Movies

Mahabali Hanuman (1981) I have always loved fantasy, religious and fairy tale movies and this combines the best of them all. This bright colorful and elaborate fantasy movie is every bit as remarkable as the European and Russian fairy tale films I love, while being a tale of devotion and the moral development of the protagonist. Hanuman is born as a boon granted to his barren mother through her unceasing prayers, he is granted great powers by all the gods, and he becomes the most dedicated of devotees. This is the Hindu movie I have always wanted to see - I grew up wishing that the dreary religious movies about people wandering through the desert in robes had something more fantastical and inspiring to them. If I had seen something like this as a child I would have become a sincere Hindu at that moment, and it certainly restored my love for Hinduism's wonderful pantheon. Bright colors and moving shapes, song and dance numbers, magical transformations, elaborate yet slightly cheesy spectacle, and edifying moral lessons all in one. 10/10

Shiva grants Anjana the boon of a son.

The gods bestow upon Hanuman many powers.

Hanuman manifests the Vishnu Avatars.

Rama and Sita are always in his heart.

Movies

Rebirth of Mothra (1996, 97, 98) Three children's fairy tale movies - the giant moth is removed from the Godzilla cycle and made into a goddess with magical transformation powers. Each film has three components - the combat between Mothra and another giant monster; conflict between her two priestesses and their wicked, robot-dragon-riding elder sister; and children in varying degrees of peril and self-development. In the first story the tricephalous flying quadruped Desghidora, who long ago destroyed all life on Mars, kills Original Cute and Furry Mothra and her caterpillar progeny becomes the new furrier, more powerful Mothra with the ability to split into thousands of normal-sized moths. In the second story, the foe is a nondescript product of Lemurian genetic engineering gone awry, who must be destroyed by the submarine four-winged flying fish transformation of Mothra, with the aid of three children who must find the secret treasure of the vast Lemurian Pyramid. In the final film, Mothra must travel 130 million years into the past to fight three-headed King Ghidora (who sucks up children and deposits them in a throbbing terror dome to kill later) back when he was still a prince, stomping around gobbling up dinosaurs like they were rats, then return transformed into a super-beautiful armored Mothra, but only by the aid of a brave boy and the three sisters who must learn to work together despite their differences. As an amateur of the fairy tale I enjoyed seeing this adaptation of the monster movie to the fairy tale form, and was interested to see that each film was placed in a different rural or island locale in contrast to the exclusively urban settings of older monster films. Each movie has colorful and imaginative spectacle as well as a certain amount of tedium. Unless one really enjoys children's movies, fairy tales, or giant monsters, this probably won't be of much interest. I found it fairly entertaining overall, and learned that Mothra, like other deities, gains her power from the hearts of those who love her and believe in her. 6/10

Movies

An Old, Old Story (1968) and The Singing, Ringing Tree (1957) - two fairy tale movies about the difficulties involved in wooing arrogant bad-tempered princesses, both presented as colorfully and unrealistically as possible, filmed entirely on fantastical and often surrealistic soundstages. The former and more recent is Russian and presents the story as a puppeteer's dream, based on the classic fairy tale of the Magic Tinderbox. It tends more toward the stage musical, with half a dozen song and dance numbers which are competent but not thrilling, and its Soviet ideology is clear in the unflattering depiction of royalty, and the victory of the proletarian hero. The latter and older is German and tells a fairy tale I had never before encountered but which contained many familiar motifs involving magical bargains. In this case the princess must be deprived of all her luxuries before she confronts the flaws of her own character and regains her beauty. By far my favorite of the two, it is filmed in Agfacolor which, at its best, provides intense pure colors that thrill the eye. The sets are huge and elaborate, and the magical transformations are splendid. The one oddity is that it is not dubbed into english, simply given an english over-narration, but it becomes acceptable quite rapidly. Rating: 6/10 and 8/10 respectively.

Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962) Fairly high concept for such an economical production - space explorers of the 21st century landing on Uranus (ha ha, I know, it's like a butthole only it's a planet) encounter a telepathic being that uses their memories and desires to captivate and control them. Most of their desires involve the pastoral scenes of their youth and women in negligee. I had a love-hate relationship with this as a lad, seeing it three or four times on TV and never really knowing if I liked it or not. I enjoyed it a bit more now that my own desires more closely parallel those of the protagonists. I appreciate the technical details of the production too, and appreciate what went into it. There is a stop-motion one-eyed ratosaur, a giant cave spider attack, and the telepathic monster itself appears in a number of different guises - including a large glowing brain, and most delightfully to me a literal piece of tripe with a fake eye stuck in it! GENIUS! A little tedious, but at times there are lots of bright colors and moving shapes which counts for a lot. 6/10

The Astounding Tripe Monster!!!