Happy 70th Anniversary Watch: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Watched:  11/03/2024

Format:  AMC

Viewing:  4th

Director:  Takashi Yamakazi

So... I think today, November 3rd, 2024 - is the 70th Anniversary of the release of Gojira.  

If you've never seen the original Gojira, do so.  It's a moody meditation on impossible odds, destruction brought about by one's own hand, and the impossible decision to use unthinkable science to end a conflict.  All pretty big stuff for Japanese audiences back in 1954.  

It's a solid movie, and it's amazingly weird that within a few movies that walking metaphor was battling Mechagodzilla and teaming up with Mothra.

Since then, there have been a few attempts to bring Godzilla back to his roots as a fearsome product of nature and man's bungling with science.  Godzilla 1984/ Return of Godzilla is a notable version.  And I thought Shin Godzilla from a few years ago was a slam dunk - and continue to think so (and am ready for a rewatch).  

But for those who follow this site, Godzilla Minus One is the one that landed with me.  I wound up seeing it three times in the theater during the initial run from November of last year, through January of this year.  

• Screening 1
• Screening 2
• Screening 3

To celebrate G's 70th Anniversary, Toho re-released Minus One in limited theaters and for a limited time.  Honestly, I'd have gone to see any Godzilla movie except maybe All Monsters Attack.  But on the heels of an Academy Award win and with Godzilla's big birthday, Toho announced they're going to make a second installment by writer/ director Takashi Yamakazi just this week.

Big news in my world.

look at these nerds

At the screening, Toho provided about 15 minutes of interview/ Q&A footage with Yamakazi and his creative partner, whose name I failed to get.

I do love me some Godzilla in all of his forms (more or less).  It was good to spend a couple of hours with the big guy once again.

Annual HalloWatch: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Watched:  10/31/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  James Whale

For evidence of our ongoing Frankenstein discussion, click here.

If you've followed this site, it is likely you know The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is easily one of my favorite films.  It takes everything I like in the first film (which is also a favorite) and turns it up to 11.  

I'm pretty sure star Colin Clive was not actually okay while filming this movie.  He was dead by 1937, and his drinking problem was likely in full-effect while making this movie.  But he's @#$%ing great as the manic Henry Frankenstein - obsessed with what he *almost* did in the last film, and not all that interested in his lovely fiancee (Valerie Hobson) in comparison to animating life with cosmic rays.  Which is a shame - Elizabeth seems nice, and psychic.

If the sets and lighting in Frankenstein filtered German Expressionism through an Anglo/ American lens, then this movie cranks it all up - with gigantic sets (what were those walls Minnie runs through returning to Castle Frankenstein?  The huge space of the entry hall!  The tower laboratory!)  and fascinating lighting and camera work - just watch the sparks and shadows in the birth sequence.

At this point, I'm not even really sure Bride of Frankenstein is a horror movie.  It certainly *looks* like one, and I'm sure the 1935 audience was primed for scares.  But, like its predecessor, it just isn't about scares.  Whale and Co. are clearly having a ball (see:  Ernest Thesiger, Una O'Connor and EE Clive playing it as high camp).  It's also got the pathos of the cabin sequence, Franky being harassed by the villagers, and the tears of rejection at the film's end.  At no point is the Monster really out to get anyone - even less so than in the first film.  If you're scared of him, you're part of the problem, amirite?

I try not to let it get to me that so much 21st Century Bride of Frankenstein imagery and merch and whatnot puts the Bride and Franky together as a couple.  To be blunt - it's demonstrating you've never actually seen the movie, and if you *have* seen the movie, you completely missed the point of it.  A point which is pretty difficult to miss here in 2024 - that all of your dumb plans to just make a "mate" for someone neglects the fact women have their own mind and are going to hiss at you like a goose if you think they just *have* to think you're a charmer.

My least favorite part of the film is not even in this movie.  It's not that we get so little of The Bride (she's in maybe five or six minutes of the movie), it's that she never shows up again.*  I mean, I'm aware they were not assuming, in 1935, there would be many more Universal Frankenstein movies - blowing folks up 60% of your main cast seems like a definitive ending.  And it's true James Whale did not return for a 3rd film.  I just would have liked to have seen her pop up again in one of the many, many, many... sequels.  

Not really sure what you can chalk it up to that we didn't see her again, but it's not a mistake modern filmmakers are champing at the bit to claim her story, and we have a Maggie Gyllenhaal directed Bride movie coming.  I believe there's others in the works, and I'm still cheesed we didn't get the Angelina Jolie/ Bill Condon directed version because The Mummy (2017) sucked.

*I'm not one of those folks who thinks "now I get to make up my own story and that's legit!  Head canon!" kind of people, so I take it she didn't make it out of the explosion or is lying undead under a pile of rubble somewhere.  

Late-80's Hallo-Watch: Pumpkinhead (1988)

Watched:  10/13/2024

Format:  Amazon 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stan Winston

I wasn't expecting Pumpkinhead (1988) to be good.  

Yet, I'd always meant to watch this movie.  I remember being 13 and the ad came on for "Pumpkinhead" and my brother and I looked at each other and laughed and laughed and laughed.  To this day, it sounds like naming a horror movie "Taters n' Gravy" to me.*

Pumpkinhead  looks good, but for Stan Winston's directorial debut, it's an awkward, tedious slog through flat characters and half-cooked ideas.  It's an 84 minute movie that has you looking at your watch and wondering when all of these people will be dispatched by the creature so you can finish the film.

The basic plot:  Lance Henriksen plays a guy in what I guess is maybe Appalachia? but is clearly the ranches outside of LA.  Some 20-somethings planning a weekend of riding dirtbikes(?) stop off at a fruit stand(?) and then go riding.  There's an accident and Henriksen's kid is killed by one of the bikers who jumps right into him.  

The guy who does the killing makes his group of 6 take-off where they have a sort of confrontation, and Jeff East - the guy who played young Clark Kent in Superman: The Movie! - and he squabble because the guy seems like he's going to kill everyone here to cover up the fact he killed the kid...  So the group more or less splinters.

Henriksen makes contact with a witch-type lady who has him bring forth Pumpkinhead, so he can get revenge.  And revenge it gets, generically picking people off, while the real idea is to slowly reveal more and more of the suit Stan Winston's team made, that is, in fact, pretty good.  By the last 1/5th of the film, we're seeing the suit in full glory, and it looks neat!

By this point, Jeff East and his girlfriend are obviously going to make it, and we've come to understand the cost of raising a Pumpkinhead is that you and it will be sort of symbiotic when it's convenient to the scene.

I don't know.  It's a slog and I didn't care for it.  But it's also not a movie people love - and yet, several sequels happened.  Stan Winston kept making cool effects but went on to direct A Gnome Named Gnorm, making children everywhere understand that sometimes God abandons you, and the evidence is everything about Gnorm the Gnome.  

*But the lasting legacy of the movie's title in my head is that...  my poor dad was in the room for the commercial at some point, and being shitty kids, we said "hey, that's your new name, Dad!  Pumpkinhead!"  And, lo, that lasted about a year before I became aware that deploying the name "Pumpkinhead" one more time guaranteed a foot connecting with my ass.

Hallo-Watch: Nosferatu - a Symphony of Horror (1922)

Watched:  10/10/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  first straight thru

Director:  FW Murnau

I've seen this film in bits and pieces, but never in one shot.  So, technically, this is either my first view or not, and I'm calling it my first as I spend this Halloween watching films I should have already seen and have not.  

Yes, I've seen Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) - or most of it - before, here and there.  

Structurally, Nosferatu is more or less a very watered down Dracula - infamously so as the movie was immediately sued into oblivion by Bram Stoker's widow (yes, Dracula came out so recently that Stoker's widow was around in 1922).  

Briefly - A Transylvanian fellow entertains a young solicitor come to sell him property in his hometown.  He sees Count Orlock doing weird things, lusting for blood, etc...  And the Count runs off to his hometown with crates of soil, murdering a transport ship along the way.  But in London Wilborg, instead it focuses on a plague of rats, and our Mina stand in doesn't fall ill, she realizes she must sacrifice herself as a sinless woman to the Count so he'll have overplayed his hand.

Unshockingly, this movie is mostly here for the spooky vibes and to tell everyone else how to do this for the next 100 years.  It's not the first horror movie by a long shot, but it is a highly influential one.  And - in my opinion - is maybe more in the spirit of the novel than all the romantic versions made since Lugosi made women swoon in 1930.  Orlok is a straight up weirdo, and our leads know it.  He's bringing illness and plague with him, he's a soulless killing machine.  

But what folks remember, rightfully, are the visuals of the film.  Flexing some Expressionistic bona fides, Murnau leans into strange and eerie sequences of shadow moving, some in-camera tricks of the day, and long, oddball takes to build tension in a single shot.  Our vampire is a homely bastard - not as described in the novel, but his own, unique look that echoes some of what's there - the grasping, claw-like hands.  But you know all this.  It's a gorgeous film, and worth a look for spooky season, even if you just put it on during your Halloween party.  That's the power of the Nosferatu vibes.

There's little question in my mind that Orlok and Dracula both represent some fear that folks living in times of less exposure to other people held when it came to foreigners or even their own neighbors who were different from them.  Ie: The Other.  Whether that's intentional or the casual racism of Grandpa thinking "that's how things are", I suspect the latter case.

What's odd is the lore around this movie - from the notes in Wikipedia about it being made by German occultists who wanted to, like, employ the dark arts.  To the lawsuits and upsetting Mrs. Dracula, to the film almost being lost, to the 2000 movie Shadow of the Vampire.

But, look... here's what Bacall has to say.

So, be like Lauren Bacall, people.  Refrain from shoe-based violence and check out the OG vamp feature.

I should mention, the Werner Herzog version is really good, and we're looking at a remake coming this Christmas from Robert Eggers, who I think is maybe the right dude to do this justice with modern cameras, etc...  

Halloween Dark Universe Watch: The Mummy (2017) - the one with Tom Cruise

Watched:  10/02/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Alex Kurtzman

She had style!

She had flair!

She was there!

That's how she became... the Mummy!

This is an amazingly wrong-headed and bad movie.  I really don't want to write it up, because it's going to take forever.  It's problems are legion, and it's astounding to think Universal went so hard at the "Dark Universe" concept and then this was their maiden flight.  A maiden flight which took off, did a loop-de-loop before crashing back into the airport, and which immediately killed the entire concept.  Thank God.

If you need a refresher:  in the wake of the success of Marvel's Avengers movies making a billion dollars each, Universal looked to see what IP they had laying around to exploit.  And, since the silent era, Universal has had classic horror in their stable.  Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of, Wolfman, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Invisible Man... all Universal. What Universal decided to do was create a world in which these creatures co-exist and... fight crime?  I don't know.  And this movie didn't say, despite the fact all they do is stand around and explain things to the detriment of plot, character, and enjoyment of the very thing you're watching. 

There was plenty of precedent.  By the 1940's, the sequels had been bubbling up, and we did see Wolfman meet Frankenstein, and all of the monsters show up in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (which was, obvs, a horror-comedy, but featured the characters as audiences knew them in the straight movies).

Around 2015-16,Universal signed with major stars and were going to do this.  Tom Cruise!  Johnny Depp! Angelina Jolie! Russell Crowe!  Utterly missing the fact the stars of the originals were barely the actors - it was the concept.  They did so, so much press about this, and everyone kind of said "...why would you do this press?  Just make the movies."  But, nope, so high on their own supply, they ran into the streets to tell people about it, and then it blew up in their faces immediately, like Wile E. Coyote with dynamite.

The Mummy (2017) is the Tom Cruise-starring action-monster-not-horror vehicle that took the name and a few concepts from the original The Mummy movie and the subsequent Universal sequels, and turns it into a very expensive actioner devoid of plot, characters, charisma or joy.  Or fear.  It's a painful slog through scenes shot without enough light to ever see anything (Dark Universe!  HA!), wherein you can feel Cruise's people touching up a script that's already overstuffed, but with dollar-store baloney.

Hallowatch: The Midnight Hour (1985)

Watched:  09/29/2024

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Bender

SimonUK has already delved into Halloween movies, and having had already seen everything over the years, he found an ABC TV movie from 1985.  That, in the spirit of 1980's, apparently originally aired the day after Halloween at the height of Reaganism (I did not like how TV was run in the 1980's).  

If I ever know The Midnight Hour (1985) existed - and it is likely that in 1985, I absolutely did not as I was watching mostly Mr. Ed and GI Joe - I have since forgotten it.  And I am pretty sure I would have remembered this.  

The basic idea is one that pops up from time-to-time, it's Halloween and someone unleashes dark magic along the way, meaning - in this movie - zombies, werewolves, vampires, etc...  appear in a Massachusetts town.  And, they sort of take over and turn folks into monsters along the way.  Minus one guy who looks a lot like John Hughes, but isn't him.

The movie has a weird clutch of actors you know or say "really?" about.  Kevin McCarthy and Dick Van Patten each show up for a few scenes as parents.  Levar Burton plays the 1980's staple of the guy who thinks "tonight, me and my lady will finally do it".  The lady is played by Shari Belafonte (daughter of Harry) is pretty good as his ladyfriend whose family is tied to witchcraft in the town going back 200 years.  Jonelle Allen, TV staple, plays her ancestor.  Peter Deluise is in it in a thankless role.  Kurtwood Smith gets two scenes as the town cop.  Cindy Morgan (RIP) plays the teacher who is... sleeping with Peter Deluise and shows off publicly?  The 1980's were wild.  This is a TV movie!

And Wolfman Jack, who never saw a gig he couldn't cash in on, is the DJ on the ever present local radio.  And, btw, the soundtrack on this is surprisingly solid, including Shari Belafonte trying to create a Halloween single called "Get Dead".  But otherwise, oldies hits popular in the 1980's.

The movie is *fun* rather than scary and has a storyline where I'm pretty sure our John Hughes stand-in/ hero bangs a ghost who looks like Betty Cooper.  Again, the 1980's were a different time.

What's curious is how much money it looks like this thing cost.  TV movies used to be fairly expensive affairs, and this is no exception.  It also is basically no better or worse than 80% of the movies people remember fondly from the 1980's, but for some reason, this thing has terrible reviews.  Probably because of the dance sequence and lack of visible boobs.  

It's fine.  I liked the light tone and the wistful approach taken to the romance storyline.  And that, basically, the townsfolk lose right up to the end, without even really knowing what's going on.  Also, it's free on YouTube and does nail the Halloween vibe.  A little spooky, a little horror-ish, a little silly, a little sexy... it's all in there.  Maybe not amazing, but it works.

Angry Animal Watch: Lavalantula (2015)

Watched: 08/25/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mike Mendez

From the same studio that mixed fish and wind, this seems to have been a second stab at the success derived by mixing Animal + Natural Disaster, ie: the Sharknado franchise.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Lavalantula (2015) is that it's a mini-Police Academy reunion - a thing nobody was asking for, but it was nice to check in.  A curiously sweaty Steve Guttenberg anchors this film, but you can expect to see Michael Winslow (the sound fx guy), Marion Ramsey (the squeaky voiced lady - RIP), and Leslie Easterbrook (the blonde training commander) appear.  But no Kim Cattrall, oddly enough.  

In non-Police Academy casting, the film co-stars Nia Peeples* as Guttenberg's ass-kicking, defiantly shirt-free wife, and Patrick Renna, who was in The Big Green with Guttenberg back in the 1990's when he was a kid (you will remember him from The Sandlot).

The basic idea is that, uh-oh, LA is sitting on lava tubes that erupt and start spewing out large spiders that spit flame.  

And that's it.  I mean, Gutternberg and friends need to end the invasion, but that's it.  Spiders.  It's plenty.

Guttenberg plays a washed up 1990's superhero action star who has to traverse Los Angeles during this 8-legged calamity to find his teen/20-something son, who he failed to take to a Dodgers game and who ran off to ride dirt bikes with his friends. 

The FX are...  there.  But this is a movie that knows what it is, and does ok at that.  If you want to see a movie that seems like they blew their entire budget on Police Academy alums, this is it.  But there's also some fun sequences, and no one is taking this seriously.  It co-stars Ralph Garman as a Hollywood Boulevard costume guy and features the Brea Tar Pits with fire CG'd everywhere.  That's the sort of movie it is.

Tackleberry would be so pissed he missed this

Anyway, it was good to see old Police Academy friends, and had they made more Lavalantulas, maybe we could have seen more.

But the movie never quite feels as insane as Sharknado did that first time, which was absolutely catching lightning in a bottle - and then upping the ante by a factor of 10 with each sequel.  And I felt robbed that Easterbrook was in the movie for only a couple of minutes.

*I've never really thought the last name "Peeples" is weird until this very moment, but "Peeples" sounds made up, and yet is not.  Peeples.

RiffTrax Watch: Suburban Sasquatch (2004)

"it'll look great on camera"

Watched:  06/21/2024

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dave Wascavage

I watched this over 4 days, finishing just moments before putting on Ember Days, and could not muster the energy to discuss both movies too close to each other.  It was too much for any one man.  But here we are.

What stirs the visions of would-be writer/ directors?   Is it the story they must tell that drives them so?  The need to express themselves?  A dream of becoming part of the Hollywood establishment?  A dream to work as an outsider?

What keeps them going through the long days and nights of pre-production, shooting and then editing?  What is the motivator to make a film when it requires expensive FX they simply cannot afford?  What convinces the actors to show up every day of that shoot, put on their "costume" and read clunky dialog?

Simply, I cannot imagine.  This is, like, time and money out of someone's life.  It's a real "maximum effort for minimum return" proposition.

And yet, every day there's someone out there who has convinced people in their lives that: what we all need to do is make a movie.  How hard could it be?  

G Watch: Godzilla x Kong - The New Empire (2024)

Watched:  06/14/2024

Format:  4K disc

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Adam Wingard

The thing about this movie is that, from the first minute, it's more or less the chaos I look for in the last fifteen minutes of the best popcorn movies.  

This movie is, technically, really dumb.  The "this story makes no sense" stuff I'll spend a post crying about most of the time isn't just there, it's the whole shooting match.  It's mostly just highly silly and unlikely things happening, scene after scene, and Rebecca Hall in a pixie cut saying out loud what is happening so the kids watching don't get lost.

And I could not be happier with the results.  

If you're looking for a recent Godzilla movie with a moral center and a story about the human condition - I have amazing news for you.  But this is not that movie.

Yes, yes, there's some nice stuff about mothers and daughters thrown in there.  But you're here to see Kong smack some other apes with a smaller ape.  You want to see Godzilla suplex Kong.  You want to see people flying around in a crazy spaceship thing blasting classic rock.  You want to see monsters duking it out in a major metropolitan area.  And mysterious people and their underground culture and maybe magic?  Sure.  Let's just say magic.  And Titan Dentistry (which is what I would call my practice if I became a dentist all-of-a-sudden).  

This movie is colorful, and loud and incredibly goofy, and I am not secretly glad it exists.  After the dour start to the Monsterverse, the direction of these movies has found out how to be something genuinely fun - because they were in no way nailing the "big monsters, big feelings for humans" thing they were trying.  

It will be interesting to see how they try to make this work with Season 2 of Monarch, because half of what Monarch brought to the table, this movie was like "ha ha!  NOPE!" and did its own thing.

Adventure Horror Watch: The Mummy (1999)

Watched:  06/12/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  third?

Director:  Stephen Sommers

Okay.  I am aware that this movie is a favorite of many-a-folk.  I think it played really well with people of a certain age as a cable-rewatch or DVD favorite.  I was 24 when this came out, just out of film school, and spent 1997 learning about the Universal Monster films, so I came in with *opinions*.   I saw this once in the theater, saw the sequel somewhere along the line, and skipped all the subsequent Stephen Sommers output until Van Helsing.  And Simon and I discussed that movie at length.    

If you want to go on with your life not listening to someone who is going to not spend a review effusing about this movie, I get it.  Do what you have to do.

Monsterverse Watch: Kong - Skull Island (2017)

Watched:  05/20/2024

Format:  Max

Viewing:  Third?

Director:  Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Selection:  Jamie

Confession time.  Or, possibly, self-realization time.  

I can be a wee bit protective of OG versions of popular entertainment content.  I think it's important to know where something which is part of the zeitgeist first appeared, the context, and - if I can - seek out that original bit of entertainment and understand how it came to be.  

My personal feelings on the original King Kong (1933), I've tried to make clear.  

• A love letter to King Kong
• Podcast on the many version of King Kong
• Posts on King Kong (as recent as last year)

I won't belabor too much on the original King Kong film here, but suffice to say, knowing most people are only familiar with latter-era version of Kong, I always want to direct the spotlight back to the original formula, because it's an amazing technical feat as well as a lovely film.

Ape Watch: King Kong Escapes (1967)

Watched:  05/06/2024

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ishiro Honda

I tend to think of myself as someone who would like nothing better than a movie about a giant ape and a robot in the shape of a giant ape duking it out in Tokyo.  Literally, this should check all the boxes for me, but I think I hit the wall as far as Kaiju-tainment for a minute, or else this movie was as dull as it felt.

Honestly, the production history of this movie is more interesting than the final product, which seems impossible when this if your villain.  

he's got panache and joie de vivre!

But the movie has too much plot for it's own good, and I think the editing needs some help.  At just over 90 minutes, it feels like 180 minutes at times.  

My reading tells me that this was some oddball effort fired off by none other than Rudolph-wranglers Rankin-Bass, who were making a King Kong cartoon at the time, that when I saw stills, I think I recall seeing as a small child.  I guess Rankin-Bass - who were outsourcing some animation efforts to Japan - went to Toho, after Toho made the 1962 film King Kong vs. Godzilla.  RB and Toho jointly went to Universal, and since everyone likes money, they went ahead and made the movie.

I've only seen the US cut released by Universal - Toho has a slightly longer cut they released in Japan - and of course this version is dubbed, with one of our two American-born performers overdubbed by someone not them.  I assume real US kaiju aficionados have their Toho copies, but not I.

Anyway, the plot is that an un-named Eastern-hemisphere country has sent Madame X to work with Dr. Who (yeah, I know) whom she has hired to mine for the mysterious Element X (which I think is probably super-uranium).  Who has stolen plans from a clever... submarine leadership team? to build a giant replica of the legendary King Kong in order to perform the mining.  This is not a sequel to the prior King Kong vs. Godzilla film, but hints that the 1933 OG Kong film was inspired by a real gorilla-guy, and that's OUR guy here.  

That same submarine team, made up of actor Rhodes Reason and his more handsome counterpart, Akira Takarada, hang out a lot with Lt. Susan, the ship nurse, played by Linda Miller (who has some fun interviews online).  

CINEMA

Anyway, there's some stuff that echoes OG Kong, way too much espionage/ James Bond inspired stuff.  Madame X is up to no good.  There's ape hypnosis.  I dunno.  It just goes on and on before we finally get to the big ape fight, which is pretty good, tbh.  Who doesn't want to see that?

The budget on this film seems high.  The detail on the Kong suit is good (if goofy) and the sets are many and highly details, for man and kaiju alike.  And Dr. Who's capes couldn't have been cheap.  And Madame X's couture was excellent. 

I think this one demanded to be watched with other people, and I watched it solo.  This was a mistake.  I may make Jamie watch it with me later this year.  

Toho Watch: The War of the Gargantuas (1966)

Watched:  04/21/2024

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ishiro Honda

Not as well remembered as the Godzilla movies from Toho, the same studio also made a few "Frankenstein" movies.  If, by Frankenstein, you mean "here's a giant, sort of stupid looking guy in a furry outfit and hideous mask".  I, of course, didn't look up what order to watch these in, so this is the second one, and I have not yet seen the first.  

However, I'm a clever fellow, and I am pretty sure I followed along.

The War of the Gargantuas (1966) follows the tale of a "Frankenstein" appearing in Japan after they believed the Frankenstein they'd previously dealt with in Frankenstein vs. Baragon was killed.  Well, apparently Frank was dropping cells that grew into new monsters, also called Frankensteins, because sure.

The first on to appear is green, and alternately referred to as "Gaira" or "The Green One", because he is green.  And comes from the sea.  And he hates lounge singers.  And the Japanese Self Defense Force.  A second Frankenstein comes down out of the mountains, and is dubbed "Sanda" (and is usually actually just called "The Brown One").  

The two fight while, per usual, the guys in military uniforms and stern men in gray suits ponder what they should do, while our hero seems to know what to do.  Now, weirdly, our hero is Russ Fucking Tamblyn.  And he is having an absolute blast.  

The best part of the movie is that is also has Kumi Mizuno, who has a large role, partnering with Tamblyn as his feisty sidekick.

You can also count on seeing several other players from the Toho company.  Man, getting in with them must have been an okay gig for a bunch of years there.

Somehow more so than other Toho kaiju films, this one really is just two monsters shrieking and fighting for about 50 of the 90 minutes of the movie.  Tamblyn and Mizuno run around behind them for a while, but eventually they get sidelined.  And you will get very, very tired of what seems like a loop of shrieking monsters and buildings crumbling.  THAT SAID, the sets are pretty great on this one, and they came up with interesting set pieces - maybe because the actors are confined within the same amount of kooky latex needed to make Godzilla happen.  

All I can say is, I saw it, I was glad for Russ Tamblyn, and Kumi Mizuno should be in everything.

Kaiju Watch: Gamera the Giant Monster (1965)

Gamera just stepped on a Lego

Watched:  03/29/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Noriaki Yuasa

Selection:  Jamie, kind of

We've both seen a lot of Godzilla movies, but I confess to a Gamera gap.  I have not ever really watched Gamera movies outside of MST3K.  

Gamera is from Daiei Film, a competitor to Toho, one supposes.  And it's not like Japan has the lock on movies riffing on popular ideas from other studios.  It's a way of life for popular media here in these United States.  

Anyhoo...  Gamera: The Giant Monster (1965) is the first Gamera movie of what Wikipedia tells me is a dozen films.  It's... a rip-off of Godzilla in some ways, and it's own weird, wacky thing, so you can see how it took off and found it's own voice and following.

The basic gist is that the Russians are flying over the arctic where some scientists are hanging out with what I believe are supposed to be Inuit people trying to determine... something about turtles or something.  I don't know.  Anyway, they're engaged by the USAF who shoot one of the Russkies out of the air, crashing a nuclear payload into the ice.  Which frees Gamera, just in time for the title sequence.  

G Watch: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

Watched:  03/28/2024

Format:  AMC Dolby (apparently the seats vibrate?)

Viewing:  First

Director:  Alex Wingard

Selection:  This is a Godzilla house

As soon as the credits rolled, Jamie turned to me and said:  "this movie understood what the series needed was more frogs and dogs and bears and chickens and whatever".  And I agree.  100%.

So.  I'm not going to guarantee everyone will like this movie.  It is loud, and it is crazy and it is probably more than a little dumb.  But that doesn't mean I didn't have a great time at the movie, and get exactly what I wanted out of it.  

I've entered into that "I can't actually see a Godzilla movie and just watch it as a normal movie, I only can see it in the context of 70 years of Godzilla films" thing that I also do with some other media, like Superman.  So, based on that, I think Legendary/ The Monsterverse has finally really sorted out their strengths.*  

They absolutely get how the first two Godzilla movies wanted to do this in a way that suggested a serious film but then kept tripping over themselves en route, whether it was giving us the most boring possible hero or the least sympathetic family possible to follow for the runtime.  

G Prep Watch: King Kong v. Godzilla (1963) - US Version

Watched:  03/27/2024

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First of this version

Director(s):  original formula - Ishirô Honda / US recut - Tom Montgomery

Selection:  Joint, Jamie and me

We have tickets to see Godzilla x Kong on Thursday the 28th, and we decided to do a little bit of homework prior to the film.  It had been a while since I'd watched King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963), and I was met by a surprise when putting the film on.  

Like Gojira/ Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla 1984/ Godzilla 1985/ Godzilla Returns - this movie had a cut for the US audiences which is edited, includes new footage and has American talent cut into the original film.  I think I'd only ever seen the Japanese cut of the movie, so I was a little thrown when the movie was framed as a newscast hosted by a genial white American dude, and leaped into action to see what was what.

The version we watched was... insane.  There's so many tones being hit, so many ideas, characters, locations, etc...  Any theme that was originally present (apparently originally a satire on the programming on television and the corporate relationships to that programming) is flattened as the American version literally uses television as the framing device - inserting American-based news anchors to ponder the events unfolding.

G Watch: Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

Watched:  03/02/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Masaaki Tezuka & Ishirô Honda

Selection:  Me-ish

This is the one about the very lazy scientists who create a wormhole on earth and don't monitor said wormhole and it lets in a bug, and that bug almost destroys the planet.

So, yeah - this movie is part of the Millennium series which kicked off with Godzilla 2000, and which I'm unclear if there's even supposed to be any continuity.  But Godzilla is a problem, so science decides the thing to do is create a gun that can shoot a black hole at him, which...  look...  that just seems like you're creating way more problems than you're solving.  

On a test run, the scientists are successful, but the black hole leaves a @#$%ing wormhole and no one seems all that worried about it and I guess they go home?  Because that night a giant bug flies out and leaves an egg a very, very dumb kid picks up.  But he's been sworn by our supposed hero not to tell anyone about the experiment, so, logically, he tells no one about the egg.  

Which he then dumps down a Tokyo sewer when the egg gets slimy.  But the egg is hatching thousands of tiny bugs that will grow into horse-sized dragonflies that kill people.  So, amazing job all around.  

It's not really a wonder that some Godzilla movies harp on how the Japanese government tends to shoot itself in the foot and hurt the citizenry by constantly trying to hide information.  

Anyway - Black Hole Gun doesn't quite do its job on its first live fire, and Godzilla is swarmed by giant dragonflies who siphon off some of his *power* and take it to their resting queen in a submerged city.  The queen then fights Godzilla, and if you signed up for a pretty good kaiju fight, I have great news for you. 

I may slowly be developing a thing for women in well designed helmets thanks to these movies, but there you are.  Our hero helps direct the Black Hole Gun at Godzilla and the movie ends with us knowing they only think they got rid of him.  By the time the credits finish, we think they did not as the dumb kid from the movie's first half is seen staring out a window in what we can only hope is Godzilla about to crush him.

This movie is weirdly gross.  Doug described it as "gristley", which seems right.  There's a lot of stabbing of Godzilla by a stinger, and lots of ooze and slime and bug parts.  Which is interesting as the movie is rated 7+.  Kids were tougher in 2000.  There's also two straight up horror movie deaths as the dragonflies take out some unsuspecting people.  But the design on the dragonflies and the eventual Megaguirus is really solid and shows what Toho was pulling off really well in this era.

Some fun casting:  Yuriko Hoshi who was in a couple of Showa-era films returns as a veteran scientist with some major mom hair.  And Misato Tanaka is pretty solid as our helmeted lead.

This is nowhere near my favorite Godzilla movie, but it has some good bits.  Godzilla has the edgier, pokier design, and I love the pink in his dorsal fins, which is why I'm pumped about Pink G in the coming film.  

G Watch: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

Watched:  02/29/2024

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Second?

Director:  Takao Okawara & Kazuki Ômori

Selection:  Jamie

So, Jamie had a medical procedure earlier in the day, and when it came time to figure out what she felt like doing that evening, she said "I can't do anything but watch a Godzilla".  And what was up next in our Heisei-era viewing was this little gem.  

You can definitely tell:  this movie was at least in part for kids.  The hero, Aoki, is an engineer whose hobby is pterodactyls.  He's been working on a sort of flying ship cannon dingus, but is sent over to the new MechaGodzilla project.   

By the way, the sequel title is sort of factual, but this movie - and all Heisei-era movies, ignore the movies after 1954's Gojira, so it's a weird bit of titling.  It is not the second movie with MechaGodzilla in it, and it's the first with an all-new take on MechaGodzilla in this era.  But no one asked me in 1993 what to name it, so here we are.

Based on wreckage from the mechanical head left by the re-furbished King Ghidorah from the prior film, this MechaGodzilla is armed to the teeth, and should be able to take down Big G.  It turns out fighting a living nuclear reactor doesn't go well all the time, tho, and MechaG is taken down.

Oh, but the BIG plot point is that a group of scientists find a gigantic egg (like 2 meters long and 1.5 meters tall on its side) on a radioactive island with a Rodan and Godzilla.  The scientists decide to (a) take the egg despite the fact it GLOWS from time-to-time (b) they then put it in a lab in the middle of the city (c) in a lab the size of an actual university lab, which is like, an apartment living room and (d) they never x-ray it for some reason to see what they have?  They just assume:  oh, yeah, it's a Rodan.  

It isn't.  Out pops a baby Godzillasaurus, because these are movies for children. 

Anyway, the plot gets very hazy very fast with characters yelling what is happening with absolutely zero supporting evidence to back up their claims.  "Rodan is his nest brother!"  IS HE?  WHY?  HOW?  No one seems concerned about WHO laid the Godzilla-egg.  Or the fact they have a baby Godzilla that maybe they should kill now while the killing is good.  The Japanese government seems convinced the baby Godzilla is an asset, but never says how or why.  

Anyway, baby Godzilla becomes a MacGuffin as Godzilla either wants to kill the baby or take the baby or something...  it's not clear.  Rodan same.  MechaG gets an upgrade to have the flying dingus attach like a backpack.  

And then there's a really pretty solid fight at the end.  

Miki is also in this movie, just kind of appearing here and there.  Oh, and this movie posits Godzilla has a second brain in his butt, a bit like we were taught as kids about the anklyosaur, but which isn't, apparently, true.  But that doesn't mean Miki the Psychic doesn't find Godzilla's second brain with her ESP.

It's important to note that Godzilla in this and the prior films is a walking natural disaster and not seen as a balancing force, etc...  He's just a straight up unsolvable problem and no one knows what he'll do next or why.  It breaks a lot of Western (or at least American) screen writing rules, and can feel messy - but that's kind of missing the point.  Godzilla DOES have motivations, he just isn't monologuing and by the time our heroes figure it out, we've usually lost part of a major sea port.  

This movie does suggest he's not a complete jerk as, via Miki, he understands he needs to take care of the baby rather than eat it, I guess.  So off they swim.

I can't say I love the hero in this movie - but the scientist is pretty good.  And I enjoy the very 1.0 attempt at MechaGodzilla in the Heisei design, which becomes cooler in the Millennium movies.  This is also my favorite era of G's design, but that's by a fraction of a point.  Rodan is just a weird, big bird - and I have no real complaints.  I think I like him better here than the Monsterverse, but less than I like his OG look.  Miki's bangs are still a lot.

But the Kaiju battles in this are really pretty solid, and the FX on top of the kaiju costumes are well done, especially for the era.  Some money got tossed at this one.

G Watch: Godzilla and Mothra - The Battle for Earth (1992)

Watched:  02/25/2024

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Second

Director: Takao Okawara

Selection:  Me

We decided to keep on our path of rewatching Heisei-era Godzilla movies in order.  We last watched this one about four years ago during our "hunker down and watch Godzilla because it's COVID-times" erratic sprint through Toho's G-output.  

Honestly, I didn't really remember this one at all until a scene would start.  There was a lot of "oh, yeahhhh..." as the movie unspooled.  And I attribute that to the fact the middle of movie is a mess.  The beginning is interesting enough, and the end is good Kaiju Kombat, but the middle feels like they're trying to make a point about stealing and environmentalism, but it's a little confusing as to how that's tying into our Kaiju problem.  And to further muddy the film, Godzilla - now a heel after the time-warp stuff of the prior film - isn't here to restore balance.  He's just... sorta... rampaging.  

What's funny is how it looks like the new Monsterverse stuff is taking cues from these movies.  This is the first of the Heisei movies to suggest ancient cultures knew of the Kaiju, and there was a balance to the world brought by the Titans.  But here they do it as an exposition dump *after* introducing The Cosmos (our faerie friends).  And the Monsterverse can't bear the thought of either the Cosmos or Mothra in her larval form - so I guess we're just stuck with the window dressing.

Curiously, one of the supporting actors looked so familiar I mentioned it to Jamie who figured out he was recast in Godzilla 2000 as a totally different character, but he had facial hair and a very different demeanor.  But I did feel less crazy (and he's actually in like four of these movies).  And that's just one of those things - I think everyone acting in Japan gets to be in 2-4 Godzilla movies if they play their cards right.

SF Science-Fiction Watch: It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)

Watched:  02/24/2024

Format:  Amazon 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Gordon

Selection:  me

I was watching something recently - no idea what - and they showed clips from It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), one of the 1950's staple sci-fi atomic-age monster horror movies I'd always meant to get around to, but it just never happened.  In the clips, I saw the giant, stop-motion squid at the center of the movie tearing up San Francisco-based landmarks so I thought "hey, let's watch that with Dug."

So, we did.

Quick note:  the version we watched on Amazon was colorized, and done pretty well, I believe by Amazon.  But it's not what I was intending to watch.  Beware which version you're clicking on when you agree to rent the film.

At the time, this movie was very successful, but seems to have been somewhat forgotten by Gen-X and subsequent generations.  Jamie stated out loud what I was wondering:  did someone read a synopsis of Gojira (1954) and decide to try to make something similar here?  Maybe, but also:  by 1955, we were into the second wave of monster films as studios realized the popularity of Dracula and Co. had not really diminished, but - also - wasn't it fun to have giant, radioactive ants (Them! - 1954) or just big old sea beasts (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms - 1953).  

Unlike Gojira, the military here is shown as successful, eventually, against the beast.  But, if you like movies about meetings and some awkward romance (and if you have an interest in getting into Godzilla, I hope you like both), this is the movie for you.  

Look, Harryhausen is a master, but he can only make so much movie so fast.  And make it look as good as it does in this film.  So there's not a lot of time in the movie where we actually see the giant octopus.  When we do, it looks fantastic.  The FX and stop-motion are top of their game for the era, if nothing else, just skip around the timeline of the film to watch that.  It's extremely cool.

The film stars Kenneth Tobey as our submarine commander hero and sexual harasser, Faith Domergue as the brilliant lady scientist who eventually takes Tobey down a peg even as she's clearly ready to bed him, and Donald Curtis, whom I have seen in multiple other movies but never in such a prominent role.  They're all fine.  Tobey I have an affection for as the guy from the original The Thing From Another World and a whole bunch of Joe Dante films (plus Airplane!).  Domergue just isn't one of my favorites.  She's very...  there in the movie, but she always feels a little flat to me.  And Curtis isn't bad as the third wheel.  

The sexual politics of the movie are squarely 1955 for most of the film:  he-man Tobey makes his intentions known, Domergue is sorta having it as Tobey literally corners her and all but waggles his eyebrows.  But the curious bit is the speech delivered by Curtis, informing Tobey (who presumably has been at sea since WWII) "hey, women have their own minds, and they're entering the workforce as equals, so step the fuck off" to which Tobey seems amenable-ish.  It arrives way too late, and has been ignored coming from the mouth of Domergue, but it does arrive, and for that alone I was shocked.

The movie is a tight 80-something minutes, so it's not exactly going to kill your day to watch the movie.  Just don't come in expecting deep character studies or anything.  Come in looking for SF to get blowed up by a squid and you're good.