Raiding Places. The Sequel Too Scared To Be Called A Sequel. It’s a pity that the most promulgated and available versions of these old movies are those versions doctored by racist pigs and venal corporations. This version of GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN, the sequel to 1954’s GODZILLA, is the United States edit that was renamed GIGANTIS: THE FIRE MONSTER, with the … Read More
GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
Trying to fix something that ain’t broke – and breaking it. No, it’s NOT just the same movie re-edited. I speak for all cucumber reviewers when I contend – nay, insist – that the 1956 American re-edit of GODZILLA (1954), re-titled GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, cannot, must not and should NEVER be reviewed with the original, even as a … Read More
GODZILLA 2000
Rebooting the unbootable. Lotta talk on GODZILLA 2000 being Toho Company’s rejoinder to Tri-Star Pictures’ GODZILLA 1998 (directed by Roland Emmerich), the red-headed step-child of Godzilla canon. If you’re talking storyline, then they’re about the same dumbness, with 2000 cheating a little by borrowing many story elements from the original 1954 GODZILLA. If you’re talking acting, they’re still about the … Read More
GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA
Mega Godzilla! TITLE CARD Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture. A TV reporter being battered by driving rain, describing the tempest. Behind him, the sea roils. As he says, “It’s huge and getting bigger by the minute!” his crew stare gape-mouthed at what’s behind him, rising from the deep: a gigantic creature, spiked back, blackened skin, dinosaurian in aspect. CUT TO A shopkeeper … Read More
GHIDORAH: THE THREE HEADED MONSTER
Shooting laser beams at our balls. “The flying saucer people are obviously not going to arrive tonight.” The “Flying Saucer People”? Maybe that’s why. That’s one of the more sensible lines in GHIDORAH: THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER, another dimwitted Godzilla movie that brings together four – count ’em, four! – Japanese monsters to try and make a rip in each other’s … Read More
GODZILLA’S REVENGE
The revenge is on US! Godzilla, King Of The Monsters, takes his revenge on us by acting in GODZILLA’S REVENGE and making us watch it, instead of letting us jump out a window to make the suffering end. Longtime Godzilla filmmakers, director Ishiro Honda and writer Shin’ichi Sekizawa, try to exonerate themselves from the execrable creature fights in this film … Read More
GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER
Going Green with Big Green. Lost amidst the morass of camp Godzilla insults in the late ’60s and early ’70s, comes this ominous entry in the series, GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER (aka GODZILLA VERSUS HEDORAH); a real horror story, which doubles as one long Public Service Announcement against pollution. Japan’s waterways are so choked with sludge, and its smokestacks … Read More
GODZILLA VS. GIGAN
Jumping the Sharkzilla. Extra-terrestrial alien cockroaches defeated by Japanese cartoonist! GODZILLA VS. GIGAN might have retained a semblance of watchability if it had continued the mystery thriller tone of its first act. Young Gengo (Hiroshi Ishikawa) is hired as a cartoonist by a new Children’s Park, that boasts a life-size replica of Godzilla as its office. He meets young Machiko … Read More
GODZILLA VS. MEGALON
Cheese Doodles on Crazy Bread. By the release of GODZILLA VS. MEGALON, Godzilla movies had reached such a level of camp that nothing seemed too ridiculous to put onscreen any more. We are asked to accept such a level of idiocy by the filmmakers, it was anyone’s guess whether they were intentionally driving the franchise into the 1960’s BATMAN ditch, … Read More
KING KONG VS. GODZILLA
King Kong versus King Of The Monsters in a battle to the meh! It’s Halloween. One of your idiot friends is in an ape costume walking around upright like a human, not making the slightest attempt to emulate an ape, and another idiot friend is dressed as an alligator and his long tail has knocked over the snacks table more … Read More
GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER
Godzilla as Destroyer, Godzilla as Savior, Godzilla as afterthought. Guerilla military installation on island, guarded by gigantic lobster, developing nuclear bomb, using slaves kidnapped from Mothra’s village; teens and a master thief shipwrecked, free the slaves, giant bird attack, lightning storm, nuclear explosions. Uh, and Godzilla. A Godzilla movie with an actual story! GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER boasts the … Read More
GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA
Godzilla’s Mothman Chronicles. The laugh-out-loud moment in GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA: Mothra uses his tiny little mothy feet to grab Godzilla’s tail and fly backwards, dragging Godzilla backwards along the ground, while Godzilla claws for purchase. The strength of this fluffy Lepidopteran! It’s another fine day in Tokyo, meaning it’s soon going to be raining daikaiju. (Thank you Toho Company!) A … Read More
THE KILLER
If you can see past the bullets… Give a guy a gun, he thinks he’s Superman. Give him two and he thinks he’s God. — John Woo’s HARD BOILED. Some call John Woo‘s THE KILLER the pinnacle of balletic, bulletic, action art. Well, it’s a pinnacle all right – of something. Not really a ballet, unless you count the hundreds … Read More
HARD BOILED
Dirty Hari. Body count: a kajillion. Chow Yun-Fat is Inspector “Tequila” Yuen. He’s a cop who’s been in hot water so long, he’s HARD BOILED. Or maybe it’s cos his face is egg-shaped. He’s on the trail of a gun smuggler crime boss, Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, who has the misfortune to look like Jonathan Silverman), but Wong is … Read More
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Hip to be Slumdog. I’m gonna get skewered for this – but only if you are not aware of the land of my forecumbers. Just as black people are the only ones allowed to call each other N-Words, my cucumber patch being originally from Madras earns me the right to satire paka Indian-English and get away with it. He’s not … Read More
THE KITE RUNNER
A Wimp’s Tale. I know I’ll get lambasted for approaching this movie from a less-than-arty-farty angle, but just because a film is in a foreign language (Dari with English subtitles), and thematically covers honor, justice, manhood, and involves child-rape, terrorism and kite-flying in the Middle East – doesn’t mean it should automatically be discussed in hushed, honorary whispers. THE KITE … Read More
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