3nights3movies

[jere7my]

[Minor spoilers for all three movies below, in the course of mini-reviews.]

1. Godzilla: Final Wars. Oh, yes yes. Someone had some ideas. Let us reunite Godzilla with enemies we've not seen in thirty years: Hedorah (the Smog Monster). King Caesar. Rodan. Minilla (the smoke-ring-blowing mini-Godzilla). The sea monster. The giant spider and the mantis we last saw on Monster Island. Fifteen in all. Let us bring the Japanese David Bowie to earth in the form of a campy alien commander named X, and let us dress him as Neo. Let us invite the CGI Godzilla from the Matthew Broderick movie, so the real Godzilla can kick its ass into the Sydney Opera House. And, finally, let us add kamikaze flaming Mothra. Domo, Toho. I might have liked to see Godzilla's enemies treated with a little more respect—he's King of the Monsters, yes, but does that mean he can dispatch a dozen bad guys in quick succession? Hedorah alone was almost a match for him; should Godzilla not be part of a team? But it was brilliantly fun. Watch for a very brief nod to Gamera.


2. Palindromes. I rented this chiefly because ceciliaregent has a credit, but was impressed by it in ways that had nothing to do with costuming. It is, structurally and intentionally, a comedy, but the laugh lines are wrapped in such raw emotion that it's almost never funny—it's like asking an utterly distraught friend what's wrong, and hearing back that she's just lost her baby to a pack of rampaging gibbons. It's comic, but your laugh chokes in your throat. This is not a problem with the movie; it's just something I had to come to grips with before I could understand it.
   
   The film's central conceit is the casting of the protagonist—or, rather, the castings, as she is played by eight people of various ages, genders, and colors. In each chapter in Aviva's journey, she presents a different face to the world, and our reaction to her changes accordingly. When she is first alone in the world, her body is small, her eyes large and dark. When she is the outsider in an adoptive family, her body reflects that—she becomes the proverbial elephant in the room. But something behind the skin never changes, and that ties into the film's title. Forward and back, she is unchanged. You see.
   
   The movie deals unapologetically and relentlessly with issues of abortion and statutory rape, so be warned. But it is, also, remarkably tender.
   
   And, okay, sometimes it's funny. But you'll hate yourself for laughing.


3. Mirrormask. Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, and Henson Associates have given us a Labyrinth for the new millennium. I don't need to sing its praises to this crowd, obviously. But it is at last out on DVD, and if you didn't live in one of the dozen cities it screened in you've now got a chance to see it. I could quibble about some of the visual design choices (it is cluttered and unclear, sometimes), but I was too swept away—it made me want to draw, but I expect that is a common reaction. I was going to complain about how two-dimensional so much of the design seemed, until I realized that that was entirely the point. It's a mosaic, collaged world, so even the clutter makes good sense.
   
   I wonder, a bit, if this is Neil's attempt to come to terms with the twin faces, the dark and the light, that a teenage daughter offers her parents—when she's tearing her clothes and burning pictures in her room and making out with unsuitable boys, perhaps something deeper is going on, hm? (And perhaps he understands that having Neil Gaiman for a father is, unfairly, a bit like growing up in the circus.)
   
   This teenage girl's journey makes an interesting double-bill with Palindromes, come to think of it, though I probably wouldn't recommend that. And the two together bring new insight to the troubled story of Anguiras, who curls into a spiky ball not to hurt Godzilla, but to...okay, maybe not.

Comments

[sonatanator.livejournal.com]

I absolutely *hated* Palindromes, and I usually love Solondz as a director. In part because he plays up the campy and absurd, which makes it dishonest, and in part because Aviva is so passive, she sceased being interesting to me. It felt like slobbering rather than biting. That said, I do recommend any of his other movies very very highly.

[creed-of-hubris.livejournal.com]

The original Hedorah movie was SOOOOO TERRRRIBLLLE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[rigel.livejournal.com]

I <3 Mirrormask.

Incidentally, job question on a previous post. =)