The Bodyguard was awesome. Incredible. Fascinating. すごい. It was one of the funniest movies I’d seen this year (and remember, I’ve seen Battlefield Baseball). The Bodyguard, while being a kick ass Hong-Kong Style Action Flick, is actually a spoof of every Hong Kong-Style action flick ever made. It includes ridiculous stunts, hilarious dialogue, random supermarket battles and amusing bad guys. It’s kind of like what would happen if you took Austin Powers, John Woo, Jackie Chan, and “Taxi”:http://skrud.net/index.php?p=183 and shoved it all in a blender. Totally awesome. I would reccommend it to anyone. In fact I insist that you see this movie.

Finally it was time for our last show of the season, “Calamari Wrestler”:http://www.fantasiafest.com/en/films/film_detail.php?id=1057 (いかレスラー！) which is about a Japanese wrestler who has just won the championship title and gets it stolen by a … giant squid … and then has to battle him. Of course, this movie is ridiculous. And it’s hilarious. And at heart there is something about … trying your best? Being yourself? It doesn’t really matter, because there’s a giant squid that wrestles. There’s also a giant octopus. And finally a giant “squilla”:http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asquilla&sourceid=firefox&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8. It was a totally awesome movie. In addition to this Minoru Kawasaki, the director, was on hand to talk about his movie, and I think he was impressed when we all cheered and clamped for Iwata (as a human) trying to off the ground by chanting “Iwata! Iwata!” loudly in the theatre. I don’t think I’ve ever done something like that since I saw Peter Pan as a child and had to clap for Tinkerbell. What a great way to end off the season :)

Also, the “Anime News Network”:http://www.animenewsnetwork.com has posted a list of all the “award winners”:http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pressrelease.php?id=479 for this year’s Fantasia so check it out.

Anyway, I was thoroughly impressed by Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, which was a ridiculously entertaining movie. Granted the story isn’t exactly anything particularly brilliant: Godzilla comes out of the water to attack Japan and so the government hires the best scientists to build a mechanical Godzilla using the bones of the original Godizlla from 1954. Equipped with missiles, rocket launchers, maser guns, lasers, and an “Absolute Zero Beam”, Mechagodzilla is ready to take on Godzilla. Shaku Yomiko plays the lead role, Akane, the pilot whose duty it is to control Mechagodzilla. What follows is essentially a large scale battle across the streets of Tokyo that involve much mayhem and destruction. The movie is also full of great dialogue like “Every since 1954 Japan has been repeatedly attacked by giant monsters.” I just find it incredibly amusing. However the battle ends in a draw…

In between both movies there was a little Fantasia celebration for Godzilla’s 50th birthday. First we were shown a montage of various Godzilla clips including making of movies dating way back to the original and lots of cool stuff on the stunts and the sets (all scale model miniatures!) and special effects used. Then Godzilla himself came out to terrorize the crowd, followed by two very sexy scantily clad women dressed as the Mothra fairies to perform what I will call the “Sexy Godzilla Belly Dance” and wheel out a giant birthday cake, which Godzilla promptly destroyed.

Which brings us to Tokyo S.O.S. which picks up right after Godzilla Against Mechagdozilla and we learn that Akane and her crew are off to the U.S. to train their skills at fighting giant monsters. (If you ask me this doesn’t make much sense since I don’t think the U.S. has nearly as much experience with giant monsters as Japan does… well, there was King Kong…). Anyway, now there’s a new crew of young pilots ready to take on the challenge of defending Japan from giant monsters. The timing couldn’t be worse as Godzilla suddenly reappears to wreak havoc, and Mechagodzilla is still undergoing the repairs from his last battle. On top of all this the Mothra fairies come to warn an old man (whose nephew is a Mechagodzilla mechanic) that men should not disturb the souls of dead and the bones of Godzilla must be returned to the ocean. But then who will defend Japan? Mothra will. So essentially we have a movie about Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, and Mothra, (as well as some Mothra larvae and a mechanic) and yet the destruction of whatever was left over from the set of the previous movie. I have to say, I was remarkably entertained by this movie. I can’t wait for Final Wars. (And in the meantime I should catch up on the 50 or so Godzilla movies from the past).

Last Tuesday I saw a Chinese movie called “Fantasia”:http://www.fantasiafest.com/en/films/film_detail.php?id=1075 that manages to be one of the most ridiculous movies I have ever seen. It takes place in 1969 Hong Kong and involves… well a lot of things. There’s some office where these three guys work and one day they stumble upon a magic lamp. So everyone rubs the lamp wishing for something. Some few hours later a petite chinese woman who looks remarkable like Harry Potter jumps and states that she is Harmy Bobo from the Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. (I am no making this up). She is there to grant the original person who rubbed the lamp 3 wishes. However he has gone off to the U.S. to find his cousin Jane (whom he wished to marry) because she has apparently gone insane at MIT and started biting off people’s noses. On top of that Harmy Bobo gets robbed and her chopsticks (that turn to two beautiful women – the Chopstick Twins – when licked) get stolen by a gangster. However because the gangster is evil, the chopstick girls become evil as well. Now Harmy has to save her cousins (the chopstick twins) while also finding the guy whose wishes need to be granted. However her boyfriend is also with her, but he was cursed to become a tiny stuffed dinosaur that randomly comes to life with an incredible need to poop on everything. He can also become a giant dinosaur which adds to the Jurassic Park parody that this movie also takes care of. I really can’t go any further for fear my head will explode. Fantasia was hilarious.

<p>First, <a href="http://www.fantasiafest.com/en/films/film_detail.php?id=1006">Angel&#8217;s Egg</a> (天使のたまご) from 1985. One of director Mamoru Oshii&#8217;s first films, Angel&#8217;s Egg is dark and full of fantastic imagery. While there isn&#8217;t much dialog, the story is more of an introverted journey that involves, among many things, a little girl who carries a large egg around with her wherever she goes. There are machines of various types that disturb the sanctity of her world, and she encounters a strange crusader character. (I call him a crusader because his weapon resembled a giant cross, as it is no doubt meant to). What little dialogue there is mentions the story of Noah&#8217;s ark and questions a lot of it. The film&#8217;s imagery suggests some pretty interesting ideas that I haven&#8217;t the slightest clue how to interpret at this point. I think I would need to see the movie again (and again, and again) in order to gain some sort of understanding of it. (I kind of wish I took some cinematography classes to learn how to analyze these things). Either way, this movie was pretty deep, and very interesting.</p>


<p>Then came <a href="http://www.fantasiafest.com/en/films/film_detail.php?id=1062">Malice@doll</a>. This movie takes place in the far future ones humans have gone extinct and all that remain are the robots that humans created. Following (what could probably be considered human nature) these robots are mostly sexual &#8220;love dolls&#8221; designed to adhere to virtually every fetish that man can have. The story revolves around one such doll, Malice, who after discovering a strange hidden area in a &#8220;dream&#8221; becomes human (through a process involving multiple tentacles). She then proceeds to kiss all of her companions (other love dolls, and their &#8220;master&#8221;, Joe Admin (a pimp-bot?), as well as a maintenance bot). However unlike Malice&#8217;s beautiful transformation, all the others become disfigured hideous monsters. The animation itself is done entirely in some really very awesome CG, which is actually some of the most impressive CG work I&#8217;ve seen given the fact the dark CG style of this movie is being used to convey a rather dark and even deep impression of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentai">hentai</a> genre. Either way it was a very interesting movie&#8230; I think it may have been a little much for Adam though.</p>


<p>Just some food for thought: I&#8217;ve noticed (while submitting an entry for &#8220;The Bottled Fool&#8221; to <a href="http://www.imdb.com"><span class="caps">IMDB</span></a> ) that my site once again appears right near the top when you search Google for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Bottled+Fool">The Bottled Fool</a>. Pretty cool, eh?</p>