to the title fight (usually referenced in the name of the film.) A young boy, sometimes joined by a Causasian pal, shows up in Dasy Dukes, is granted unrestriced access to the Japanese military and saves the day. The ending is always ambiguous, leaving the viewer unsure if the monsters are dead or not.

There's generally two lines the films follow; a more serious tone where the starring creature is the heavy (the original Godzilla, for instance) or lighter, kiddie fair (as in Gamera, "friend to all children.") The rabid fans seem to prefer the more serious films, based on the fan sites I've seen out there. Personally, I prefer the more childish films as they're always weird, crazy psychedelic and just more fun.

I want to talk about a couple of films that don't follow this formula to the letter and are two of the more psychedelic examples of giant monster movies. Purists don't care much for either of these, but they're two of my favorites in the genre.

The first film I want to talk about is misleadingly called "Godzilla's Revenge." It's probably the most kid oriented of all the Godzilla films, with a story that's actually about the young boy rather than having him solve all the problems. The main story concerns the boy Ichiro being bullied and left home alone as a latch key kid. Hey, that's something I can relate to, well, could relate to anyway.

Anyway, there's an eccentric inventor guy down the hall who looks in on the boy and there's also a subplot about bank robbers on the run. So, where's the monsters? Well, Ichiro learns courage from dreaming trips to Monster Island and hanging out with Godzilla's son Minilla and watching essentially a clips reel of some of Godzilla's greatest fights. Minilla also learns courage and stands up to his nemesis, Gabara.

There's a lot of trippy stuff in this flick. The first trip to Monster Island is borderline fever dream. Minilla, who looks like someone tried to make a S'more out of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man, talks and has a voice like Barney to boot! (He also seems to share Jet Jaguar's ability to change his size as he's shorter than Ichiro yet he comes up to Godzilla's armpits.)

The plot is very silly and there's a lot of Home Alone type antics when Ichiro meets the bank robbers. The film also takes a lot of flack for recycling most of it's fights from older Godzilla flix, though I think it kind of works as a greatest hits film.

So, what's good about this movie? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's the fact that I remember digging this one as a kid. It's different in that it deviates from my monster movie archetype up there. There's no military, the inventor is as close as we come to a scientist and the reporters only come in at the end when the robbers are caught. Hell, Tokyo doesn't even get leveled in this one!

I guess it's just that the story is kind of sweet and it makes no bones about being something other than a kid's movie. Yeah, they recycled a lot, but they also put effort into the new bits. Maybe it's the scene where Godzilla is trying to teach Minilla to breathe fire. Still cracks me up, cheesy as it is.

My second one is another overtly kiddie one, Attack of the Monsters. AOM will be better known to MST3K fans (and VHS renters) as Gamera vs. Gurion. More on that later.

What you've got here is two boys who hop a ride in a UFO which landed in a field. The UFO zips them to Terra, Earth's sister planet which somehow has never been discovered. There the boys meet two hot Japanese...err...Terra women who explain to them that they are the last people on Terra as it been attacked by Gyaos. Their last line of defence is Guillon who kind of looks like a pocket knive with legs.

The Terra women seem real nice, but actually they want to eat the boys brains and then return to Earth and conquer it. I'm not sure why someone would send an empty space ship to Earth, hoping to lure two boys into it for lunch, but what do I know? Well, of course, Gamera is having none of that and swoops in to save the day. Apparently Gamera can hear across space, breathe with no oxygen and spot weld a UFO that was cut in half. It's pretty amazing stuff.

I like this movie a lot because it's just over the top. At the time this was made, Daiei was starting to feel the hurt financially and it shows a bit in this movie. The models just don't look as good as they used to (check the scene where Gamera does his little gymnastics stunt. Cheepnis, indeed!) The fight scenes are pretty cool though. The inside of the spaceship and the Terra base are pretty dang groovy though.

It's almost like to make up for the budget, or lack there of, they delivered a crazy story line. I mean, little in this movie makes sence. But that's part of the fun, I think. Yeah, it's stupid, but it's a fun, over the top stupid with some serious heart.

Both of these movies are pretty easy to find, though the Region 1 discs currently avalible are pathetic. Both films were originally shot in a wide aspect ratio but all R1 DVDs currently avaliable are Pan and Scan. There's a Widescreen "Godzilla's Revenge from 1998 which isn't too hard to find though.

As for "Attack of the Monsters", this film has a strange history in the US. Like most of the Gamera films, this was picked up by American International Pictures to pad out their TV Syndication packages. The films were dubbed, cropped, edited and sent out to TV. I think only the first Gamera film (released here as "Gammera the Invincible") actually had a theatrical run.

In the 80s, the films were picked up by Sandy Frank Enterprises for TV and home video. Rather than using AIP's prints, they went back to the Japanese versions of the films, redubbed them, cropped them, gave them the international titles and put them out there. These are the versions Joel and the bots riffed on in seasons 0 and 3 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. These are the versions of this series I remember growing up watching.

(Incidentally, the Sandy Frank dubbing is very poorly done. AIP hired the same studio that did Speed Racer and the results are very good, as far as these things go. Sandy Frank's version has the Terra ladies speaking like they're from Georgia and Akio is obsessed with traffic accidents. Both versoions seem to confuse planets with stars though. Heh.)

Apparently the AIP versions of these films have gone public domain in the states now which means there are more versions of these films on DVD than you can count. If you wish to recreate the expirence of watching one of these films when they were broadcast on UHF stations in the 70s, you're in luck as all these discs I've seen are taken from fuzzy, scratchy 16mm TV syndication prints. Though I'd love to see better discs, I think for these films the expirence is almost enhanced by these crappy looking prints as that's how most of us saw these films.

So, there's two giant monster flicks I don't think get any respect. They're both cheesy and juvenile, but I love them both.