Ilya Muromets (a.k.a. The Sword And The Dragon) (1956)
Baby Boomers would only recognize this epic Russian fable from its cut down, American-ized version, released as "The Sword And The Dragon". Recut and amateurishly dubbed, American exploitation distributors scored a few quick bucks off it from kiddie matinees.....
Subsequent generations might have only encountered the film when they watched the 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' gang lampoon it without mercy.
But in our tireless task of curating such oddball, lost films, BQ will now look at the uncut, newly restored version, in the original Russian with subtitles....
The film recounts the saga of the Ilya Muromets, a legendary Russian folk hero. Ilya, a barrel-chested, warrior built like an NFL linebacker, is sort of a mash-up of Paul Bunyon, King Arthur and The Incredible Hulk......
... his enemies won't like him when he's angry. He looks like Santa if Santa was ready to kick ass and chew gum.....but all out of gum.....
And nothing pisses off Ilya more than the hordes of invading Tugars pillaging their way through his beloved 'Rus'. (They're depicted here as leering, sneering Asians, in the same way the Japanese were shown in Hollywood movies during World War 2.......)
You know right away about the depth of Tugar depravity.....their chief rules from a circular podium held up by bent over slaves. He only vacates it to let a seductive dancing girl use it for a performance.....(no doubt a break for the podium slaves, since she probably weighed less than the Tugar.....)
And whenever Tugar The Terrible demands a better view of the proceeding, he orders up a mountain to stand atop.....made up of live human bodies.....badass to the max.....
These evil bastards not only abduct Ilya's beloved wife and toddler son, they seize the boy to raise him as one of their own, eventually sending him off to fight his own real father in a clash of the old and young titans.
On his way to greater glory, Ilya encounters and captures, a 'wind demon', a creepy troll who puffs his cheeks up like balloons in order to expel his own homemade hurricanes.....(much like Trump at one of his rallies.....sound and fury signifying nothing....)
The tugars deploy a three-headed fire snorting dragon, who lays down 'Apocalypse Now' levels of napalm. Ilya keeps his head during all the chaotic battles, which is more than we can say for the mechanical dragon........
Dragon heads roll, and the entire Russian army is put on display, marching across the widescreen landscapes by the thousands. It's a staggering sight to behold and nothing like you'd ever see in even the most expensive Hollywood epics......
(But then again, Cecil B. DeMille had to actually pay his extras for the crowd scenes......but in the Communist Soviet Union, the government lent out their entire armed forces to movies.....that is, whenever the guys weren't busy invading and subduing their European satellite neighbors......)
Overall, the film's quite a proudly nationalistic spectacle to watch, with a pounding symphonic score and sight of mighty Ilya (Boris Andreyev) brushing off assailants like flies before the expected heartfelt re-uniting with his wife and son.
The only thing surprising us here was the remarkably choppy editing...... with the massive sweep of the story undercut by the film's reliance on short scenes, divided up by constant fade-ins and fade-outs......(possibly due to a lot of footage lost over the years, before the film could be fully restored)
So for all BQ cinema addicts who love going off the beaten track for unusual films........look no further.....3 stars (***).
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) Been a lifelong Godzy fan....and always held a warm spot in my heart for Kong, too....
But this thing, fresh off the Warner Brothers 'Monster-verse' assembly line, just wore me out.
Why? The WB moguls, far more reptilian than Godzilla, want us to stay invested in their own monster strewn universe.
Much in the same way Disney-Marvel expected us to swallow every new bloated, repetitive addition to their various 'multi-verses', overcrowded with wisecracking superheroes.
Let's face it. They're boring the crap out of us with these connect-the-dots, paint-by-numbers CG-eyesores.
And this one, with only a small bunch of humans scurrying around from time to time, provides the ear-shattering, interminable monster battles that monster fanboys could only previously have wet dreams about.
Yes, it's almost entirely 2 hours of 'Titan' smackdowns.....some of them held in a vast underground monster park and some held in major cities, to the everlasting grief of their soon-to-be-squashed residents....
A word about this premise.....which really bugs me more than Mothra herself.....
If you swallow this movie's set-up, we've all learned to live with the monsters......even if they decide to hold their celebrity death matches right in the middle of town, crushing thousands of innocent people.
So the citizens of Rome just have to grow a pair and suck it up when Godzilla beats the crap out some other creature amid all the centuries old landmarks. Thankfully, the Godz-inator leaves enough left of the already partially crumbled Colosseum to use it to curl up and take a nap, like a cat who's just gobbled a plate of tuna.
Meanwhile, down in underground world, Kong's going at it with a gang of equally oversized chimps with nasty tempers. Their leader, who's like one of those right-wing 'Planet Of The Apes' warmongers, wields a whip made of his last victim's spine........and even worse, Evil Chimp has his very own pet monster, who spits freezing rays.....
Time for reinforcements. A little deaf girl (the movie's tired, pathetic attempt to humanize the proceedings) calls forth Mothra, who now looks like a mutated mosquito with wings designed for the New Orleans Mardi Gras....or maybe Billy Porter's next red carpet appearance.......
Godzy joins the fray, of course, but only after working out a few anger management issues with Kong.......and ends up duking it out with the Ice Lizard in Rio. And it's nice that WB, in order to maintain a PG-13 rating, conveniently leaves out the dying screams of thousands of unseen city dwellers obliterated during the battle. (We're not supposed to give those collateral damage victims any thought anyway.....WB wants you to gobble your popcorn and say, "Cooool!" at the bloodless, body-free carnage.....)
From over in Godzilla's homeland Japan, Toho studios released 'Godzilla Minus One' to overwhelming worldwide acclaim from both critics and audiences....
Why? It was a superbly done film, filled with drama, genuine emotions and special effects that, for a change, served the story being told. (See BQ's review of 12/23/23)
......and that's everything that this WB pre-chewed sausage lacks. 'Godzilla x Kong' is a mindless, soulless concoction, with nothing on its mind other than pounding you on the head with the spectacle of CGI behemoths pounding away at each other.
Yawn.
I guess 8 year boys of all ages will love it.....to gape at their favorite monsters bashing each other exactly like they bash their action figures at home......yipeeee......
2 stars (**).....and that's only for the shots of of Godzilla curled up for naptime in the Colosseum....BQ's nominee for Most Unintentionally Funny Moment In A Monster Movie......
Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes (2024)
(Sorry to miss posting yesterday.....many books and films to catch up on and tell you all about, plus the eclipse.....plus it was my birthday! But stay with BQ for a whole load of new book and movie reviews...promise...so let's start with this creepy goody...)
As a lifelong fan of sci-fi/horror, I couldn't wait to dive into this one. And it did not disappoint in checking all the boxes for a book or film that blends space exploration with gut wrenching fear of the unknown and mysterious, grisly deaths.
As expected, we're in a bleak future where space exploration is controlled by rapacious corporations for their own monetary benefit. And these greedy oligarchs depend on the overworked, underpaid crews who put their lives on the line travelling to remote barren planets to collect valuable samples......and possibly alien artifacts, if they find any.
RFK JR. denies reports that he heard his late father and late uncle JFK spinning in their graves at the thought of him running for President......."On the contrary", he claimed, "we brought in a medium for a seance and she told me they're so very happy...." Later, the medium revealed that Kennedy took no notice of the last two words of that message from beyond......"....we're dead...
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (2022) ****
Though I devoured sci-fi as a pre-teen (both books and films) I rarely dip into the genre today.......but how could I resist this one?
Kaiju, folks, freakin' Kaiju! (Japanese for 'strange beast' and the quick 'n easy word to use when referring to Godzilla movies that feature all variety of giant creatures stepping on cities and/or kicking each other's giant asses into oblivion.
Author Scalzi takes the concept of Kaiju and fashions a wild and fun adventure that reads like a screenplay for a future summertime blockbuster. (If that actually comes about, you'll find us first in line.....)
In Covid-wracked NYC, Jamie Gray's reduced to a food delivery driver.......ironic, since he previously served as an executive for a rival GrubHub-type app, until forced out by a slimy new boss.
Things pick up for him when he signs up to work for what's described to him as...uh......caring and supervising rare animals......
Imagine his surprise when the job entails being zapped in a lush jungle on an alternate Earth where massive, mammoth creatures (or 'Kaiju') wander about. The creatures, so titanic, they're covered with dangerous man-sized, crab-like parasites, also have built in nuclear reactors in their guts.
So you don't want to be anywhere near a Kaiju if they become so distressed that they literally detonate, nuking themselves and everything else in their vicinity. You know the feeling.....we all get it when we turn on the evening news.......
Jamie's so-called 'heavy lifting' job takes him and a team of scientists on harrowing helicopter missions that circle around the creatures, keeping tabs on the monsters as they mate and spawn and otherwise stomp around. And the book renders all of this with a huge amounts of thrills and humor.
The suspense and potential danger ramp up even more with the arrival of a visiting 'tourist' group of bigwigs and corporate execs.......including the douchebag who fired Jamie.
For everyone (including me) who's reaching exhaustion from the whole 'multiverse' thing, don't let that keep you away from this book. The pace is fast, the action non-stop and the wit makes it a roaring good read. 4 stars (****)
Whom The Gods Wish To Destroy - Part I, Part II (1966-1967) Full admission - by no means are we any authority on Teutonic mythology...
......... so we've no idea how faithful this two part epic is to the legendary sword-clangin' tales of Siegried, Brunhilde, assorted trolls and dragons and everything else that make up the 'Die Nibelungen' saga....
After stumbling upon these films on Tubi, we decided to watch it for two reasons.....
#1. - BQ LOVVVVVVES vintage costume spectacles with battles, swordplay, courageous heroes and fair damsels in dire need of rescuing. With real life, non CGI crowds of warriors hacking whacking away at each other with insane abandon.
#2. Another chance to gaze upon the stunning international starlet Karin Dor (of Hitchcock's "Topaz" and "You Only Live Twice"), appearing here at the very height of wondrous, huge brown-eyed beauty.
How could we NOT watch these films?
Clearly, director Harald Reinl had a Hollywood-sized epic budget to work this. Shot in widescreen and filled to the brim with suitable-for-framing gorgeous scenery, there's a ravishing array of mountains, forests, sunsets and towering castles.
And naturally, we have a hot-blooded cast of characters, brimming with ambition, pride, lust for power and just plain lust.
We wouldn't even try to describe the plot machinations here, which rival any daytime soap opera or Shakespearian tragedy, so we'll keep it simple....
Happy hunk Siegfried kills a big-ass dragon that looks borrowed from a Chinatown parade in San Francisco. Bathing in the dragon's blood to render him invincible, Siggy's new superpowers help him to penetrate the forbidden kindgom of kick-ass warrior Princess Brunhilde (Dor), who's in comatose sleeping beauty mode, waiting to true love's kiss.
After a Siggy-smooch gives her a sexy wake-up call, Brunhilde craves some Sig-inator penetration herself. But the clueless hunk, as a favor to the King Of Burgundia, conspires to trick her into a royal marriage by helping the King best her in a mano e mano swordfight.....(with Sig-alicious deploying his invisibility cloak, heh, heh, heh....)
Brunhilde, forced into a loveless union, seethes in fury while Siggy romances and weds Burgundia's royally blonde Princess Kriemhild. This gives him access to the Kingdom's royal pile of gold knick-knacks but that doesn't sit well with the King and Hagen, his resident, creepy villa.in-in-residence......(you know this guy's evil cause his black horned helmet appears welded to his head and he uses a comb-over to hide his battle-ruined left eye.....)
From this point on, we'll make no attempt at describing the escalating pile-up of betrayals, murders, allegiances gone wrong, and battles that leave the landscapes and castles littered with literally mountains of slain warriors.....woo-hoo!
Part II becomes dominated by the still exquisite but now implacably enraged and vengeful Princess Kriemhild (played to the hilt of slow burn rage by Maria Marlow). Joining her to enable her simmering bloodlust is no less than Attila The Hun himself. (that old familiar international film villain Herbert Lom, but here unfortunately dubbed in by another actor).
Even more carnage ensues and by the time the last impaled body bites the dust, this epic finishes up making 'Titus Andronicus' look like a rom-com.
We only wish we had better things to say about Rolf A. Wilhelm's expansive symphonic score. His music pounds away non-stop as you'd expect in such a spectacle, but we didn't hear one single memorable theme that stood out......it's settles for being blaring noise, pasted on top of the movie like extra loud wallpaper. Damn shame.
And now the fair warnings.....for those who find this particular genre stodgy, old fashioned and cornball, pass it by. But if, like BQ, you secretly hold a nostalgic yen for saturday matinee movies like 'The Vikings' and 'The Long Ships', or 'Lord Of The Rings'.....feel free to wallow.
For each part of "Whom The Gods Wish To Destroy", 3 & 1/2 stars. (***1/2).
