Monday, January 21, 2008

Korea is the New Japan


It's hard to recapture the innocent stupidity of Toho Studios, home of the Godzilla movies. Ed Wood, William Castle, Roger Corman - those guys could bring it. But Hollywood is too cynical, too bloated, too drugged by the promise of the Big Hit to pull it off (anyone remember that vile "Godzilla" remake about 10 years ago?).

Korea, however, may be a new contender.

Saw the delightfully incomprehensible "D-Wars" this weekend. Like the original Godzilla, it's actually a Korean-American hybrid, with English-speaking scenes inserted into the movie between the special effects. If you can get past the opening 20 minute slab of exposition, the CGI kicks in and it's pretty fun. Just don't expect it to make any sense whatsoever.

A better movie, though equally goofy, is "The Host." The NY Times actually reviewed it, so I slapped it into the Netflix queue, forgot about it, and it showed up in the mail a few months later. It's about a disgruntled mutant catfish.

Below is a poster from my favorite Toho movie ever (well, this and Destroy All Monsters). I had read about it, but never saw it til the lil Hucky found it at a garage sale half a block away from our house. One of the strangest movies you're ever likely to see. Made in 57, the same year as Godzilla.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I so wanted to see D-Wars in the theater.

The biggest mystery in The Mysterians poster is how she keeps her breasts from falling into her armpits. Here's to anti-gravity.

Anonymous said...

Oh Nancy, you know it's thanks to those Eisenhower-era cast iron bullet bras. Anyway, with a poster like that (dangerous war machines! vast alien worlds! aliens carrying off Our Women!) how can you possibly go wrong?

Lynnea said...

Maybe I should get me one of those cast-iron bras you speak of Irrelephant.

I love campy. I need to check these out. I wish we had Netflix here. boo hoo hoo.

Clowncar said...

It's not anti-gravity, Ms. Pants. Nor is it a bullet-bra, Irr and Mag. Clearly, the culprit is the lift-and-separate cleavage beams coming from the space alien's eyes. Focus, people!