A three hour tour. A three hour tour.

I haven't watched a Ray Harryhaussen movie in...um...well, quite some time. Last summer I guess. It feels like it's been way too long!

I found a used copy of Jules Verne's 1874 novel, Mysterious Island at, surprisingly enough, a used book store near my apartment. I looked at it and thought to myself, 'You know what be fun, self?'

'No, self, what might be fun?'

'It might be pretty flippin sweet if we read this book, and watch the movie and then write about it!'

'Ok, sure, self. I could see how at least part of that might be fun.'

So, it was decided...I would read the book and watch the movie, then write all about it. Except, there was one problem. The book is god-awful boring. I read pretty fast most of the time. When I fly, I just devour books. Well, after 3 flights, I was barely 100 pages into the novel, about a fifth of the way through it! I'm sure it's a wonderful book, I don't know if it's just dated, or if it's just poorly translated, but I just can't get into it. So, I have no idea how different it is from the movie.

Mysterious Island is essentially a sequel to Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Of course, we don't know that at the outset. We know only that this band of soldiers has escaped a Confederate prison in the waning days of the American Civil War via hot air balloon. They find themselves caught in a wind that inexplicably is blowing west...eventually taking them from South Carolina to the South Pacific.

Stuck on this island they must fend for themselves. And by fend for themselves, I mean find food and fight off giant crabs. That's how it goes, right? There's something strange though, they seem to have a mysterious benefactor. Each time they're in over their heads, some needed assistance appears. It's quite...mysterious.

Yeah, I just said that. It was too good a pun to pass up.

Verne's story is as much an adventure on a lost island as a survival guide. The escapees are all incredibly capable men, able to do anything that might need to be done, including figuring out their latitude and longitude without any tools. They're quite impressive. They're the typical men's men. The kind of men they make Burger King commercials about.

Our intrepid islanders in the film are...not as explicitly capable. They're able to survive the way they need to, but they're not the experts that Verne created. The movie, however, does not suffer from the pacing problems that the book does. It may actually have to opposite problem, it moves too quickly, especially in getting everyone to the island. There isn't much of a setup for the characters. You don't learn much about them and what brought them all together.

Unfortunatley, that's all the comparison that I'm qualified to do. See, after 100 pages...nothing has happened. No, that's not true. Things have happened. They escape prison and get to the island. They find shelter, make fire and learn what they can eat. They didn't fight anything though. No pirates, no monsters. At least not yet. I hear that things like that might happen. They did in the movie. And the movie was certainly a good adventure.

Monster Movie Poster Monday

And I'm you're back from outer space I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face I should have changed my stupid lock I should have made you leave your key if I had known for just one second you'd be back to bother me

Ok, so I didn't go to 'outer space' or even leave the state of Michigan over the weekend. Nothing cool like that at all. All I did was hang out downtown, ride my bike, drive with the top down and read a couple books. Actually, now that I think about it...it was a pretty cool weekend. Sure, I didn't see a bald eagle flying around like some people I know, but I did get a good view of the back of George Clinton's drummer's head. And, you know, that's good enough for me.

This week's poster is from 1964's First Men in the Moon. An adaptation of the HG Wells novel of the same name (and not the first adaptation either, for that you'd have to go back to 1919...I don't think that it had much of a poster for me to post though). And, of course, Dynamation can only mean one thing, effects by Ray Harryhausen.

Monster Movie Poster Monday

Almost getting to the end of the stuff I bought at the comic con.


Not quite as cool as the sketch, but still pretty awesome.

Monster Movie Poster Monday

Ok, I'll admit, it's not a poster. But, it's a holiday today and that means that...well, I take most days off around here, but I'm going to post something cool. I picked this up at the comic con I mentioned last week. It's a sketch from 20 Million Miles to Earth.



See, that's friggin sweet.

Monster Movie Poster Monday

I went to the Motor City Comic Con on Saturday. It's the Detroit attempt to...I don't know, it's really pretty lame and it gets worse every year. It's a shame, too. It used to be fun. Oh well. While I was there though, I did find some small replicas of posters for a few Ray Harryhausen movies. They were 8 1/2" X 11" photopaper prints that look pretty cool in a frame on my wall.

Among them was this poster for the 1955 film, It Came From Beneath the Sea. This, of course, is the one about the giant octopus attacking San Francisco. It seems like a good poster for this week since I just got back from SF last Friday.

science fiction double feature

I know. I've not been around much. Sorry. I've been out of town and just working too much? Maybe. Who knows. Regardless, the next few weeks don't really look like they'll be much more conducive to blogging, but I will try to pop in here when I can.

I've talked about the Detroit Film Theatre a few times. I like the place. It's really one of my 3 favorite places to watch a movie (the other two being my living room and my friend's living room). Well, this year they're doing a summer season for the first time. Now, they'll still be showing classy pictures, but, more importantly they're doing double features on Saturdays. 1 Harryhausen movie and 1 Toho movie. Including a couple of my favorites, Gojira and Jason and the Argonauts. The only thing better would have been a Beast From 20,000 Fathoms/Gojira double feature. THAT would be awesome. Giant stop motion monsters and men in rubber monster suits. Yeah. Exactly. I know what I'll be doing when I'm in town this summer. Check it out.

SON OF GODZILLA & 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH
Saturday, June 16, 2007 2:00 PM
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JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS & BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE
Saturday, June 23, 2007 2:00 PM
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EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS & MOTHRA
Saturday, June 30, 2007 2:00 PM
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THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND & GODZILLA VS. MEGAGUIRUS
Saturday, July 07, 2007 2:00 PM
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IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA & GODZILLA
Saturday, July 14, 2007 2:00 PM
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7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD & GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER
Saturday, July 21, 2007 2:00 PM
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FIRST MEN IN THE MOON & GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH
Saturday, July 28, 2007 2:00 PM

Hell yeah. Hell to the yeah.

Giant Monsters All Out Attack Week Day 2: The Valley of Gwangi

<- See that. The tag line. Cowboys, battling monsters. Yeah. Totally. I'm in. A million times, I'm in for this. The Valley of Gwangi is a movie that was originally conceived by Willis O'Brien, who did the stop motion effects for King Kong in 1942. It took almost 40 years for Ray Harryhausen to make the movie himself.

We start off with something in a sack being stolen from the Forbidden Valley and a blind gypsy woman warning of the curse of Gwangi. "He who takes from Gwangi the evil one is cursed." The sack stealer is noticeably unimpressed. Heh, I called him a sack stealer.

Next, we're in a Mexican town somewhere in Mexico. There's a parade. And a rodeo at the arena. Tuck wants to go, but the little local boy wants Tuck's money. After some clever banter, Tuck gives Lope some money for a horse and a guide to the arena where the rodeo is. You know, rodeo. As in

Well it's bulls and blood
It's dust and mud
It's the roar of a Sunday crowd
It's the white in his knuckles
The gold in the buckle
He'll win the next go 'round
It's boots and chaps
It's cowboy hats
It's spurs and latigo
It's the ropes and the reins
And the joy and the pain
And they call the thing rodeo*

Rodeo. This particular one is run by a Ms. TJ Breckenridge who likes to swim with horses in pools ringed by fire. Tuck and TJ used to be something of an item. But then Tuck left. And now he's back. Not to rekindle some flame, but to try to buy TJ's diving horse Omar.

TJ doesn't want to sell out though. So she tells Tuck to fuck off. Tuck proceeds to fuck off and meets a Professor while wandering the desert with his little friend Lope. The professor shows him fossils of a small prehistoric "dawn horse".

Tuck goes back to town with Lope where TJ finally starts being friendlier. She shows him the mini horse that Carlos the Sack Stealer found. The plan is that the tiny horse will dance on the back of the big hose and we will all be rich! Rich I say! Tuck, in his giddiness over how sweet ass this tiny horse is decides to show the professor. The professor though wants to talk to the gypsies about where it came from. And, being the noble scientist that he is, he tells the gypsies where the tiny horse is so that they can steal it back and maybe lead him to the forbidden valley from whence it came.

So, the gypsies steal back the tiny horse. In fact, it's the tiniest gypsy who gets to break in and retrieve it. Fitting, in a way. And, since no one likes Tuck, it's easy for everyone to imagine that he was responsible. Tuck, in reality, is chasing after the thieves to try to retrieve the horse for TJ because, well, he loves her. And love makes you do funny things sometimes. Like chase after gypsies who stole a little horse. Chase them all the way to a forbidden valley in the hopes of finding MORE little horses because they're just so gosh darned cute.

Once inside the valley, they are attacked by a pterodactyl who tries to fly off with Lope. Luckily Lope is too damned heavy or something because the damn thing lands abruptly. Someone then jumps at the chance to break the poor thing's neck. Poor thing.

They find other creatures in the valley as well. Three different dinosaurs in fact. Two of them get killed by the third, Gwangi. Gwangi is lord of this realm. Gwangi is about the size of an elephant. And Gwangi seems displeased with the people in his valley. The group however sees dollar signs and manages to capture Gwangi to take back for their show.

Back in the arena, the gypsy midget undoes the bolts on Gwangi's cage. Gwangi kills the poor bastard as a thank you and then kills an elephant. Hell of a show. Well worth the price of admission to me, but the spectators in the crowd collectively shit themselves and run out of the arena.

While Tuck and the gang try to fight Gwangi, everyone retreats to the church for the final showdown with Gwangi. Once Tuck is in the church, however, everyone flees the church figuring that it will be better if Tuck handles that final showdown thing himself. Luckily Tuck is one resourceful dude and manages to set the church on fire, killing Gwangi.

Then, the townsfolk hang Tuck and the gang for bringing the beast to town and destroying their church and city. Or at least that's what SHOULD have happened. I mean, the church was CONNECTED to other buildings. The fire will SPREAD. Gwangi didn't destroy the town, the rodeo people did! No, instead we go out with Lope being all emo and shit. Crying to teach us that we should respect all life, or that we should let sleeping prehistoric beasts lie in their forbidden valleys. I don't know. Why else do kids cry?

This is, without a doubt, the BEST cowboys versus dinosaurs movie that I have ever seen in the history of ever! Harryhausen's effects look great. The story, for as cheesy as it sounds today, is great. The acting is good. It was such a great movie that I'm giving it 8 circles of mountains, jagged peaks and steep cliffs that could be the perfect barrier against man and the elements to contain a land of the lost without any sleestacks out of 10.


*Holy shit...did I really use lyrics from a Garth Brooks song?

This is such a strange feeling, I feel as though I'm leaving a world of untold tomorrows for a world of countless yesterdays

There's a bit of math that goes into my movie watching. For example, Giant Monster + Ray Harryhausen > Sleep. Luckily, my movie watching has yet to involve any algebra.

I went on a mission yesterday. I wanted to buy a movie. Actually, I wanted to buy a movie on Saturday, but nobody fucking had it. I, however, remembered seeing it at the Best Buy by work. So, after work, I went to buy my movie. It was a two-pack kind of thing. 2 movies on one disc. The one I wanted was The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, the other movie? Them! Pretty cool, huh? Why they were under "S" I'll never know for sure, but, whatever, I got my movie.

The plan from there was to go home and watch it. Which I kind of accomplished. I did go home, and I did, eventually, watch it. I started off though, by watching one of the special features...Harryhausen & Bradbury: An Unfathomable Friendship. Basically, it's a little sit down with the two of them while they talk, largely, about the movie. It feels like there was more though, and that editing robbed us of something much bigger. I followed that up by watching the trailers included on the disc, not just for the movie itself...




The Black Scorpion



And, The Valley of Gwangi



Sorry, I just wanted to share...

Finally, I got down to business and watched the movie. It begins on Hoth with Operation: Experiment, a nuclear test. Han and Luke are very excited about the nuclear testing and when they go out to get readings, Luke falls into a crevice where he sees a wampa. Meanwhile, Han tries to find and rescue him. Upon finding Luke, Han also sees the wampa. He sets off a flare so that Wedge can find him. Luke, however, is lost forever.

Okay, that's not exactly right. Sorry. Replace the wampa with a Rhedosaurus. replace Wedge with someone less interesting and replace the snow speeder with something on treads. And, replace the nuclear test with a probe droid. They're eerily similar though. Really.

Okay, it was really Tom Nesbitt who survived. The professor of unknown origin. The professor with the unexplained but vaguely foreign accent. And, when the starts talking about seeing a monster, everyone goes all "Tom! You so crazy!" on him. Tom takes his coat and his crazy to go see Dr Thurgood Elson, the world's foremost paleontologist. Dr Elson also thinks that Nesbitt is nutso, but he listens anyways. Elson's assistant, Lee, however, thinks Tom is mostly right in the head. So, she brings over some drawings of dinosaurs and Nesbitt finds one that looks like his monster!

The quest for proof has begun. Nesbitt journeys to that mythical land to north, Canada, to find a sailor who also saw the beast. The sailor agrees to fly to New York with Nesbitt to serve as a glorified extra for 5 minutes and then disappear. We now have 2 men pointing at the same picture, so Elson decides that it is time to call the Army. The Army says "What the fuck do you want me to do? Call the Coast Guard?" and Elson says "Yeah, mother fucker, there's a dinosaur and your lighthouses may be at risk!"

Saddly, the lighthouse dies.

Trick or Treat!

This means that the monster is headed for New York! And when he arrives, he does what all monsters do upon finding themselves in a modern city...he goes on a rampage! Cars are crushed and buildings are destroyed.

Shortcut!

The monster goes off to ride the roller coaster, but is apparently deemed to not by "this tall" and destroyed the mechanical beast. This, of course pisses off all of the patrons and Nesbitt decides that the only way to kill it is to use a radioactive isotope (patent pending) to melt his insides. And it does. And the beast dies. The End.

Sweet

The Beast is a noteworthy movie for what it inspired. It was really the catalyst for countless atomic monster movies in the 50's. It wasn't the first giant monster movie, but it was one of the earliest successful atomic monster movies. Not to mention, this is the movie that inspired Gojira. And while there are some great similarities between The Beast and Gojira is has to be noted that it has much more in common with the American Godzilla. In fact, Godzilla is more of a remake of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms than anything to do with Toho's Godzilla franchise.

The effects are classic Harryhausen, and truth be told, still look pretty good. There is a scene towards the end where the beast picks up a car in it's mouth and it's an unbelievable combination of miniatures, stop motion, and real time camera work. Even the scene where the beast takes a cop in it's mouth in a close up no less looks good.

I liked this movie. I knew I would. I like giant monsters. And I really like movies about them. 8 lighthouses tumbling into the sea out of 10.