Santo y Blue Demon contra los monstruos

Santo y Blue Demon Contra Los Monstruos

Shane (of "Shane Movies" and restrictive scoreing systems fame) and I watched this at the IMA last Friday night. They had included it as part of a Mexican Film and Culture series. I mentioned that I would be review it on my oft neglicted movie blog and somehow ended up being the a guest writer on his, I guess. I think that's what happned. My mind was muddled by the fantastic wierdness and spectical that was "Santo y Blue Demon Contra Los Monstruos".

Here on "Movies Born of Nerdery", I like to give credit to the source material that gave rise to celuoid supermen. In this case, we go south of the border and the world of lucha libre. El Santo, the man in the silver mask, was a combination sports hero/film star for almost 45 years.

El Santo, deep in thought.




Imagine if Hulk Hogan, at the peak of his popularity, began to star in movies as himself. In those movies, he would fight vampire women, martians, and zombies. Santo made over 50 of this type of movie. Yes, many are laughingly bad, but that is part of the appeal. In these films, Santo and frequent sidekick, Blue Demon, are well dressed crime fighters who drive fancy cars and deal in harsh justice.

Amongst the worst/best of these films, is the one we will review today, "Santo y Blue Demon Contra Los Monstruos".

The Movie
I tried in vain to find a link to the opening credits, in which each member of the cast, including Dracula (who looked like the lead singer of Panic at the Disco), Franquestin, Wolf Man, a 97 year old guy in bandages as the mummy, a vampire gal, and your new cinema hero, Ciclope, akwardly walk into frame from behind a hill and are introduced via giant red script.


El Ciclope




This movie has everything, hunchback midget re-animators named Waldo, evil twins, Frankenstein's holding torches, and one guy, nameless throughout, that just stands there.

The guy.....



He did nothing. He just stood there in the lab and .... that's it. I kept holding out hope he was the unnamed weapon of last resort, or would turn on his master, but no. He just stood in the cave lab, away from the action, mostly just distracting me.

At one point, there is also a 15 min dance and song section. I think they filmed it for another movie that was never finished and just stuck it in there as filler. It made no sense for it to be as long as it was otherwise. Even the actors watching it looked bored.

Cinematicly, this movie is a nightmare. Scenes that don't end, they just cut away. There is no pacing or subtlety. Even the fight scenes, which star people famous for fighting, look like they were making it up while they filmed it. It was poorly acted, poorly written, poorly filmed, poorly edited, and the entire score was one guy playing conga dramaticly.


This is perhaps the greatest movie I have ever seen.

It all came together when Santo has to fight the entire monster squad in the ring, because........

You know what? It doesn't matter why he has to do it. He is El Santo, and you're not!


20/20

V For Vendetta

V for Vendetta

Remember, remember the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot
I know of no reason the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

The Comic

Alan Moore's 'V for Vendetta' is best described as Batman meets "1984."

V is a terrorist, wearing the mask of famous British terrorist, Guy Fawkes.
It's easy to gloss over the terror at first. After all, the pseduo-Nazi regime ARE oppressing and torturing people they consider unfit or undesirable. In the opening chapters of the book, there is an enjoyable irony felt when the government calls V a terrorist. After all, V is the good guy.

But V is a terrorist. He blows up populated buildings, killing hundreds of civilians. He refuses to accept anyone else's point of view and he fanatically believes his view is the only way to see things. He murders cold-bloodily and deliberately tortures people to insanity and death. He manipulates people to be his unwitting accomplices, regardless of their feelings. He tortures and brainwashes Evey until she sees his point of view.

Don't forget, V is the good guy.

While Moore's "Watchmen" dealt with post cold war fear, "V" takes advantage of our desire for justice and the irony that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

The ideas of the book are greater than the sum of it's parts. A swashbuckling ubermench getting revenge on his makers, the slow drawn out mystery of who our hero is, the slow realization the hero is not always heroic. Very similar to both "Watchman" and "From Hell" Moore tends to get distracted about 3/5ths of the way through his story. He starts telling stories within the story, which can feel like he was getting paid by the page and needed to stretch it out. I could have done without them.

Still, it's a good piece of comic lit from one the the very best at it.

Movie

When I heard 'those Matrix guys' were trying to tackle this as their first post-Matrix film, I had my doubts. "V", while being a little flashy, was a lot of exposition and deep thinking and I saw how well they handled that with "Matrix 3-What Were We Thinking." And further more, how were they going to do it in post 9/11 America?

What ended up on screen was an effectively watered down version. Gone were the overt drug and religious overtones. The villainous government heads were no longer shown as idealistic as V himself, but seaming evil for evils sake. The bullet time action seemed to be there in order to have slow motion daggers spinning in movie previews.

Hugo Weaving pulled off V's wordplay and gave a gentleness I had not read into him previously.

Natalie Portman was fun, enchanting and bald.

Stephen Rea seemed asleep, but I think he was going for dejected.

My ongoing love for John Hurt lives on as he worked his scene stealing Big Brother-y face on a screen.

Battle Royale - Book or Movie

Book : It's Alan Moore doing underground social commentary with well spoken terrorists.