#just real true genuine tako

[merakiui]

Your tags talking about being alone in the woods with jade made me think of this one thought I had bouncing around in my brain for a while. The thought of being alone with jade at night at the campsite you both put together, sitting by the campfire while drinking something he "borrowed" from the lounge stocks and getting buzzed from it. The innocent touches (which were really just him using the opportunity to getting ever so closer to you) slowly turn into him fucking you into the dirt while you're on your hands and knees.

Sorry if my utter depravity for the eel man bothered you. Your tags made me think of it and I had to let it out.

Omg yes... this is the dream. OTL getting drunk in the forest with Jade and then getting railed into the ground. <3

Imagine if the two of you aren't even that close to begin with. You're only staying in the forest to gather materials because you're partners for a project in Professor Crewel's class. But when Jade reveals a bottle of some pretty-looking liquid and tells you it's come right from the lounge's secret stocks, you have trouble denying him. Jade's good at making the worst ideas sound so pleasant, which is exactly how the two of you end up buzzed and whisper-giggling about the silliest of things around a crackling bonfire.

Alcohol always makes strangers seem so much more attractive, and the amber glow from the dancing flames highlights Jade's handsome features so nicely. You realize he's much closer than he was before, his shoulder practically touching yours as he leans in. Under normal circumstances, Jade would never be this intimate with someone he hardly knows, let alone the human Azul's tasked him with gathering information on (it's strictly business, or so he'll lie). But he can blame the alcohol for that come morning when the sun's risen and the fire is but mere ash and still-warm embers.

It's only natural that teasing, experimental touches will snowball into something more deliberate when inebriation guides you closer to lustful attraction. Wandering hands, fleeting smooches, the shedding of pesky clothes... You'll be on your knees before you know it, with your face pressed into your arms to muffle your moans, while Jade's pounding sloppily into you from behind, his hands gripping your hips so roughly his fingertips leave crescent-shaped indents in your skin. You'll spend a good portion of the night fucking in all sorts of positions, and come morning you'll wake in the tent, curled into each other like two perfect puzzle pieces.

There's a heavy silence that thickens in the air when both of you realize your proximity and slowly detach yourselves. You gather your clothes in awkward silence, dressing as quickly as possible alongside Jade. He tells you he's content with never speaking of what occurred if you are, and you agree immediately. What happens in the forest stays in the forest. You make this truce with a mouth full of granola and a mounting sense of embarrassment.

After taking the tent down, packing your supplies, and cleaning your area, you set off for NRC. Jade spies the bruising bite mark on your neck, just slightly higher than the collar of your shirt and completely visible to anyone who might be looking. He can't help the amused smirk that crawls onto his face. That'll be there for the rest of the week.

And so will your image in his mind, apparently.

[borisbubbles]

2. BELARUS

Naviband - “Story of my life” 17th place

ALL ABOARD THE NAVI NAUTILUS!!! WITH A HEY HEY HEY AND A YA YA YA YA HO WE SAIL ON A OCEAN OF ADORABLE.

It was so poetic that the first two songs revealed for this mixed bag of a year were also one of the best and worst, respectively. It was more than “being better than Tako” that drew me to Naviband though. After the Pharrellapocalypse of 2013, I’ve become really picky w/r/t “Happyness Anthems” (”clap along if you feel like a room w/o a roof” a of all um what that doesn’t even make sense? b of all, stfu you suck!!!), still I was SWEPT by Xenia’s cutesy, adorable dance routine and the rest is HERSTORY (Q: is there anything about Naviband which isn’t cutesy and adorable? A: no)

Before I delve further into why I think Naviband are awesome, I’d like to point out some statements I’ve heard from... “haters”. Well not EXACTLY haters because I haven’t come across anyone who *dislikes* sitting through “Story of my life” (because lol how *can* you hate these earth angels, like swallowing with your eyes open or being attracted to Milan Stankovic, it’s physically impossible) but because Naviband are firmly positioned on the “Light” side of Ethnic Entry spectrum, they were OF COURSE greeted with the necessary contempt by Value Seekers:

“REALLY, IS “HAPPINESS” THEIR SELLING POINT? THAT’S SO SHALLOW”

“LOL THEY’LL NEED ALL THE RIGGING THEY CAN GET TO MAKE IT TO THE FINALE. HEY HEY HAYAYAYA HO HA HA HA HA”

“YEAH, THEY’RE FINE BUT NOT FINALE FINE :-/”

“THIS IS NOTHING SPECIAL, I’VE HEARD THIS BEFORE”

or as one Belgian newspaper article put it (translated as closely as I could)

“Riding the wave of “Hey Hey Hayaya Ho”, the Belarussians managed to steer their hovercraft into an iceberg of indifference”

Eh?  I sort of get the general line of thought (honestly the above sentence is roughly how I would have written it had I agreed), but I don’t follow it at all. To me, it sounds like people are fabricating excuses to not like it. Debunk time.

1) Joy is not an inferior emotion. Yes, it’s arguably the simplest emotion on the spectrum, but given how *difficult* it is to be *truly* happy, I think shrugging it off as lesser or invaluable is classisist bullshit or the work of jealous bitter people.

2) “Story of my life” isn’t just about “happiness”. Happiness doesn’t just *happen* on its own and unless you’re, like, a living Pixar Character, there has to be a *reason* for feeling that way. Likewise, while Navi relied on their feelgood-vibe to carry them, the underlining story is that of the love between Artiom and Xenia themselves. They love each other so much, that the glow in each other’s eyes brightens their life’s stories. They sing this WHILE LOOKING EACH OTHER IN THE EYE. My heart MELTS like a wax candle at the sight of that. Two beautiful, pristine unicorns of human beings <3

3) “Story of my life” has more depth than it lets on.  The translated lyrics show that “story of my life” has fairly poetic, if simple lyrics. Both the blessing and the curse of poetry is that you can take it at face value or analyze it deeply, depending on how you’re feeling at the moment. In other words, the person who decides how deep or valuable it truly is, is the reader themselves. (hence why “too shallow” reeks of elitism and politics and i never buy it as a reason to dislike this sort of entry). The message itself is straight-forward, but that’s only a good thing imo; makes it easier to establish a connection and melt the language barrier.

4) Emotions are always a hard sell and happiness is the hardest of all. Salvador *was* right in that pure emotion is incredibly important. However it can’t be stated enough that emotions can’t be force-fed down your throats. It has to come from the *heart*, pacemakered or not. Try to fake happiness for instance and you get this:

(GET OVER IT, Jacques, nobody bought it and all your votes were for the lolz only)

try to fake love and you achieve this:

(GET OVER IT, Alex, she will never sleep with you)

Meanwhile, Naviband take us on a magical hovercraft journey through their LYF, singing and dancing and Ha Ya Ya Yo-ing their way through all of its candyfloss-like nooks and crannies. It all feels so real and genuine because it *is* (lest we forget, Xenia & Artiom *are* an irl-couple and this *is* the love story of their *IRL* romance put to music.) Candyfloss is the best way to describe this entry, I think. It’s colourful, sweet and festive, if simple. Naviband never pretended to be anything other than what they are (two upbeat people who love each other) and I find that a charming quality.

5) Simplicity is generally a good thing, especially if you sing in your own language. You have three minutes to convince a live audience you’re the best of 26. if you’re singing in NotEnglish, this can be a challenge, so you’re best left using your strengths and not overtly complicate shit. Naviband succeeded, hence why they didn’t too bad. (I don’t think anyone would argue with this? That we’re going to Lisbon next year and not Turin just proves this as an uncontested fact, tbh.)

In other words, anyone who still doesn’t appreciate Naviband after reading this... our universes are so divergent, they’ll simply never ever align on this plane or the next one. (but thanks for reading anyway ^__^)

Even with all of that, we’re still at the tip of the Iceberg? Both live performances are littered with little, cute moments that I’ve tried to gif and some which I couldn’t, such as this crazed Lithuanian frump from the semifinal who was sooooo into it:

Spirit animal/totem of love/child of the moon/ruler of the sun, etc.

In conclusion, what a fantastic ending to a true underdog arc. Navi had to sit through a really difficult semifinal with no allies, snobistic eurofans who tried to paint them with the Basic Brush and you know, the usual stigma of being from BELARUS, but still scraped through the finale (Ukraine handing them a free 24 points <3) because of their unfiltered goodness,  to finish in a respectable THIRTEENTH place with the audience from slot #03, which is generally one the weaker starting positions. They placed ahead of ARTSVIK and DEMY lmfao <3 They may not have won this ranking, but they have WON hearts!! Hey! Hey! Hayayahoooooo~

Decade rank: 22/324

THE 2017 RANKING SO FAR:

-ADORE- 1. 2. Belarus (22/324) 3. Macedonia (28/324) 4. Norway (29/324) 5. Lithuania (43/324) 6. Hungary (47/324) -LOVE- 7. Moldova (55/324) 8. Italy (61/324) 9. the Netherlands (63/324) 10. United Kingdom (67/324) 11. Finland (68/324) 12. Estonia (71/324) 13. Azerbaijan (84/324) 14. Latvia (87/324) 15. Israel (93/324)

-LIKE- 16. Bulgaria (100/324) 17. Portugal (105/324) 18. Croatia (115/324) 19. Austria (119/324) 20. France (138/324) 21. Poland (154/324) 22. Armenia (158/324) 23. Romania (164/324)

-OKAY- 24. Iceland (174/324) 25. Ukraine (190/324) 26. San Marino (203/324) 27. Albania (217/324) 28. Denmark (228/324) 29. Spain (237/324) 30. Cyprus (240/324) -DISLIKE- 31. Germany (258/324) 32. Montenegro (263/324) 33. Sweden (270/324) 34. Serbia (275/324) 35. Australia (280/324) 36. Switzerland (286/324) 37. Czech Republic (288/324) 38. Malta (291/324) -HATE- 39. Georgia (301/324) 40. Greece (303/324) 41. Slovenia (307/324) 42. Ireland (312/324)

[erictmason]

The Road To “Godzilla VS. Kong”, Day One

KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (AMERICAN VERSION)

Originally Released: June 26th, 1963

Director: Ishiro Honda

Writers: Shinichi Sekizawa, Paul Mason and Bruce Howard

Starring: Tadao Takashima, Kenji Sahara, Ichiro Arashima, Mie Hama, Michael Keith, Harry Halcomb

“King Kong VS. Godzilla” is a movie whose reputation often precedes it amongst certain circles of Genre Film fans.  Even if one is unaware of the convoluted, more than slightly seedy story behind its creation (short version: the original “King Kong”’s special-effects artist, Willis O’Brien, was interested in creating a sequel that would have pitted Kong against a giant animalistic version of the Frakenstein Monster, but shady producer John Beck wound up stealing the idea and, when American studios balked at the project for fear that the use of stop-motion animation to realize the effects work would be too expensive, wound up shopping it to the more cost-effective Toho Studios in Japan, who reconceived it as a new “Godzilla” project in hopes of revitalizing interest in the character), it is still one of the most singularly important Giant Monster Movies ever made.  For one thing, it basically defined The Kaiju Movie as we know it today; sure, the original “Gojira” from 1954 (and by extension its Americanized adaptation, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” in 1956) may have effectively created the genre, but you’ll notice the majority of such movies that exist today are more about Fanciful Title Bouts between two Clashing Monsters rather than somber moody Allegories about the horrors of Nuclear Weapons.  For another, it’s the movie that really put Godzilla himself on the map as a Big Star in his own right; at the time, he only had two prior films to his name, and while one of them was the aforementioned genre-creating watershed “Gojira”, the other was “Godzilla’s Counterattack” from 1956, which proved such a box-office disappointment that it put the character into retirement for the better part of a decade (and to give you a sense of just how much less weight the name “Godzilla” carried back then, when that movie was released in America in 1959, it was initially re-titled “Gigantis The Fire Monster”).  With “King Kong VS. Godzilla”, however, he would begin to star in more and more movies, building a film franchise that continues to this day.  

So it’s a bit of a shame that I’ve never liked it all that much.

To be clear, the “it” in question here is specifically the American version of the movie, which is the one most Western audiences would be familiar with since, until recently, it was the only one readily available to us (though Criterion finally corrected that back in 2019, when they included the original Japanese version of the movie as a bonus feature in their “Showa Era” collector’s set).  Certainly, it’s the one that I grew up watching as a kid, when my mom, ever so protective and knowing how easily upset I could be when Fictional Characters I Loved got hurt, made sure to watch ahead to see who exactly won the title match-up (and since it was Kong, I wouldn’t actually get around to finishing my viewing of the movie for a good long while).  Back then, of course, I viewed it very much through that childish prism of who I thought should win, and it was exactly the kind of Schoolyard Logic you’d expect: Kong was supposed to be a great deal smaller than Godzilla, and where Godzilla had his iconic fire breath, Kong had no extraordinary powers; Kid Me understandably concluded that this match-up really ought to be a shoe-in for Godzilla, which worked out well since Godzilla just so happened to be the one Kid Me actually cared about.  Kid Me was thus quite irritated to discover that, for the sake of this movie, Kong had in fact been significantly sized up and given random electricity-absorbing powers.  It felt like cheating to Kid Me, and it left me less than positively disposed towards the film proper.

These days, of course, I’m able to give the film a somewhat fairer shake, though I would be lying if I said that My Inner Childish Fan-Boy is completely quiet on the matter (in particular, it always bothers me that, to emphasize the advantage Kong’s electrical powers give him in their fight, the movie explicitly cites Godzilla’s “vulnerability” to electricity, despite one of the most singularly iconic images of the original “Gojira” being his ability to walk straight through a power-line barricade).  Indeed, my most recent re-watch for this very review honestly left me feeling fonder toward it than I was even on my last most recent re-watch (back in 2014, in preparation for the then-upcoming Gareth Edwards “Godzillla”, which we’ll also be getting to in this re-watch soon).  The portrayal of the title monsters themselves in particular left me much happier this time around than it has in the past; the design for Godzilla himself- thick around the center with big heavy-browed eyes and what appears to be a constantly self-amused grin, huge sharp claws that dominate the fingers and a tail that moves with a real sense of weight and purpose-took me a long time to warm up to, for example, but these days I would happily cite it as one of the very best of the original series.  Kong gets it a bit worse, sadly; the suit they design for him here (a fact that original “Kong” director Merian C. Cooper openly despised, incidentally; the idea of portraying Kong as just some guy in a gorilla costume was one of the things he explicitly set out to avoid in the original movie) has a distinctive enough face if not an especially memorable one, but the costume always looks and feels a bit raggedy, with the sagging pecs and ill-fitted arms (throughout the movie the suit switches between “regular” arms designed to allow the actor mobility, and extended arms to help give it a more ape-like gait; the result is that both versions feel weirdly out of place on the costume a lot of the time) looking especially awkward.  However, even beyond how they look, the way the monsters act is genuinely enjoyable, with Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla and Shoichi Hirose as Kong both putting in fantastic performances that imbue them with a great sense of personality that is just consistently delightful all movie long.  Whether it’s Godzilla hopping around, arms flailing in triumph whenever he manages to pull off another victory, or Kong drunkenly swallowing up giant pots’ worth of a narcotic usd to keep him docile, the movie very visibly delights in imbuing these creatures with fun foibles, and It’s no coincidence that the it’s at its strongest, not so much when the monsters are fighting, but when they are simply interacting as actual Characters: Godzilla here feels often like a particularly arrogant, boundlessly-energized child, while Kong is a bit more confused and subdued but quick to anger when irritated; their first meeting, when both these strong visible personalities most openly bounce off each other, is unquestionably my favorite moment of the movie.

The rest of it isn’t exactly bad, per se, but it is a lot less entertaining.  Some of that is simply what the American version inherited from the Japanese original, not least of all the noxiously racist portrayal of the Natives living on a remote pacific island with Kong (here named “Faro Island” for some reason instead of the usual “Skull Island”).  On top of the sins it recreates from the original “King Kong” (a fairly ooga-booga understanding of What Islanders Are Like, all of whom are portrayed by non-Native actors slathered in brownface make-up), it also includes a decently insulting bit wherein the initially-hostile islanders are pacified by the introduction of “magic” in the form of a hand-held radio and cartons of cigarettes.  There’s also the fact that the plot is driven almost entirely by Random Contrivance rather than anything that flows naturally from either the characters or the premise; Godzilla and Kong have no real compelling reason to meet, let alone fight, other than the pure coincidence of their both happening to be active at around the same time in the same part of the world (the American version attempts to ameliorate this somewhat by stating that the two are “instinctive rivals” who will be “naturally driven to destroy one another”, but that flimsy lip-service to Motivation just winds up making the otherwise-arbitrary plotting feel all the worse), and we are constantly bombarded by Total Coincidences as a way of shuffling the characters around from place to place with dizzying frequency.  But some of those troubles are only exacerbated by the approach the American version has taken to the material.  We’ll talk about this more tomorrow, but the Japanese “King Kong VS. Godzilla” is, at heart, a Satirical Comedy; this, unsurprisingly, was not an idea that went over well with Universal Studios in America, who chose to try and reshape that comedy into a more traditional Monster Movie.  An understandable objective, but not one the Japanese cut of the film made easy to achieve; to avoid the most overt Comic bits meant cutting almost all of the human characters in the film (most notably the eccentric executive Mr. Tako, played by Ichiro Arishima) down to only their most essential appearances, which in turn means that they all wind up feeling vaguely undefined and out of place in their own story (this feels especially true of our ostensible main character, Tadao Takashima‘s Sakurai, who is present enough to FEEL like a main character but has little left to do in this cut of the film). To make up the weight of all that cut footage, meanwhile, we get gobs of new footage consisting mostly of Michael Keith as a United Nations reporter talking at us in the most stultifying way possible, often joined by Harry Holcombe as an equally stultifying scientist (who apparently gets his knowledge of dinosaurs primarily from children’s picture books, which in fairness would explain a lot of the nonsense he ends up saying), though he also frequently talks with a fellow reporter played by James Yagi.  These scenes are not, perhaps, without their charms, but they also deaden the movie’s pacing, especially since nine times out of ten they exist mostly to reiterate stuff we already know because it literally just happened.  Given how much a faster pace seems to be one of the American cut’s top priorities (a sub-plot from the Japanese version about a submarine inadvertently encountering Godzilla is reduced to a single sequence for this version), that choice proves a counterintuitive one.

Because the other major problem with the American approach to this movie is that, to be frank, the Monster Action is nowhere near Epic enough to bear the weight this new cut puts on it.  Again, it’s not without its merits; Godzilla and Kong’s outsized personalities do a lot to lend even the less effective sequences a certain fun spirit, and there is still an unmistakably strong sense of craftsmanship to the miniatures used throughout the movie to create the appropriate sense of scale for our Monsters to play around in (the demolition of a recreation of Atami Castle shines a spotlight on that very fact).  But in terms of both their scope and their choreography, there’s just not enough There there; far too often, “King Kong VS. Godzilla”’s Big Marquee Action Scenes amount to the monsters just sort of lazily throwing rocks at each other, or else engaging in less-interesting recreations of their previous Iconic Moments (Kong especially goes through a truncated version of his original appearance’s third act, though here he ends up on top of the National Diet Building rather than the Empire State Building).  That’s slightly less of a problem in the Japanese version; again, there, the main thrust of the film lies in its comedy, and thus the Monster Action being relatively lightweight is less of a hinderance and more a spicy Flavoring to the main story.  But here, it is the main story, and while it’s pretty clear some real love went into the Effects Work (the puppetry especially is very solid; there are a few instances where the switch from Suit Actor to Puppet for Godzilla is borderline seamless, and I also enjoy the decently-animated feel of Kong’s facial puppet as well) it ultimately doesn’t have nearly enough substance to fill that role. This comes through especially clearly in the Final Showdown between the monsters; again, there is some deservedly iconic stuff here (Kong trying to shove a tree down Godzilla’s throat only to have it rebuffed in a puff of flames has become an impressively-enduring Meme for a reason) but, much like most of the story, winds up being driven far more by Contrivance than anything clever or satisfying (a bit where Kong knocks himself over feels especially annoying for how unmotivated it seems to be). It was always going to be a tall order to make a match-up with as much implicit weight to it (both metaphorical and literal) live up to the heightened expectations placed on it, maybe.  But even taking that into account, it’s hard not to feel like “King Kong VS. Godzilla” could have put a little more effort into things.

Still, I was saying, at the start, that I walked away from “King Kong VS. Godzilla” happier this time than in many of my past viewings.  And that is ultimately true: for as much as I find myself often wishing it could be a different movie, the movie it actually is already does manage to work decently well on its own terms.  The dub-work here in particular honestly deserves notice; in contrast to the standardized casts Toho would start using for most of its “Godzilla” movies moving forward, here we get a more distinctive sounding voice-cast who manage to put some real Life into their performances (the voice they give to Kenji Sahara’s Fujita stands out especially to me, nasally and over-earnest but capable of some real Fire when the moment calls for it, as befits the character).  And, again, whatever my beef with the Action Scenes, the actual portrayal of the Monsters really is uniquely fun (indeed, given how many other elements Toho would consistently crib from it, I’m often surprised that Godzilla’s distinctive body language throughout isn’t one of them), which winds up giving the movie enough Real Heart in the end to make it a positive Experience overall, even against the stuff that even now stands out to me as Not Up To Snuff.  At the very least, it’s a lot easier for me to recognize how and why this movie created the Legacy it did, even if the American Version makes a bit more of a mess out of it.