Sort of a difficult one, and sorta not. I haven't had the pleasure to watch too many black & white movies. I could probably count the ones I actually sat all the way through with one hand. I know, bad me. Do be happy, though, I watched CITIZEN KANE, and just recently [as in this morning recently] the 1927 METROPOLIS (which was actually pretty good). But as a true Godzilla fan, I do feel a little bit compelled to vouch for the original radioactive masterpiece, GOJIRA [1954], the brainchild of Tomoyuki Tanaka, as brought to life by director Ishiro Honda (BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE) and SPFX director Eiji Tsuburaya (ULTRAMAN). By now, I'm sure a lot of folks are familiar not only with the big behemoth, but the analogies, metaphors, and themes inherit in the original Godzilla production. If not, I'm not telling yah. All I'm going to say is that GOJIRA is a film that is about a lot more than just "a man in a rubber suit", as the majority of America likes to look at it.I hold no illusion that the monster scenes aren't my favorite, that instead I love the script, nuances, and storyline more. Hell, I grew up watching Godzilla rip Tokyo down through 28 movies. And a giant iguana terrorize New York whilst being nicknamed the Japanese gargantua. I love me some monster destruction scenes. But coming out of a nuclear war, Japanese director Honda wanted to accomplish something more with this movie, and he succeeded in his goal. Without further ado, I'm simply going to recommend that viewers give the original 1954 Japanese masterpiece that is GOJIRA a chance. I know a few of the movies are available through Netflix Streaming, thanks to Classic Media, but I'm not so sure if this one is. Regardless of liking it or not, you can at least say you saw the very first Godzilla movie, the beginning of a particular fandom, and sans Raymond Burr!
No comments:
Post a Comment