3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Barbie

2023, Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) -- download

I need a new tag: Finally Got Around To It. Maybe someday I will even watch Parasite.

This movie is a dear of the film industry, in that it is considered topical, intelligent, and made boat loads of post-digital post-pandemic cinema money. We all know the Barbenheimer legend. But was it a good movie. Thankfully, yes. But was it a great movie? Ehhhhhnnn, somewhat.

Weeks after I wrote the above, the Oscar noms (nom nom nom) come out and its up for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actors (Ryan and America), Adapter Screen Play, etc. Notably missing are Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig. Seems... weird.

The best thing about Barbie is that it is exactly what it should be, but it is also a subversion of everything it is about. On the surface it is full of beautiful, known faces and even has a very very Barbie blonde playing "stereotypical Barbie" and one of today's most popular male faces playing Ken. It is all about the pink, and the plastic, and the so-called Great Lives the Barbies all live. It could have been just about that, as most of Hollywood would have been entirely satisfied to have a Barbie movie about the world they live in, producing a Pixels level movie about a popular toy franchise.

Instead, we get a feminism-lite subversion of what Barbie is -- the unattainable role model based entirely on looks and a life very few can have. This subversion leads to some very loudly heard but not very nuanced monologues on what it is to be a woman in the current age. It was the kind of commentary that pissed the fragile male ego off, made women around the world cheer, but also made others groan at the over simplifications made. 

In a way, it was a very tactical film, in that it played both sides but satisfied the Purple Suits well enough. The funny thing is that I don't think it diminishes what it was trying to attain. Our current age seems very determined to erode whatever progress women have made in my lifetime. At least in The West; the rest of the enlightened world is probably just facepalming hard. This is probably as loud Hollywood can be without being shutdown. This might explain the "Oscar snubs".

Wow, that is a lot said from the point of view of a cis het white male. And without even saying what the movie was about.

The movie is fun. Barbie (Margot Robbie, Birds of Prey) wakes up in her perfect world, until one day, its not so perfect. Something is wrong. Someone in the "real world" is playing with her... wrong. So, Barbie, on the advice of a Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon, The Bubble) goes to the real world to find the little girl playing with her wrong, to set things right. Stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling, Bladerunner 2049) sneaks into her pink car and joins her on her Hero's Journey, but only ends up discovering Male Fragility. And horses. The real world is just as plastic as the Barbie world, just more toxic, but Barbie has escape Evil Mattell with the disillusioned little girl (actually a disillusioned mom [America Ferrara, How to Train Your Dragon]; the little girl is quite fine actually) to return to the Barbie world, only to find out Ken has returned earlier and set about an incel revolution. Together they remind the Barbies of Barbie world that they are independent, strong Barbies that run their world. The movie is fun.

I will desist from having any more "enlightened" opinions.

Kent's post.

Go-Go-Godzilla #22: Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla

Director: Kensho Yamashita
Year: 1994
Studio: TriStar, Toho Pictures
Length: 106 minutes

The Creature's' Story:

Godzilla just hanging out in ocean, living life. Then big dumb crystal meteorite crash and disturb Godzilla's Godzilla time.
Next thing Godzilla know, Baby G cries, which Godzilla guess means it daddy duty to go see what up. What shit? Pink tear gas? Stupid humans and their stinging projectiles. Why do Godzilla even bother. But, what hell? A...SpaceGodzilla? And SpaceGodzilla have whole terrain of canker sores festering about the island with pulsating crystal teeth. Godzilla don't like this. Baby G clearly afraid of SpaceG. SpaceG attack Baby G which piss Godzilla off royally (Godzilla always pissed off royally, because Godzilla=King of the Monsters). Godzilla use body as shield to protect Baby G, but SpaceG has crazy space lightning attack that hurt so bad and knock Godzilla to ground. Baby G taken and captured in crystal, like got sent to Phantom Zone or something.

Godzilla defeated. Fuck this shit, Godzilla go home, eat metric ton of Hagendaas.

While later, after Godzilla spill many tears for Baby G while eating tankerful of rum raisin, SpaceG returns , building a crystal fortress around himself but Godzilla know in order to defeat SpaceG, he need destroy crystals. SpaceG have swirly twirly lazer breath that hurts plenty and comes at all angles. Not-Big Metal Beast (aka BaMBi) help Godzilla out. Godzilla destroy tower, and then team up with Not-BaMBi to double attack SpaceG. Then Godzilla do lots of biting to block SpaceG energy. BaMBi do nose dive into SpaceG, help turn tides. Godzilla level up atomic blast somehow. How? Who care. Not Godzilla. Just roast that SpaceG, turn to dust. 

But where Baby G? Fuck this shit, Godzilla go home, eat metric ton of Hagendaas.

The Human Story:
A crystalline asteroid hurtles through space, crashing on Monster Island. It creates pulsating crystalline maws that pulsate, sending lighting signals into the sky to attract SpaceGodzilla.

Project M is building the "ultimate Godzilla weapon", the M.O.G.U.E.R.A., which looks like it was reconstructed from Mechagodzilla.

Miki the psychic girl is asked to be part of Project T (for Telepathy) which endeavours to mount a unit on Godzilla's head so Miki, using her powers, can control him. She's reticent. But the committee in charge will otherwise employ one of her younger students from the ESP school, and the alternative is Project G, which seeks to destroy Godzilla. Also, Miki got a new haircut.

Miki, taking a breather, senses Mothra in space (if you will recall when Mothra got Poochied two films ago). She receives a message from the Cosmos twins. A terrible space creature has been sent to kill Godzilla to make it easier to conquer the earth.

G-Force agents Goji and Kiyo take a cruise ship, only to jump off in a speed boat to Monster Island where the rendes-vous with Crocodile Dundee-esque tough guy Yuki, who in turn introduces them to Baby Godzilla who follows him around like a puppy (Baby G has grown since last film, but also been extra-cutened, but not to too offensive a level). They don't know why they're there. Yuki has them planting tear gas mines. He shows them a special bullet he's made with a special coagulant that will kill Godzilla, but Goji and Kiyo are part of Project T and won't help to kill big G. Miki and her employers at Project T come and join them. Miki bonds with Baby G. But poor Baby G trips all of Yuki's tear gas mines. Its cries wake Godzilla. Time for Project T to plant its telepathic receiver. (Slow moving stakes as Yuko at the same time tries to fire his coagulant bullet into Godzilla's armpit).

G-Force meets with NASA who show a horrifying (in quality) video of ISS crew being attacked by some sort of crystal monster. Soaring through space towards earth now is SpaceGodzilla. The M.O.G.U.E.R.A. is sent into space to meet SpaceGodzilla, but their fight in the middle of an asteroid field doesn't go well for the M.O.G.U.E.R.A. team at all and Space Godzilla arrives.

Baby G goes out to meet the new creature but it doesn't greet him back and Baby G is frightened, then attacked by SpaceG's crystal lightning. Godzilla intervenes before Space G can kill Baby G.  But Baby G is captured anyway in one of Space G's crystal maws. Godzilla defeated, returns to the ocean, while SpaceG flies off.

Yuki and the Project T team leave after Project T is a failure, but Goji and Kiyo decide to stay back with Miki. Miki, after another wardrobe change, receives a telepathic pep talk from space Mothra. Goji puts the moves on Miki, but she's mad at him because he doesn't understand Godzilla like she does.

We learn that either Biollante or Mothra carried Godzilla DNA into space then fell into a black hole and was pushed out in a white hole, assimilating crystal organisms, and absorbing incredible energy, thus Space Godzilla was born.

In the middle of the night, the trio are attacked and Miki is taken by the Japanese Mafia (what?). Yuki, Goji and Kiyo somehow knew exactly where to look for her and they attempt a break in of their stronghold, where, it turns out, one of the Project T members is thirsting for power, but Project T still doesn't work. G-Force do a raid and rescue Miki in a completely extraneous time-filling subplot.

Space Godzilla heads towards Tokyo, and a rebuilt M.O.G.U.E.R.A. is ready to go with Yuki, Goji and Kiyo in the pilot seat, but not before Fukuoka City is destroyed by towering crystal spikes rising out of the ground. Godzilla's on his way too, but G-Force attacks Godzilla? They're no real impediment. Even Yuki takes control of M.O.G.U.E.R.A. and attacks Godzilla, but Goji overpowers him and knocks him out.  They take control and engage Space Godzilla with everything they've got, including M.O.G.U.E.R.A.'s drill noees which they bury in SpaceG's neck. But just as with the beta M.O.G.U.E.R.A. failed engagement in space, the new M.O.G.U.E.R.A.'s no match.

It's up to Godzilla now. The G-Force see that Godzilla is destroying the crystal structures, and Koji decides to split M.O.G.U.E.R.A. into two - a flying tank and a ground drill tank that can burrow- and take out the tower structure that Space G is using to amplify his power or something. They reform after the tower is destroyed and help Godzilla attack Space G. But after M.O.G.U.E.R.A. is destroyed Yuki takes one of his coagulant bullets in a rocket launcher and takes aim at Space Godzilla but Godzilla interferes in his shot. He pilots Mogera on a suicide dash into Space G. It's enough to turn the tides for Godzilla.

Yuki rescues Koji (with a little ESP help from Miki) and everyone reunites. Miki gets a thank you from the Cosmos and space Mothra. Miki then shows Yuki that Baby G is safe and learning to spit sparks, while Godzilla wades off in the distance.

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Actually friend, but treated like foe

The Sounds:
Takayuki Hattori's score hits its first big note when it plays with the strings formation from "You Only Live Twice" (they thought we wouldn't notice...) as Koji and Kiyo venture to the island, after which there's some good percussive, tropical beats once they arrive. The film goes for a semi-military march whenever M.O.G.U.E.R.A. is on screen but it's less egregiously "american" in it's composition than past type marches that grate on my nerves. Also, there's very limited use of the original Godzilla theme, mercifully, and much less rehashing of familiar scores, which is a welcome reprieve in the Heisei era.

The Message:
Uh... love heals us from wanting to kill giant monsters?

Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZ
The fighting is pretty stiff and clunky. The dynamic movement of the performers and camerawork seen in Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II is not really here. There's not much physical contact between the suitmation performers.  Plus, holding true to form, any flying in the Heisi era is entirely too rigid. It just tends to be static miniature figures swooping or brushing past each other with sparks or explosions set off to give the impression of some sort of action. 

The romantic sub plots here are poorly executed and feel tacked on. There's zero chemistry between any of the couplings here. 

Yuki's hate-on for Godzilla is well-portrayed by Akira Emoto, a hilarious last name, given how little he emotes, as he has the stonest of stone faces. There are some pretty incredible sets constructed, particularly in the extensively battle damaged Fukuoka where the humans wade through on rescue missions while Godzilla and SpaceG duke it out. This film does feature some incredible scenes that composite of miniatures, suitmation and live action all together.  I could stare at those all day and they really do beat out CGI for visceral tactileness. 

 I like that Miki the psychic girl is put fairly close to center of the story here but there's still no real characterization for her and she still doesn't really get much of a story arc. Her powers do level up though.

KWIF: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (+2)

 KWIF = Kent's Week In Film. A real mixed bag.

This Week:
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023, d. James Wan, in theatre)
American Fiction (2023, d. Cord Jefferson, in theatre)
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (2023, d. Kelly Fremon Craig, Crave)

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The meta-narratives around the Aquaman sequel are plenty. Most revolve around the dissolution of the DC Expanded Universe (nee, the Snyderverse), and others circle bad faith narratives revolving around Amber Heard, stemming from the most toxic of online actors (and if you're one of said toxic personas who has embraced the word "toxic" as a descriptor, please, by all means, paint yourself with that radioactive brush as much as possible so that we can see your sickly glow coming miles off and know to just avoid you).

But I don't really want to rehash all of that, because this film doesn't seem particularly interested or concerned about the meta-reality of its existence.  This film wants little more than to be the sequel to Aquaman, which you may or may not recall, grossed over one billion dollars at the box office, which was substantially more than any Superman, Wonder Woman, or Justice League film managed to do before it. 

I was more impressed by Aquaman than actually liking Aquaman when I first watched, but a rewatch or two since, I've really grown fond of it's tonally schizophrenic nature, and it's you've-never-seen-this-before bonkers ambition.  In some respects, "...Lost Kingdom" reaches for the same thing, and, in some respects, succeeds.  But not always.

It's unfortunate then that the film starts with a tedious and aggressively annoying "catch-up" montage of Aquaman explaining everything that's been going on in his life since we last saw him, all while "Born To Be Wild", one of the most cliche needledrops in history, plays over the proceedings. Aquaman talks to fishes. He beats up pirates. Aquaman got married. He is king of Atlantis. Being king is hard and it sucks. Aquaman had a baby. The baby likes to pee on his face. You know, the usual opening montage where superheroes get piss in their mouths....

The he-bro energy that Momoa brings to the role is what held me back from liking the first movie the first time around, and it's working twice as hard at getting in your face here. It's like the character, rather than growing out of ridiculous, juvenile behaviour as sovereign of the seven seas, has doubled down on it. It's unfortunate that it's the title character of the film that I can least tolerate. 

The story finds two pairs of odd-couple team ups. First there's Black Manta (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) and nebbish Dr. Stephen Shen (Randall Park) who are venturing in dark corners of the world looking for Atlantis and its powers, only to find something really dark and powerful, leading to accelerating earth's climate crisis (the very same crisis that the Atlanteans are willing to go to war with the surface world over, rather than expose themselves and try to collaborate on a solution). Then there's Aquaman and his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) learning to be brothers, amend their differences, and stop Black Manta's evil plot.  It's basically a buddy road-trip movie, writ large.

Mateen's Black Manta basically is possessed by the Lost Kingdom's ruler, and he's acting irrationally in his quest for vengeance against Aquaman, and it's up to Dr. Shen to be both the comic relief and voice of reason. Park seems to be having fun in the role. Mateen has presence, but seems trapped by the plot which doesn't really allow his character to have much depth.

Heard's Mera, Nicole Kidman's Atlanna (can we get a character named Toronno?), Dolph Lundgren's Nereus, John Rhys-Davies' the Brine King, and Temeura Morrison's Thomas Curry all are in the film but in the type of supporting roles that signifies the creatives wanted continuity with the prior film, but doesn't have much more for them to do beyond fight sequences and occasional japes.

It's really Wilson's Ocean Master that brings the film to life, and clearly what Wan intended with his muse (Wilson is an integral part three of Wan's four major franchises). Just like Aquaman and Mera had a globe-spanning adventure in the first film, Aquaman and Orm have a not-too-dissimilar adventure here. It feels like the classic 80's sequel trope of doing-it-all-again, the-same-but-different. 

The imagination, creativity, scale and design is all still on the screen, and boy did I delight in the ships and seadragons, and Cephalopod sidekicks, and big James Bondian-style villains lair, and henchmen and jailbreaks and anything but cliched superhero action out of this. Putting Mera and Atlanna and others sort of on the sideline did provide the film the ability to put the focus on its four leads.

It's 2 hours and 4 minutes long, which by superhero movie standards of the past decade, is on the shorter end of the spectrum. It feels like the opening act was rushed, yet still feels like it could have been further clipped. Same with the post script where Aquaman has to give a big rousing speech, which I barely buy into to begin with, and then he caps off with a big howl and devil fingers like he's leaving the ring at a WWE event.

On the one hand I wish Wan could do a third one of these, because I think there's something's utterly unique and wild about these pictures, but I also don't think I really want more of Momoa in the role. It never was a great fit.

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I never intended to watch so many films up for Oscar contention. I was, instead, more gravitating towards the films that seemed to be prevalent on "best of 2023" lists I came across. That there's a heavy cross-over between those lists and The Oscars this year signifies, possibly, that the Academy may have gotten past it's "Oscar bait" drive. But I guess there's still Nyad, which tells you that Oscar nominations can still be bought and paid for.

American Fiction is up for best picture, best adapted screenplay, best music, best lead actor, and best supporting actor. It's been a year where the roles of women had stood out immensely more than the men, and I had a list of favourite actresses, most of who got nominated. Of the men, I couldn't even think of a list... but Wright and Brown are so intrinsically watchable on screen, so good as to seem effortless generally, I understood their nomination before I even watched the film.  After watching, both nods are well earned. (Plus, Wright has been one of my favourite on-screen presences for over 20 years, he's due for the recognition). I wish there was more Tracee Ellis Ross though.  

Best Screenplay also makes sense, as I quite loved American Fiction's mix of satire and family dramedy, which deftly juggled both in presenting the story of Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Wright), an erudite author and professor whose sense of the world seems to be crumbling around him.  Put on leave of absence, and unable to get a book published, he returns to visit the family he keeps at a distance, while also writes a novel full of trashy Black stereotypes as an exercise in parody but it immediately sells. As it becomes a sensation, spiralling wildly out of his control, he struggles with what it all means across many contexts, and it wrecks him.

Monk's wrestling with identity and race, shaped off the back of his upbringing is a pretty complex one that the film scratches at enough to draw blood. It's a character study, not a universal statement of Black existence (which doubles as one of the theses of the film), and Monk actually learns a lesson or three which seems to be a result of age and the well-masked trauma of facing his own mortality and thinking about his legacy.

There is so much to glean directly on the surface, but there's so much underneath as well. Where some may love the literary lampooning, others may gravitate towards the wry familial connections. To me, both are an integral part of this portrait of Monk in his mid-to-late 50's still coming to terms with who he is and who he should be, to himself, to his family, to the Black community, to the literary world, and to the culture at large. It's a lot for anyone to process.

Minor spoiler warning. The film's post-script is freaking hilarious, but it completely dodges the James Frey-esque fallout that you would think would happen given that it has actually happened. Of course Monk is a genius and could probably spin his deception right back onto his audience and have them buying into his experiment even further. But the film missed the opportunity for him to showcase his genius and really mess with the elistst crowd.

I enjoyed this film immensely.

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This cinematic adaptation of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is a coming-of-age period drama, both in the sense that it takes place in the 1970's and that it's framed around Margaret's desperate desire for her first period to come while other traumas in her life occur. Young Abby Rider Fortson (the original Cassie from the Ant-Man series) is a talented young performer, as were most of the young cast. Rachel McAdams is great as a mom trying to hold together her own ideals of what a mom should be (given that she rebelled against her own parents), and Kathy Bates made me wish she were my grandma.

Her family relocates from New York City (away from Grandma, her best friend) to New Jersey, where she is immediately friended by her neighbour, Nancy, who's best described as the prototype for Cher from Clueless or Regina from Mean Girls. As Margaret tries to fall in step with Nancy and her gang (all who cannot stop talking about getting their periods and becoming women) she starts to desperately wish for hers. At the same time, she starts questioning her faith, as the daughter of a lapsed Catholic mother and Jewish father. Her mother's estrangement from her family also comes into play, as does a bit of boy trouble, and reckoning with being part of the mean girl crowd and the other girls she's bullied.

As a father of a non-binary child with ADHD and GAD who was the same age as Margaret at the tail end of COVID lockdowns and in the internet age where every child has a half-dozen screens at their disposal, I found AYTG?IM,M to be adorably cute and simplistic, and wished that my child could have such basic concerns as Margaret instead of the 2+ year coming-of-age shitstorm they had to wade through.  I suppose that young, cis het, neuro-typical girls may still find something very relatable in this for-its-time revolutionary young-adult fiction, but it feels like like an ancient artifact to me. Beyond that, it's a very well told, charming picture for what it is, and yeah, I enjoyed the 70's decor, wardrobes, vehicles and everything else quite a bit. 

We Agree: Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire

2023, Zack Snyder (Sucker Punch) -- Netflix

Full disclosure, and my usual disclaimer -- I am the guy who enjoyed Sucker Punch. Kent, not so much. It was one of the earlier posts in this blog, where we did "the back n forth thing".

That element may be where this other (me), often a contrasting voice, comes from.

Really? To quote me, "Shaddup you." (Me)

Anywayz, like in the movie mentioned above, I also said out loud to people, that I would probably love this movie. I was wrong. I did not love it. I did, however, enjoy myself.

"I don't hate Zack Snyder. He seems like a nice guy. He's got a great eye for composition. But he's an awful storyteller..."

Thus spake Kent. We Agree.

This is a great looking movie, so full of inspiring, emotive, beautiful scenes and set pieces. We Disagree on the idea that Snyder "lacks any ability to inspire awe and wonder...", because I love his imagery and if I was 20sumthin again, I would be inspired to steal so many of his images for my RPGs. Much like he has stolen so many of his images from other sources. No, not stolen. Nothing is directly lifted but almost everything looks familiar, built from the palettes of a thousand other genre properties. The problem is that the only thing there is those images. Standing alone, they are wonderful. The image of Kora plowing a sandy field under the reflected light of a massive ringed planet, of which world Veldt is just a moon of is staggeringly beautiful. And so much of the movie draws on scenes like that. But with little long lasting effect, as the story falls flat. And it doesn't deserve to fall flat, as it draws upon one of the most basic heroic storylines available -- the plot of The Seven Samurai. 

rewatching

I love the opening. The fantasy village, the tradition of fucking to inspire the harvest, the long house. I used to be annoyed to no end by the mixing of fantasy elements & scifi elements, but I have tempered with age, like fine chocolate. I love this setting. 

And then the Space Nazis arrive. What else can we call them? There are hints of Dune, there are hints of Warhammer 40K as well as a dozen other standard Space Nazi elements. What I am not sure of is whether this is just one dreadnaught in a fleet of such, one such mega-dick Space Nazi in a fleet of such, and one grain laden village on a moon full of them. For a galaxy conquering empire, there seems to be a lack of ... everyone. In my initial watch, I had assumed there was a full fleet of warships of which this was but one, doing its thing, investigating rumours of the rebels out there on the fringes. Now, not so sure.

But at least this opening answers the questions that emerged in my first viewing, as things progressed. She (she? are you even going to explain who the "she" is?) is forced to kills a bunch of Space Goons, and thus is inpired to Fight Back. But to go against an army, they will need an army. So, she is going out there to find a disgraced General and his men, as well as find the Rebels, to ask them to help here. This is not yet The Seven Samurai; this is just a story, like so many others, about raising an army to fight against The Bad Guys. I am on board.

Of note, these "answered questions" are downed out by even greater questions left unanswered.

Also, I love Space Robot Anthony Hopkins.

Some people commented on the lack of stereotypical Snyder slowmo. Nope. Nuh uh. Its there is pretty much the entirety of the fight scene, including the now commonly used "punch someone down so hard, they kick themselves in the back of the head" scene. And also, there is slowmo that... slows down. Pretty hardcore slowmo if you ask me. And it continues, continually, throughout the entire movie.

So, yeah who are the main characters? We have aforementioned Kora (Sofia Boutella, The Mummy), a refugee on the grain laden moon of Veldt. The village is led by Vikings meets Peaky Blinders Sindri (Corey Stall, Ant-Man), who gets killed by the Space Nazis almost immediately. He was at odds with grain SME Gunnar (Michiel Huisman, Treme) who should have kept his big mouth shut, and so now has to accompany Kora off planet to find help. Of note, there is enough initial exposition to understand that Kora crashed on the planet under mysterious circumstances, and has been quietly making it her home. But on the way to the port city, she exposits in grand detail to Gunnar (again, under the lovely light of the ringed planet) how she was this movie's version of Gamora, adopted by Head Space Nazi General Balisarius (Fra Free, Hawkeye) when he killed everyone on her planet (not just half). She was raised to be a Space Nazi herself until she had just had enough...

OK, so where was I. Oh yeah, .... Raising An Army ends up being about wandering around the galaxy collecting weirdos. Again, I was on board with finding the General (and his army) and finding the rebels (and their army) and bringing them back to Veldt to fight the Space Nazi with the Bad Haircut (ohhh so bad; and, and their army), Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein, Deadpool), but this whole shoe-horning of The Magnificent Seven into the story? Ehhhhnnn?

But before we get there, we go to Mos Eisley and its army cantina. Sorry, the space port city of Providence where they meet the smuggler Kai (Charlie Hunnam, Pacific Rim)... in the cantina. To be fair, I loved the look of the city... cyberpunk/space opera meets Japanese period action flick. And Kai, despite him doing a bad (apparently, intentionally bad) Northern Ireland accent (why not just have him do his natural Geordie?), is a pretty cool, albeit cookie-cutter, character. At least they didn't have him wear a black vest and have a furry co-pilot. But the bar is filled with the requisite amount of weird looking aliens and human thugs, including the one that Obi has to cut his arm off... sorry, and get roughed up by horny alien who wants to bump uglies with Gunnar. And we mean ugly. When he's rebuffed, he comes back with friends and we get an Old West Shoot Em Up, all in PG13 slowmo. Kai is there to save the day and off they are in his garbage scow of a spaceship. I think it can do the Kessel Run in 13 Parsecs.

BUT before we go to get the General, we have to make our first weirdo pitstop. Why? Even in second viewing, I don't know and don't care (I mean, we end up knowing why KAI did so but....), but sure, we have to stop on some planet to pickup Conan the Barbarian (Staz Nair, Supergirl), but not before he has to break a griffon to gain his freedom. The entire segment is minorly cool looking, but entirely extraneous. It doesn't even establish that Conan the Barbarian could be helpful in a fight against Space Nazis. Unless said Space Nazis happen to be riding griffons? Whatever, let's move on, we have more weirdos to get to.

Next up, Nemesis (Doona Bae, Sense8) who is ... what? Whatever she is doing on the horrible mining planet, we just get a brief introduction with her killing a spider-lady (Jena Malone, Sucker Punch), who kidnapped a child, with her laser-swords, that she only makes laser-swords at the very end, for a bit of flourish. Maybe she was hoping spider-lady would surrender? No matter, they don't have to ask her twice to join their little rebellion, so she and her hat and her laser-swords pile on with the rag tag band. She also cautions Kora against doing things solely for revenge.

Exposition Drop! Kora explains to Gunnar the story behind the king's daughter, a beautiful, blonde princess with super powers, and possibly the redemption that the King of the Space Nazis need. It was her that inspired Kora to become ... better. LOTS of foreshadowing in this scene.

Next, we arrive at the Planet of TV's Spartacus, where Snyder gets to resurrect some of his colour palette from 300. This is where General Titus (Djimon Hounsou, Shazam!) was "hiding" -- in a gladiatorial ring. He's drunk, and stinky, and despondent, but Kora inspires him to fight along side her wild bunch with tales of REVENGE ! Uh, Kora, didn't you hear what Nemesis just said? Also, General Titus is alone. No army. All his men are dead. So.... why seek out a lone washed up soldier again? Oh yeah, trope magic.

NEXT ! The planet where the Blood Axes (the rebels NOT of the moon) are laying low, or at least seeking some post grain laden Veldt respite? Their king who has a planet that hasn't yet pissed off the Space Nazis despite being all about honour and charity, has given refuge to the brother & sister team of rebel leaders. With a rather quick and not entirely inspirational speech, Kora convinces Brother Blood Axe to join them. Oh, also guilt -- if he hasn't bought grain from Gunnar, then the Space Nazis would never have come a knocking. Really? I am pretty sure Space Nazis wander around taken grain from wherever they wish. Anywayz, sure Kora, Brother Blood Axe is on board with his army dozen or so soldiers?!?!?! I thought they were seeking these guys out to get an ARMY ! 

MEANWHILE, the Space Nazis have come calling to the planet whose king has now pissed them off. Not sure why he didn't expect retribution. Maybe the ego of 10,000 years of honour & charity? Either way, the rebels are gone, so all that's left is to punish them for harbouring the enemy. Entire planetary annihilation is not going overboard is it? Nahhhh... 

Now, before they go back to Veldt to get their collective asses kicked, Kai wants to make a pitstop on an "unregistered trade depot" so he can offload some cargo before he dumps the smuggler life to become an Honourable Rebel. He does a meet-cute speech with Kora about how she's inspired him to give up his smuggler ways and... <rolls eyes> she is kind of convinced. She's a real bad judge of character. You would have thought the first time they see Space Orcs (didn't mention these guys before, but their look is literally the Uruk-Hai makeup from LotR movies) she would have caught wind that something was going on, but nope, not until the Big Grey Boxes turn into walking pillories does she catch on. Kai's been selling them out all along, and the big bunch of weirdos was all part of his "make more money selling rebels" plan. At least now all that makes sense in-world. I guess the rebels gathering the rag tag bunch was just the reinforcement of Good Guys Are Stupid? No matter, Space Nazis !

I have watched this movie both times with the Netflix subtitles on it does call the spaceship that Noble arrives on the "King's Gaze" but there is no way this is the "King's Gaze". In fact, an earlier scene has Noble asking them to ready the "hyperlaunch" so he can go ahead and meetup with someone; the "King's Gaze" will meetup later, after it razes the planet of honour & charity. You would think Netflix would know its own internal plot logic.

Anywayz, Gunnar steps up and releases Kora as Noble is gloating, giving us a big ol shoot em up between Space Nazis, our buncha weirdos and the surviving count-on-one-hand Actual Rebels. Brother Blood Axe sacrifices himself to take out the Totally Not the King's Gaze big spaceship (I am not quite sure how causing someone to lean on the gun turret joystick causes the big spaceship to crash but....) and dumping Noble and Kora onto some sort of floaty platform so they can duke it out. Kora kicks his ass, breaks his bone-stick and everyone (well, everyone left)  flies back to Veldt.

Kora has explained that the King's Gaze and all its soldiers will run back to the homeworld with their tails between their legs because an Admiral was killed. She seems to be thinking this removes the need for them to fight over grain. Yeah, sure, whatever. We have a whole other movie to do, and a Seven Samurai battle where almost everyone has to die. And we have a bunch of questions to answer.

Who killed the King who seemed to becoming Not a Space Fuhrer as inspired by his beautiful blonde magic daughter?

What is up with Space Robot Jimmy left behind on Veldt and now wearing a crown of horns?

What was Kora's role in the death of the King?

If you read above, you may say I didn't come off as enjoying the movie, but to be honest, its just as much fun to pick apart as it is to watch the movie. You can do that with the Star Wars movies as well, but we all just watch them for the fun. Oh, I am not comparing, despite this being Snyder's two-finger-salute to the creators of Star Wars. I just am still able to enjoy this movie for what it is, and not what it could have been.

Go-Go-Godzilla #21: Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II

Director: Takao Okawara
Year: 1993
Sutdio: TriStar, Toho Pictures
Length: 105 minutes

The Creature's' Story:
Godzilla back! Back with first-monster narrative of Godzilla experience in Godzilla movie. 

This one start with Godzilla just hanging out in the sea, living life when sense something up on surface. A disturbance, in the force...the kaiju force. Stupid Rodan making trouble. Godzilla hate that lizard bird. It easy enough to spit nuke breath on and blast out of sky then wring dumb leather bird neck. But wait, Rodan not what Godzilla sense in kaiju force. No... Godzilla sense...unhatched baby Godzilla? Hashtag not Godzilla baby. But who baby then? Not Rodan baby. Damn. It must be Godzilla baby. Godzilla get around. But Scaleless human take Baby G egg away.

Godzilla sense when Baby G hatch and Godzilla go to smashy town to find Baby G. But along way, Godzilla encounter Big Metal Beast, BMB, BaMBi. This BaMBi real tough. It take multiple nuke breaths and still stand. It also have very annoying, painful nuke breath, and nuke glare, and nuke belly. Godzilla not like BaMBi. Godzilla not make new friend today. What Godzilla make is big can of whoop ass...on big can of beast. Godzilla take BaMBi down.  Then teensy humans send their stinging birds and beetles after me, fire their sharp little poops. So annoying. Godzilla been through this rodeo too many time. Stompy stompy, smashy smashy. Baby G cries tell Godzilla where to go. Until Godzilla no hear Baby G cries anymore.... Oh well...maybe Godzilla make mistake. Godzilla go home now.

Later... Godzilla just hanging out, living Godzilla life when Godzilla sense Baby G again in the kaiju force. Dammit, guess Godzilla got go do the dad thing and bring Godzilla baby home. But stupid BaMBi back in action and have special backpack. Lot tougher with special backpack...and ow! Shit! BaMBi blow up Godzilla second brain. Godzilla not feel good.

Dumb leather bird, though, make dumb sacrifice and save Godzilla by passing all Radiation along. Eventually dumb ant people get gist that if they just give Godzilla Baby, then Godzilla go away. Dumb one-brained humans. Godzilla take Baby and go off again, live Godzilla life.

The Human Story:
After the events of Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, the newly formed United Nations G-Force (no, not those hamsters) have salvaged the remains of Mechaghidorah and built the ultimate weapon against Godzilla: Mechagodzilla.  And they had just built the Garuda, a flying tank that improves upon the Super X and Super X-2, but Mechagodzilla is such a better weapon.

Kazuma Aoki, who helped build the Garuda is reassigned from his cozy desk/tech job and into the field, slated to be on the team piloting Mechagodzilla. It's evident he doesn't have the warrior instincts. But he's got the technical expertise the team needs (apparently, it's never explicit why this apparent doof is needed on the team).

Meanwhile the Professor and Azusa are on Adona Island where they find an irradiated egg, which, when they encounter Rodan, they presume incorrectly is a pteradon egg.  They load the egg onto a helicopter and steal it away while Godzilla fights Rodan. Back in Kyoto, Azusa and Kazuma meet when he barges into her lab and starts taking pictures. He's a pterodon fanatic. Azusa demurely forces him out of the lab, only for the egg to hatch and imprint upon her. But the awoken Baby Godzilla's cries draw Godzilla to the city. Kazuma is too busy farting around with the Baby to assist the team in Mechagodzilla taking on Godzilla when the big guy wrecks Kyoto (both coming and going), so he gets demoted to valet duty in the G-Force parking lot.  They do figure out that Baby has a link to Godzilla and they need to figure out what to do with him.

Scientists theorize that Godzilla has a second brain in his spine, and they think that Miki the psychic girl can help locate the brain, and they can permanently cripple, if not kill Godzilla in an outright attack on this brain. In his spare time Kazuma figures out that the handling of Garuda can be improved and that it can pair with Mechagodzilla to make Super-Mechagodzilla. He also gets a very slow moving flying rocket sled which he takes Azusa for a spin on. But when a crew of psychic children come to sing a song to Baby Godzilla they trigger a stress reaction which once again alerts Godzilla and a supercharged Rodan to their location. They need to get Baby G out of town before the destruction happens, but it's too late. Rodan is too fast.

Eventually Rodan is taken down by Mechagodzilla, but then Godzilla shows up for round two. The fight is brutal, and Super-Mechagodzilla takes the big guy out, until Rodan sacrifices himself so that Godzilla can get the baby Godzillasaur and live. It's a tearful goodbye for Azusa, but a beautiful beginning for father and son. 

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
In this case, sort of misunderstood foe. Reluctant. To the point that when the humans are about to defeat him, it's not a triumphant moment but a sad one, and Miki, who's had a connection with Godzilla for five films now, has to be the one to pull the trigger.

The Sounds:
Akira Ifukube returns, but his score once again feels largely derivative. Where throughout the Showa era he didn't repeat themes and each film had its own unique flavour, over these past two films he's returned to, it's felt like a lot of the same repeated notes over and over with scant variation.

The Message:
Maybe leave nature alone? Had the humans just left the egg, Godzilla and Rodan could have co-parented and maybe saved themselves a lot of destruction and grief.

Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZZz
This is really what I've been waiting for in the Heisei era, for a straightforward story with some emotional component that dares to be adventurous with its action.  Director Okawara employs a lot of zoom, shaking, and abstract angles in the camerawork during the fight sequences adding a frantic element missing from the previous "vs" movies in the Heisei era. The fights also feature a lot of creative attacks and look vastly different from what we've seen in 'zilla films before.  The compositing between the suits, the minis and live action is all done really well, with some impressive shots that make Godzilla look appropriately monstrous.

The characters are pared back in this one, there's not a half dozen or dozen extraneous players muddying up the field so we get somewhat of a character-based story. It's still a pretty thin arc for both Asuza and Kazuma but the increased amount of screentime as compared to past leads at least gives us more time and connection to them. It would have served the film (and series) much, much better to have Miki be the one who gets attached to Baby G since her character has been so poorly developed and had so little to do so far.  

I watched this one on an American-released DVD and it was only in dubbed form. I watched along with the subbed version on the Internet Archive and while some of the English translation varies, it doesn't appear that anything was cut out or re-edited.

I was worried about Baby G, but they did a pretty good job with not making it too annoying or too cute, and he was pretty sympathetic as a poor scared creature.

This is not a direct sequel to Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, nor is the mech called "Mechagodzilla 2" in the movie so I'm not sure why they went with the roman numeral "II" in the title. Just to be different I guess.

Go-Go-Godzilla #20: Godzilla vs Mothra

Director: Takao Okawara
Year: 1992
Length: 102 minutes

The Story:

A meteorite strikes the ocean, awakening Godzilla and triggering a typhoon which batters nearby Infant Island. A resulting landslide reveals a gigantic egg. Meanwhile former archeology professor Takuya Fujito is arrested after trying to steal a golden idol from an ancient temple in Indonesia. He's bailed out by his ex-wife Masako, and the government if he helps explore some mysterious readings from Infant Island that seem to be triggering some dangerous conditions in the region.  He's sent there with Masako, and a representative of the Muramoto company, where, after some misadventure and a bit of rekindling between Masako and Takuya, they discover the Mothra egg, and the we Cosmos twins, who tell them all the exposition we could ever need and more. 

Just going to crib wholly from Wikipedia here:

"The Cosmos tell of an ancient civilization that tried to control the Earth's climate 12,000 years ago, thus provoking the Earth into creating Battra. Battra, a male divine moth similar to Mothra, but much more fearsome in appearance, destroyed the civilisation and their weather-controlling device but then became uncontrollable, and started to harm the very planet that created him. Mothra was then sent by the Earth to fight Battra, who eventually lost. The Cosmos explain how the meteoroid uncovered Mothra's egg, and may have awoken Battra, who is still embittered over humanity's interference in the Earth's natural order."

 And so it begins. 

Battra has awakened and the military engage it in the water as it encroaches upon Japan, unsuccessful in deterring it. Battra goes on a rampage through a miniature city of Nagoya with regular tanks and planes and lazertanks proving as ineffectual as always. Battra does cease its attack, and disappears, burrowing into the ground. 

Meanwhile, the Cosmos twins agree to the Mothra egg being transported to the mainland for protection. But Godzilla follows them. Takuya and the company man fight over releasing the egg, but as they fight, the egg begins to glow and rupture. Mothra has hatched. It escapes Godzilla's atomic breath and goes on the attack, biting Godzilla's tail. The two tussle when Battra joins the fray, attacking Mothra first. It's three opponents all against each other. Battra takes the battle underwater. Their titanic combat causes a volcanic eruption and pulls both of them down into the Earth.

The company man, reeling from the loss of the Mothra eggs steals the Cosmos twins. Not sure exactly how he thinks they're going to make this already wealthy company even more rich, but *shrug*. Meanwhile, Masako and Taguya return home from Manila where their very young daughter (like 7 years old, maybe) is just waiting at the airport for them by herself. Masako worries about the twins, and if Mothra is going to come looking for them.  Rather than greet his young daughter, Takuya steals away and kidnaps the twins from their kidnappers.  He makes an offer to an American investor for 1 million dollars for them

With Mothra coming to the twins rescue, and no telling the damage she will cause along the way, the government has no choice but to set the full fire power of the military on her. But she is not deterred.

Takuya is guilted by his daughter into freeing the Cosmos just in time for Mothra to cease her attack (but in returning to the ocean she's starts another rampage of destruction so the military bombards her. She's injured and cocoons herself amidst the Diet Building (tastes just like the Regular Building but with half the calories).

Meanwhile, the readings of Mount Fuji are off the charts. It goes volcanic. Godzilla emerges and he seems pissed. But his attack rouses a quickly gestated Mothra from her cocoon, and the giant, furry, bug-eyed muppet goes on the attack. But not to fight Godzilla...but Battra, who isn't dead, and transforms from its larval stage into its moth-form via magic. Sigh.

The JSDF now has helicopters with lasers, which are just as ineffectual at battling Godzilla as the helicopters with missiles and tanks with lasers were. Back to the drawing board. Maybe heli-tanks with laser missiles?

Mothra and Battra bash into each other for a bit while flying around Yokohama, causing a lot of property damage along the way. Godzilla, feeling left out, joins the fray. Battra attacks, dropping a building on Godzilla, but it only slows him down. Mothra and Battra have a chat and decide to team up against their foe. Mothra uses that weird moth dust to reflect Godzilla's attack upon himself, while Battra grabs a giant ferris wheel and tangles Godzilla up in it for a bit. In the end, Mothra and Battra drag Godzilla back out to sea, where Battra takes the full brunt of Godzilla's atomic blast, but they both go into the deep.

Mothra survives, but needs to leave now, because there's a meteor that's heading for collision with Earth in the year 2000 and Battra was supposed to stop it, but since he's dead now, it's up to Mothra to make the journey into space and divert the meteor and save everyone and everything. Yes, Mothra got Poochied.

And I guess Takuya and Masako are going to give it another try? I don't have high hopes for these two.

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
He bad.


The Sounds:
I actually like the deep, orchestral rehashing of the Mothra theme

The Message:
Corporate greed is threatening the Earth and so the Earth is punishing us for our arraogance.  Like, don't be greedy.

Also, we can't stay in our eggs forever.

And when the Earth's 21st century begins, take a moment to think of Mothra, and the Cosmos, for saving us all.

Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZz
The Indiana Jones-like adventurousness of the first 20 minutes is actually quite charming, but that first exposition dump from the Cosmos twins just had my eyes glazing over at how goddamn convoluted it is.

But, this was much more straightforward than the prior two Godzilla films. Of course the writer makes scenes overly complicated by too often feeling the need to explain what is happening (or has happened) leading to some real clunky dialogue. Unlike vs. Biollante or vs. King Ghidorah, this one has a stripped-down cast of characters. There's Takuya, Masako, their daughter, the Marutomo guys, and the returning Miki the psychic girl, and the government guys we've been seeing for the past two films who do little but despair over how they're going to stop the latest kaiju threat.

The underwater fight was something different that I quite liked, but the Yokohama fight just seemed like rubber suits bashing into each other with special effects light shows bursting from their mouths. It's a pretty tired formula at this point. The creature designs obviously limit what sort of physical actions can be done, but there's got to be more they can do than what they have been doing these past three films.

After concerns last film that maybe there was too much arrogance, this film backtracks and returns to pointing one finger at corporate greed, and three fingers pointing back at itself for fuelling such greed, all leading to environmental harm.  It's interesting how much of Godzilla is more about environmental concerns than nuclear concerns even since the 60's. 

Go-Go-Godzilla #19: Godzilla vs King Ghidorah

Director: Kazuki Ohmori
Year: 1991
Length: 102 minutes

The Story:
...is batshit insane.

In the year 2204 a deep sea vessel encounters the corpse of King Ghidorah with the middle of its three heads severed. In "the present day future" of 1992 Tokyo, everyone sees a UFO flying overhead. Kenichiro is a science fiction author wanting to go legit into reporting and true-life writing is working on a book about kaiju. He learns of a "crazy man" who was arrested at a dinosaur museum for talking about how he encountered a dinosaur on Lagos Island during the war. In further investigating Kenichiro corroborates the story with a respectable industrialist (not just that, but "the man who rebuilt the Japanese economy"), that Japanese soldiers were indeed saved from American forces by a dinosaur. Kenichiro hypothesizes that the dinosaur became Godzilla after American H-bomb testing in 1954.

The Japanese military, meanwhile, encounter the UFO from earlier. Turns out they're not aliens, but "Futurians", people from the future. They note that, in the future, Japan's wealth and industriousness wind up taking over the world, but that nuclear pollution once again revives Godzilla and he destroys the county. The Futurians want to prevent such a future by getting rid of Godzilla. And they know just how, because they have Kenichiro's book on Kaiju in the future, the book he hasn't actually written yet.

So the Futurians want to go back to 1944 Lagos Island and teleport the dinosaur Kenichiro believes becomes Godzilla to a different location.  Kenichiro, Miki the psychic girl (who now works for the government as a Godzilla consultant it would seem), and a professor join one of the Futurians, Emmy (the Japanese national) and the android M-11 in the mission to 1944. (The question not being asked is why do the Futurians need to go to 1992 in order to go to 1954, and why do they need Kenichiro, Miki and the professor to go along with them? There's no logic to this movie. It has a "first draft/no bad ideas" feel to it.  

Aboard the time travel vessel (which is a smaller ship than the UFO the Futurians traveled from 2204 in), they encounter some "pets from the future" called Dorats. Adorable little demons that have...something familiar about them. They are caged and the time travel ship goes back in time. We take a pause to spend time with two incredibly awful American actors in 1940s style naval uniform aboard a ship off Lagos island, as they witness the Futurians' ship cross the sky and disappear onto the island. Why, to nod to the fact that one of those seamen is Steven Spielberg's father!

The Japanase soldiers encounter, and are overwhelmed by American forces on the island until Godzillasaurus appears and wipes out the American soldiers, but not before taking a great many blows from the naval ship that leave it teetering on the brink of death. The Japanese soldiers salute the creature that saved them before leaving the island. M-11 teleports Godzillasaurus to the bottom of the sea, safely away from nuclear testing, while Emmy releases the Dorats onto the island before they return to 1992...

where they learn that the Dorat have mutated into King Ghidorah, and the great three-headed golden beast now is rampaging across Tokyo. It was the Futurians plans all along. Jealous white people angry about Japan's position of power in the future have set Ghidorah up to be Japan's downfall at the end of the 20th century.  They had trained the Dorat to react to sound and now can control Ghidorah. They wish to blackmail the government into following their orders, or the big golden kaiju keeps up its attack.

But Emmy, apparently, had no awareness of the nefarious plot to destroy her homeland, which she thought she was protecting instead. She takes off in a jetpack and tells Kenichiro because she loves him (not like that, later turns out she's his great-great-grandmother).

The Japanese government, not backing down to the threat, try to enlist private help in acquiring a nuke so they can make Godzillasaurus into Godzilla again, but, it turns out, Godzilla is already Godzilla (what?) and attacks the nuclear sub, absorbing its radiation and becoming an even bigger, meaner Godzilla than before.

But as Kenichiro and Emmy try to figure out their own plan to stop the Futurians, they've set M-11 out to bring Emmy back, and this low-rent terminator succeeds at his mission. When they're not looking though, Emmy reprograms M-11 to be her sidekick. Along with Kenichiro, they destroy the Futurians' ship, which releases their control over King Ghidorah.  Godzilla and Ghidorah meet in a clearing and the two creatures battle. It really doesn't feel much different than the 60's fight between these two except Godzilla blasts one of King G's heads off and tossing him into the sea (fulfilling the visual from the beginning of the film).  M-11 teleports the Futurians and their UFO to the middle of the fight and Godzilla destroys the ship, killing the Futurians.

But now Godzilla's headed for Sapporo, and the military tries to stave him off, but it seems Japan's destruction is inevitable. Unless...

Of course, Emmy and M-11 need to go back to the future and turn that corpse of Ghidora into a cyborg that they can control to defeat Godzilla. Because of course.

Godzilla makes his way to Tokyo when Mechaghidora arrives, piloted by Emmy. The creatures tussle side profile fighting game-style. In the end, they have the "Godzilla grip" which ensnares the king of the monsters, which allows them to fly off with him. But Godzilla's atomic breath destroys the cybernetics and sends them both crashing into the ocean. But, yay(?) Emmy escapes in her time machine. Only Godzilla's not dead, and seems pretty pissed about being at the bottom of the ocean. The End?

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Foe.

The Sounds:
Akira Ifukube returns to Godzilla once again, but delivers a pretty lazy rehashing of old themes. The old master doesn't seem to have a desire for anything too original.

The Message:
History has no room for sentiment.

Rating (out of 5 Zs): Zz

And I thought G vs. Biollante was convoluted...

Close Encounters, Star Trek, Back to the Future, Terminator, Six Million Dollar Man, Top Gun... this film is just a smorgasbord of American pop-culture reinterpreted into a low-budget monster movie. It's a return to the convoluted 60's style Godzilla story, where a foreign invader tricks the Japanese government into letting them do something with Godzilla only for it to be a total sham and instead there be some form of nefarious, world-dominating plan for the humans to stop, with a little help from big G's interference. They were my least favourite plots of the Showa era and it proves consistent here. 

It's a bugnuts bananas movie, and in the recap it seems like I *should* like it, but the production quality is so low as to be borderline unbearable. The special effects are pretty terrible (laughably Tim & Eric style), and the monster fights are uninspired. The white and English-speaking "actors" were universally godawful. Mix the bad special effects with terrible white people acting and M-11 was an ungodly thing to behold. I wasn't bored but I wasn't really entertained either. 

Where the prior Godzilla films, from the very first one, featured a certain level of humility and acknowledgement of at least some complicity, as if Godzilla or the creatures he fought were a specific punishment, for them, this one has an arrogance about it, a level of Japanese pride, a boastfulness that sticks out from the rest of the series so far. But Japan's prosperity starts to wane in the 90's so I doubt it will persist.

But with all these films where the government is tricked by aliens or future people, are the filmmakers criticizing Japanese politicos as being to easily swayed by foreigners?

This is Kazuki Ohmori's second take on Godzilla after Biollante, and I'm really dreading what he's going to do to Mothra. 

Go-Go-Godzilla #18: Godzilla vs. Biollante

Director: Kazuki Ohmori
Year: 1989
Length: 104 minutes

The Story:
In the wake of the last battle with Godzilla, agents from different nations are all clamouring for a pound of Godzilla's flesh. Whatever biomatter remains is potentially the trigger for changing the fortunes of a nation. Dr. Shiragami is working for one such nation but, when terrorist detonate a bomb in his lab, it kills his daughter. Shiragami believes that her soul was transferred into a rose. Five years later he enlists the help of psychic student Miki who tries to "read" the now blossoming rose bush for a sign of his daughter. 

Meanwhile, Godzilla has awaken, while Shiragami returns to his studies on Godzilla matter for the first time since his daughter's death and begins splicing the genes of his daughter's rose and Godzilla. It mutates, kills some spies, and becomes Biollante, an appropriately monstrous creature that makes its way out into the harbour.  

Godzilla is freed from his volcanic prison from the last movie by (American?) terrorists making a play for the Godzilla biomatter in a deal-gone-wrong. The new and improved Super X-2 tries to stave off Godzilla's encroaching on Japan, but after some delay it succumbs to the creature's might. Godzilla confronts Biollante, and the two tussle in the harbour...well, Biollante creates all manner of plant tendrils and tries to restrain Godzilla, as well as spitting an acidic compound on him, but once he revs up his atomic blast, it torches the plant-creature which then turns into pollen and floats away.

Now Godzilla heads towards Osaka: cue the evacuation montage. He starts decimating the city, and a wounded Super X-2 takes on Godzilla again, and loses, again. Godzilla is shot all up with some anti-nuclear bacteria, which affects the creature but doesn't take him down. It's up to Biollante, who Miki now reads as Dr. Shiragami's daughter, to reform out of its pollen state, to send Godzilla packing back into the deep. Biollante, meanwhile reverts to pollen form, flies out into space, and becomes a gigantic space rose, like the baby at the end of 2001, except, you know, stupid. 

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Foe

The Message:
All this genetic tampering is probably bad, so maybe let's not? Also, "wherever you go, people are the same. There's good and bad in every country."

Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZz
It's a needlessly convoluted mess of a movie. The writer-director didn't trust himself enough to just develop a more simplified dramatic scenario of a father grieving the loss of his daughter and creating a monster in the process. Instead he muddies the mess with too many players, multiple espionage agents (in a total farce of a spy story), and extended sequences of miniature ships fighting guys in rubber suits with rockets and laser beams. The psychic angle was some useless b.s.  There's no center to this film. It's all reactionary. 

The miniaturized Osaka is a massive and impressive set-up, but it's shot very poorly and it looks very much like a set, and when it's destroyed it looks like a flimsy set. There's a lot of craft in the suits and the miniatures, but when they're not shot well, they look sooo cheap. 

Biollante is an intriguing, and different Kaiju design, and it proves an interesting challenge for the big guy, but there's also a lot of assumed metaphysical elements to it that aren't explained or even set up properly.

Thanks to the Internet Archive for providing video while the film is unavailable to stream or rent anywhere.

1-1-1-KsMIRT: Djanucembary

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month(ish) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  These are the shows I finished (mostly) in December '23 and January '24.

This "month":
For All Mankind Season 4 - AppleTV+
The Crown Season 6 - Netflix
Letterkenny Season 12 - Crave
Fargo Season 5 - FX
Slow Horses Season 3 - AppleTV+ (6 episodes)
Echo - Disney+ (5 episodes)

---

For All Mankind Season 4 - (6 out of 10 episodes watched)

The Plot 100: There's an established multinational base of operations on Mars, but there's division between the military-bred employees of the government, and the for-hire menial labour, especially after a particularly catastrophic asteroid mining operation gone wrong. Meanwhile Cold War tensions reignite after a military coup in Russia.

(1 Great) The episode with the strife in Russia was easily the season's most compelling. It brought stakes to and fallout for every aspect of the show. Margot, particularly, was held captive as a dissident but who are her captors reporting to? On the Mars base tensions run high as there's division amidst the Russians as well as with the Americans, North Koreans and the "neutral" third-party work-for-hires.

(1 Good) Apple isn't shy with their budgets, and FAM never ceases to surprise me with how good the sets look, whether it's era-specific living rooms on Earth, control rooms on space ships, or outdoor settings on the Red Planet.

(1 Bad) Our lead character, Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) was already an experienced pilot and astronaut at the start of season 1, which was set in 1969. This season starts in 2003, 34 years later. Ed is, conservatively, in his late 60s but seems to be acting closer to his early 80's with his bad grey hair dye and his thickly slathered-on wrinkles and his pained posturing. I can't believe this old man, regardless of his accolades, is still in the rotation. He's also a direly unlikable crank at this point, a self-absorbed hypocrite, and they hint at a romantic entanglement with a Russian cosmonaut at least half his age which was just...no thank you.

META: At this stage there's three original characters left from the first season. The rest have retired or been killed off or don't fit the storyline. It means introducing more new characters, which the show doesn't seem to care about as people, but just as devices for telling their story of class struggles. The carryovers from season 3, Kelly, Aleida and Dev, were supporting cast now bumped up to spotlight players, and I don't think any of the roles are up for the task. By the time I gave up on the show, I was only invested in Margot's story, and even then, hardly enough to keep watching.

FAM is a show built around moving forward in time quickly, and dreaming of a different reality where the space race never ended, leading to a much different focus for our modern conflicts, all centred around journeys into the great unknown. But it does so at the expense of stability. I think its creators (Ronald D Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi) have a clear idea in mind of each step of this series, where it's going and where it wants to end up in terms of advancing humanity's reaches into space, but it struggles with grounding itself in its characters. Conceptually they know what types of stories can be told within the framework, what type of intrigue and drama there can be, but it's always gotten weighed down by cast and striving for continuity. I think Season 4 might have played far better had it been an entirely new cast front and center, with maybe small cameos from old characters. I think then it would feel like it was advancing.

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The Crown Season 6 - (10 episodes)

The Plot 100: Broken into two parts this season, the first half deals with divorcees Diana and Charles, and the ever-growing circus around their lives, culminating in Diana's death. The second half deals with the fallout on the family, with Diana's spotlight now shining on William, as well as Elizabeth and Charles coming to terms with their futures as monarch.

(1 Great)  - This is a particularly banner season for its one-off stories of reverence for and scandal amidst the royal family. I'm not a tabloid guy so I didn't actually know much about the Diana/Dodi relationship, and it was fascinating to watch it unfurl, especially with the prior season's spotlight on Mohamed Al-Fayed and his fixation on the royals, and how he used everything, including his son (and his son's death) to try to ingratiate himself to them, only to be rebuffed (was it racism, or just being too keen, and trying too hard to be liked?). 

(1 Good) - My favourite episode perhaps was "Ruritania" which pitted Elizabeth against Tony Blair, who successfully petitions Bill Clinton's aide in the Kosovo War and is riding high, much to the Royals' chagrin. Losing a popularity contest against the PM, she consults Blair in "modernizing" the crown, but in the process unveils centuries of legacy traditions and roles that would otherwise be lost were the crown not to preserve them. I liked that spotlight, even though I still felt like Peter Morgan was taking bad faith pot shots at Blair because of his party's position on the monarchy that conflicts with his own.

(1 Bad) - this season, more than any other, seems less guided by a narrative for Elizabeth. In fact, Elizabeth shrinks into the background throughout most of the season, as the sensationalism of Diana's life and death captures all the attention. It is a series called The Crown afterall, so it should be about the monarchs yet to reign as well, but Elizabeth has been such the core of the series that when she's not, it feels like it's missing something, as compelling as it still is.

META: I think perhaps because of the time period this season takes place is when the royals were most in the public eye the dialogue felt the most overwraught and pointed, unnatural and hyperaware. It's not the first time I noticed the dialogue in The Crown but I have never noticed it this continually. It's not bad writing, but the family often felt like characters, and not real people, especially Diana and Charles. The glamour of Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West, well above that of their real selves, was positively distracting, despite being incredible performers.

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Letterkenny Season 12 (6 episodes)

(1 Great) Episode 2 finds Jim Dickins wanting to make a country song and accompanying video, and learns that the gang, to his dismay, don't really have any time for country and western music. But they agree to help him anyway, which of course means they find Strt and Roald are involved on the creative side. They've broken down the components of country and western music into two essential elements: 1) a unique, dumb hook that's also the title (the dumber the better), and 2) as much hick shit as possible.  This leads to a music video that is at once a tribute AND parody to nu-country music.

(1 Good) The main story of last season found the gang taking in a former "good guy"-turned-upcountry degen Jivin' Pete in and trying to help him turn his life around (the implication being he's trying to kick a meth habit), but when he relapses they beat the shit out of him and his degen friends. It's a weird message. This season, Dary falls in with the degens, because, well, he's sick of being the punching bag among his friends. Up til now, the degens have largely been an amorphous group but here they get into the weeds of it all and, yeah, they're trash and proud of it, which just makes them that much worse. Dary gets in too deep, but the message of friendship prevails.

(1 Bad) Flashbacks? Seriously? Letterkenny, for 11 seasons, has been FULL of callbacks. It's not that it gets mired in the past, but rather, it's a show that's developed a population for its fictional town and a shorthand of patter to go along with it. The characters remember jokes they enjoyed in the past, stories told, fights that happened, and refer to them like anyone would. It's just a part of the rapid-fire comedy machine that Jared Keeso built. But they've never needed flashbacks. Flashbacks just get in the way of the rapid-fire comedy. The key trait needed to watch Letterkenny is an attention span, because paying attention pays off, so why in Season 12 do they think we've all of a sudden stopped paying attention. It's a not-very-funny comedic slap in the face.

META: I burned out on Letterkenny in December of 2022 when the wife and I did 10-season binge-watch leading into Season 11. At that stage I'd seen the first few seasons a half dozen times at least. I knew the show inside and out. Strangely my favourite part of Letterkenny was the relationship dramas (such that it was, it was always pretty subtle but made for good cliffhangers).  However once Marie-Fred and Long-Dick Dierks were out of the picture, the relationship drama didn't seem like it had anywhere else to go. Those were pretty high points. So season 10 and 11 felt a bit...floundering and directionless. But Season 12, in turning the relationship drama inward, into conflict between Dary and the group, made for a pretty good season, even with flashbacks. 

The season's other arc is found the characters exploring feeling "stuck" only to, in the end, find themselves content with their lot in life.  You're only "stuck" if you're unhappy with where you are. It's a satisfying end note that, like many a cartoon, signifies that this comedy machine *could* keep on trucking for another dozen seasons if it wanted to, but, perhaps, the creatives are thinking that they themselves are *stuck* and need to move on from Letterkenny.  So while the characters are left happy where they are, Keeso and Jacob Tierney are getting unstuck, set to prove that they can succeed elsewhere, outside of Letterkenny.  It's bittersweet saying goodbye, but it definitely feels like time.  I don't know that this gives the whole town the sendoff it deserves, but, besides those darn flashbacks, it otherwise doesn't feel too pointedly a "final season", which is a good thing. Fitting.

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Fargo Season 5 (10 episodes)

(1 Great) This season is incredible! Tackling toxic masculinity, domestic abuse, female solidarity, right-wing extremism (in its various guises), class structures, city-vs-country, the debt crisis, trauma, and, ultimately, compassion. It's a lot, and it is not shy about it.  It paints a very dense and intricate picture in how all these various components interact, and is sometimes blunt and sometimes sly in its messaging, but it's quite powerful throughout.  It's also darkly funny and frequently intense opening with an incredible sequence that turns the baseline Fargo kidnapping-gone-wrong on its ear in spectacular fashion, and doesn't let up from there. This is Noah Hawley's tightest season of scripts yet (I'm assuming the extra time during the pandemic really let him hone this season to a razor-fine edge) Every episode has its purpose on its own but also in fulfilling the whole picture, and I can't think of a single one that felt like it dipped in quality at all.

(1 Good but also Great) The cast in every season of Fargo have been incredible, but this one was a pretty huge surprise, starting with Juno Temple. Coming out of Ted Lasso, I wouldn't have thought she had this kind of performance in her. Munch calls her a tiger, and he's not wrong. She is absolutely fierce, and resourceful, but she's not an action hero, she's a survivor, and she's smart. It doesn't mean she's infallible, and the show never walks into the trap of having her be anything more than human. I seriously didn't see this in Temple before, but now I don't think I can go back to seeing her as Keeley.  Of course Jon Hamm is great. This character is basically the bastard offspring of Don Draper and Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), just a real self-entitled prick of a human who thinks god speaks through him and his extremist ideals and position of power make him untouchable. His comeuppance, 10 episodes in coming, is so sweet. Jennifer Jason Leigh delivers a stern, poker-face role of the smartest woman in the room, always holding the highest hand, but can still be taught a thing or two by the right person. Dave Foley pops up playing a fixer character, the likes we've seen him do a dozen times in sketches in years past, but bringing a certain aged entitlement and wisdom to it. New Girl's Lamorne Morris, Stranger Things' Joe Keery, and Never Have I Ever's  Richa Moorjani both deliver marvelous performances that show some serious dramatic range outside their popular past roles, and Sam Spruell as Ole Munch, this season's force-to-be-reckoned-with manages to be seemingly the most dangerous piece in the chess set, but also have us filp-flop in rooting for and against him time and again.

(1 Bad) There's really no bad in this, besides bad people. So many bad people. But if I had to pick a "bad" in the story it would come from Lars (Lukas Gage), Moorjani's absolutely useless waste-of-space husband whose tick-like parasitic mooching, driving her deeper into debt and despair. This culminates in a barf-inducing "I want a wife" speech. It's every last dollop of male privilege and white entitlement wrapped in shit and hurled like a grenade with "love" being the pin that's removed to let it explode. The danger he represents is not a physical one, but one of confinement, of restraint, how immature men, led to believe in their own superiority, hold women down by being emotional and financial burdens. 

META: Easily the best season of Fargo yet. It has all the same tricks -- all those Coen Bros. references, the metaphysical element, the cops, the dangerous hired help, the incredible set pieces -- but it transcends them. Season 1 took Fargo the movie and made a TV formula out of it. Each season was a remix of that formula, but still felt like the formula. This season felt like the formula was added to a whole new recipe, creating a much richer, more satisfying dish.

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Slow Horses Season 3 (6 episodes)

(1 Great) It cannot be undersold how incredible Gary Oldman is in this show as Jackson Lamb. He's committed to physically looking his worst, playing a disgusting, flatulent, belligerent sot who still manages to have the sharpest mind in all of intelligence and run circles around his superiors. Few can tolerate being in his presence, and those who can he pushes away at every opportunity. If he's punishing himself for something, we'd like to know it, but it's yet to be revealed.   

(1 Good) Lamb is in charge of Sloe House, and, in each season, you keep expecting the band of MI-5 rejects relegated to Lamb's employ to show a certain level of competency at some point, yet at every turn the Slow Horses manage to affirm exactly why they remain at Sloe House, should Lamb deign to keep them on at all. I love that about the show... you know these are trained field agents, and so you can never anticipate when their competency is going to fail them.

(1 Bad) Watching this season week-to-week.  We binged Seasons 1 and 2 together, but even compared to them, Season 3 was particularly cruel in its cliffhangers each episode. The latter half especially, where the shit started hitting the fan, and then just kept erupting like a geyser.  

META: The show is following the novel series by Mick Herron and each 6-episode season feels like a novel divided into chapters. It feels like a very different way to adapt a novel series into television, being unconcerned with building a cast, in as much as the cast only stays as consistent as the novels. It doesn't matter if the audience likes X or Y, they're staying true, which gives the show the feeling of "anything can happen" which few shows ever truly have.

This season really delves into the games people play when they're part of this world, and adding "independent contractors" to the equation is pretty scary shit, but I'm sure even scarier and upsetting in real life. By the end, the status quo is shaken (not stirred) yet again, and it's a mystery if all the surviving faces from this season will still be returning in the next. I wait expectantly. 

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Echo Season 1 (5 episodes)

(1 Great) Years before superhero fatigue set in globally, there was an entirely different fatigue felt about the Netflix series featuring the Marvel heroes of the streets of New York. They were series that came out the gate strong, a lot of good to great first seasons, but very quickly they started to feel samey and formulaic, and made for the sake of making them. Late stage superhero movies and TV shows feel like they've gone the same route, just a product made impulsively, without much or love or care. Echo is different.

Echo feels different. With lead actor Alaqua Cox, Marvel got a threefer, a Native American (Menominee) performer who is also deaf and wears a prosthetic limb. I'm not meaning to be reductive, since Marvel *could* have simply hired her to check boxes, but, on top of being who she is physically, she is also a very commanding performer. Tall, broad shoulders, with striking facial features that are both hallmarks of beauty and toughness. The jackpot keeps ringing. Alaqua doesn't change her facial expression much, but like tough guys of cinema past who were similarly stone-faced, the performance just makes you pay closer attention.

(1 Good) Echo would be nothing without having a story that embraces Echo's world, draws us into it. The show does so by having extended conversations in sign language, or extended action sequences without much audio, that put you alongside the star in her exploits. And it's so different as to feel shockingly fresh, even if it's largely using the same templates in the past.  The sound variances, the amount of quite moments, they attention getting. It trains you early on that quiet moments are when you read dialogue, but then they quickly also become the times when the action is happening. Being in Echo's hometown in Oklahoma brings with it a heavy Choctaw presence, and a completely different pace than New York's Hells Kitchen. Like Reservation Dogs (which shares many of its performers with Echo), the atmosphere is a lot different, and it seems less melodramatic as a result. Of course, Echo is trying to escape her past, from her adoptive uncle Kingpin, Wilson Fisk (a returning Vincent D'onofrio, gargantuan and fantastically threatening).  But Fisk is not just a ringer, he is both family and foe, and his story, which started way back in Daredevil which started 9 years ago, is deftly recapped here that provides something meaningful to both him and Echo.

(1 Bad) But Charlie Cox's Daredevil, heavily touted on the trailers and commercials for Echo is such a ringer. He's in one sequence, allowing a younger Echo from a few years earlier, have an encounter with the devil of Hells Kitchen and come out with basically a win, impressing uncle Kingpin. That is the extent of his appearance.  

META: The show's opening half hour is a bit of a muddy trek as it tries to strip out what's still important from the Hawkeye series in which Echo debuted for this series. It mixes in new footage with reuse and there is noticable minutiae between them that really feels like disconnected hodgepodge. At the same time as it's trying to either catch up new viewers or refresh prior viewers, it's also seeding in its own lore based in Choctaw ancestry for Echo's power-set beyond being a tough-as-nails fighter. Once you make it past the rough opening, and Echo returns home, it's three and a half really, truly solid episodes of action-drama TV that sometimes transcend. The finale, though, feels the weight of its reduced episode order (from 6 to 5) as it does feel hurried and certain characters do get a bit of short shrift (I could have done with much more Devery Jacobs). I appreciate how Echo sort of de-escalates the situation rather than making it larger. It was a much appreciated tactic for shifting the whole thing.  As a package, I liked it far, far better than I was expecting and it