David Vining's Blog, page 54

Godzilla Raids Again

Ishiro Honda was off making Lovetide (a film that I cannot track down) when Godzilla became such a smash hit in Japan, leading Toho Studios to rely on the talents of Motoyoshi Oda (as well as returning special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya) to execute the quick and dirty sequel to their unexpected success. Gone are the pretentions of any of this silly kaiju action meaning anything, replaced by basic, largely unremarkable character work in between monster action. The lowered ambitions work ...

Godzilla

Just for the record, yes, this is the original Japanese version, and no, I still don’t like it. From a filmmaking perspective, I see a lot to like in Ishiro Honda’s importantly formative kaiju movie, but from a storytelling perspective, I just cannot get involved. It seems to be built like a procedural in the vein of Fritz Lang‘s M, but it’s silly randomness in pursuit of a solution to a problem helped none at all by the fact that there’s arguably no main character. There are small snippets ...

Godzilla, The Showa Era, A Statement of Purpose

So, as one might be able to easily discern, I decided to take up the films of Ishiro Honda, most famous for being the father of the kaiju Godzilla. Well, looking ahead, he directed more just under half of the Showa Era of Godzilla films, and there seemed to be no reason to limit myself to just his output from that series.

So, this is just a quick note that I’ll also be doing the eight Godzilla films that he didn’t direct between the first film in 1954 and the end of the Showa era in 1975...

Farewell Rabaul

This is obviously meant as a companion piece of Eagle of the Pacific. Where the earlier film told the story of the Pacific War from the Japanese and leadership perspective, Farewell Rabaul tells the story of the same theater of war from the grunt perspective. Well, not quite grunt. More like lower officers, the pilots of the Imperial Navy. More than the earlier film, though, Farewell Rabaul is the story of a defeated people, a nation that lost a massive war so totally that there’s no denying...

Joker 2: Trailer

So, I have mixed feelings about this, much as I had mixed feelings about the first movie in this ersatz series.

First, I love the idea of big budget things going in weird directions. Making Joker 2 (fine, Joker Folie a Deux) into a musical seems like an inspired choice. Of course, being in opposition to “fakery” in films, it seems like Todd Phillips is going to have it all be in the heads of the characters instead of going the Oliver! route and just having it happen. Also, consider...

Eagle of the Pacific

I wonder if the portrayal of Admiral Yamamoto in Ishiro Honda’s Eagle of the Pacific represents an ideal for the Japanese dealing with their country’s legacy after WWII. Honda makes a hagiographic portrait of the man in the years leading up to the outbreak of war with America, the debates about the Tripartite Pact, and the two major engagements that defined Yamamoto, Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway, through to his death by American pilots. It’s almost as much a history lesson as it is ...

The Skin of the South

Ishiro Honda’s second feature film is a marked step down from his rather accomplished melodrama and freshman picture, The Blue Pearl. Also taking place in a remote corner of rural Japan, The Skin of the South, tries a similar balance between local flavor, concerns, and romance, but fumbles the last part rather starkly. Really the story of a Cassandra trying to get the people of a small community to see the future that only he can see, it suddenly becomes an overbusy romance for a solid third...

The Blue Pearl

Ishiro Honda followed the typical route of a Japanese director in being an assistant director for several years before receiving his first assignment. Most notably, he did second unit work on Akira Kurosawa‘s Stray Dog before Toho gave him his first chief directing job on The Blue Pearl, a small melodramatic love triangle given remarkable quality through its specific focus on a small slice of rural Japanese life and its traditions, helped in no small part by Honda’s already well-practiced an...

Ishiro Honda: A Statement of Purpose

So, a few months ago, I was looking ahead at my schedule and wondering where I could go next. I pondered and realized that I hadn’t done a Japanese filmmaker in some time. So, I pulled up a list of famous (deceased) Japanese filmmakers, and Honda’s name jumped out. I didn’t immediately connect it with anything, but I just knew that I had to look further.

Well, of course, he’s the father of Godzilla. That pushed me off of him for a minute, to be honest. I don’t really like the Godzilla fil...

George A. Romero: The Definitive Ranking

Well, Romero’s highs were much higher than Wes Craven‘s, but Romero’s lows were almost as low.

I appreciated him far more in his early years when he was still trying to be more than just a horror director, but he ultimately settled into it while even then still struggling to get projects off the ground. Maybe if he had decided to move to Hollywood permanently instead of hanging out in Pittsburgh’s outer areas.

The greater tragedy of his career was how he became so intimately tied to zo...