Scavenger Hunt 66 - 26/30: Hideaki Anno creation

I was pretty apprehensive about this early on, especially when we first see the beast and it looks so ridiculous, but it's all part of the plan and this ends up being quite a fun ride with an important message about bureaucracy as well. I'm not well versed in Godzilla history, seen a couple American remakes and that's it, but with this film I can see how it became a sensation in Japan. The dialogue is very fast, characters ping ponging ideas off each other, but the pace of the film moves so slowly. The way he mirrors bureaucratic ineptitude with the structure of his film is really cool. Anyone who has ever dealt with a state run organization knows that ideas can fly fast and furious but it almost always ends with having to run it up the flagpole and waiting for approval. This is a monster movie where the giant indestructible lizard is only the second scariest monster in the film. Every scene where they had to make 100 phone calls just to get approval to fire made me shudder. When the deputy PM would give his opinion, then the woman next to him would turn to the PM and ask, as if he couldn't hear himself made me laugh. It's outlandish and over the top, but fun and hilarious and scary all the same.

Glad for this hunt, I found a film I would have never watched on my own. Might even check out some more Anno work, his sense of humor and messaging seems to agree with me. Give this a watch if you enjoy seeing inept bureaucrats get got by a giant laser beam coming out of a giant lizard's mouth.