Ford_Dent

Godzilla vs. King Kong: Or wait, is it the other way around? I guess it doesn't matter.

I'd only seen the American cut of this film, which changes the plot around considerably and makes it less interesting as a result. The Criterion Collection, unknown to me, included the Japanese cut of the film as well, which is fucking wild, in a good way. It also has some real uh.... questionable makeup choices which are fucking wild in the other way, the one where you kind of cringe and go "oof that didn't age well."

But, the central plot, which is the ad department of a TV network setting out to capture King Kong to improve the ad ratings for their news program and please their pharmaceutical company client, aged like fine wine - which is to say, it remains completely believable. It's kind of an odd one - Godzilla shows up kind of just because his name is in the title, breaking out of the iceberg that I guess formed when he got buried under an avalanche in the last movie (if you want to string some kind of continuity into these, I guess), and much like in Godzilla Raids Again, the Japanese government treats him like a natural disaster - they evacuate and form a plan to at least try to control his movements a little by uh, building a big electric fence, kind of?

This is thwarted because King Kong as it turns out fucking loves electricity, and so in spite of getting his ass handed to him by Godzilla an awful lot, gets supercharged and deployed to beat Godzilla's ass (after, of course, the TV network ensures they're the only ones allowed to broadcast the fight). This is the first one in color, and my big lizard son looks gorgeous. There's a whole thing where they keep getting King Kong high to control him, too. This is a wild fucking ride of a film.

4 stoned giant apes out of 5

@superjoe: Oh man I did not know they included the Japanese version! The plot summary I've read of it sounds way more interesting than the American version. I'm looking forward to checking that out now. I decided to proceed chronologically as well moving forward, although I did not start out that way because I let my nephew pick once, and my brother pick once, and they were both not interested in chronological order.

As part of my need to justify the purchase of all those Showa-era Godzilla movies (as if I need a justification that shit's rad), this weekend's film was...

Godzilla Raids Again: The direct sequel to the original film, which means they have to come up with a way of dealing with two facts from Godzilla (which on the off-chance someone gives a shit about spoilers for a movie from the 50s, spoilers for Godzilla below):

1. Godzilla died at the end. In fact, Godzilla got annihilated at the end and turned into a big old skeleton by the Oxygen Destroyer, which leads into the second thing of

2. They know how to kill Godzilla so he's not as much of a threat

But the movie has an answer to this! There's simply just another Godzilla stomping about, establishing Godzilla as something of a species rather than a singular monster, for starters, and honestly the second part takes care of itself because Dr. Serizawa's whole arc was "nobody can ever have this awful thing I made so I'm going to destroy my notes and also kill myself" so that takes care of that.

Also there's a giant anklyosaurus named Angurius that also got woken up by nuclear testing because why not. Godzilla and Angurius don't like each other (we'll ignore how they become best buds by the time Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla rolls around), so they're fighting, and Japan kind of gets caught in the middle, as it normally does. Unlike the first Godzilla, where he's the specter of nuclear destruction, this time he is treated much more like a natural disaster that one simply has to prepare for. The Japanese government has not been idle in the time since the original film and has a plan of action which actually works until some random-ass prisoners blow up an oil refinery because they can't drive well and grab Godzilla's attention (and then Angurius shows up to see what the fuss is all about).

The fight between the two monsters is actually pretty low-key compared to the pro wrestling-style of later films, and there's a savagery to it that's pretty impressive! It's pretty great, and the JDF is shown as pretty competent (they actually end up being the solution in the end, as they bury Godzilla under an avelanche (granted, they get the idea after one of the main characters gets killed by Godzilla and crashes his plane into a mountainside, which is weird but okay). The human side of things is pretty okay for what it is: you've got two pilots that are buddies, one of them is single and one of them is getting married, and all three of them work for a cannery. You also get scenes of the clean-up in the aftermath of one of the attacks, which is pretty interesting!

Anyway it's a good follow-up though some of the human element stuff is kind of boring (also at no point does anyone sing a song about King Ceaser) and at one point they just show a bunch of footage from the original Godzilla in case you forgot that he'd done this before.

3 repeated shots of tanks firing out of 5.

The Lighthouse: You know, there are films and there are films, and the difference between the two is wholly subjective. For me, The Lighthouse is a fuckin' film, though honestly a lot of it has the feeling of a stage play (loud speeches and all). Occasionally, the movie feels like a panic attack. Other times it feels like a lost horror film made on a small budget in the 1950s. At all times, however, it feels like a movie with a strong sense of atmosphere - and the atmosphere is where it shines, all shadows and seagull shit and the roaring of the waves.

I think that Willem Dafoe is a fucking genius, and he manages to carry himself in a way that you can smell him, all the farts and vileness accumulated over the years posted at a lighthouse in the middle of the sea. Robert Pattinson plays a real shithead paranoiac, and both men spend the movie circling each other trying to decide if they're going to fight, fuck, or raise an ancient sea god. By the end of the movie there's damn near stink lines coming off the screen, and the final shot legitimately unsettled me - I just wasn't mentally prepared for it. This movie features both an argument about the quality of Willlem Dafoe's cooking and a real Shakespearian-style curse of Neptune. Plus whatever accent it is Pattinson is doing is incredible, to say nothing of Dafoe's absolutely menacing delivery of lines regarding spilled beans.

YER FOND OF ME LOBSTER, AREN'T YE?

5 unlucky seabirds out of 5

Travel means movie watching - at least it used to - but this time for my transatlantic flights I only really watched one film I'd not seen before:

Battle Angel Alita: You know, I'd heard about this one, which most people said was surprisingly good (or at least better than the live-action Ghost in the Shell), so I took a look at it. It was... fine? It wasn't great. The movie all feels like setup for a climax that never really happens, and all the stuff I got curious about (the war, what happened to the Martian army, whether or not Mars is still colonized, how society actually functioned) was tossed off in favor of a doomed romance and a tonally weird story about how you have to fight the system but then nevermind we'll just become part of the system instead, kind of? I assume the manga has more room to breathe and maybe gets into some of the other stuff, but it all felt half-baked to me. I did enjoy the look of it, though! Also it had some good fights. 2 giant anime eyes out of 5

Oh I also finally got my hands on the Criteron Collection's Showa-Era Godzilla collection, so here's some thoughts about the few I sat down and watched again (so far):

Godzilla: Fuck you if you don't like this movie. It manages to be legitimately harrowing at points (they were not fucking around when evoking images of atomic destruction, and I imagine it was even more harrowing so close to the actual bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and the big man himself isn't deployed too often. The soundtrack is also fantastic, and while the love triangle is a little dumb, it provides a hell of a lot more human drama than the last two Legendary films (Important note: I fucking love the Legendary films). Plus Serizawa's willingness to sacrifice himself just to ensure nobody can use his creation again is really good. Watching this movie again also made me appreciate just how much Anno echoed it in Shin Godzilla. 5 radioactive breffs out of 5

Invasion of Astro Monster: I watched Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster a while back, so it was an easy call to watch the direct sequel to it. This is the first time aliens try to take over the world, and they do it with ELECTROMAGNETIC BRAIN CONTROL. Plus, the dub has the FOLLOW THE LIGHT. THE LIGHT WILL BE YOUR GUIDE that got sampled at the beginning of the King Gheedorah album, and that's cool. Kind of a shame the titular Astro Monster (aka Monster Zero, aka King Ghidorah) doesn't have a lot to do. The human bits of this one are also Big Dumb, though they do include interspecies romance performed in spite of the will of The Master Computer. Anyway this movie was a big dumb adventure and Godzilla does a fuckin' victory dance at one point. 3 dancing kaiju out of 5

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla: Yo they gave King Ceaser his own fucking theme song and it slaps. Mechagodzilla looks cool, except for the parts where it looks like a windup toy, there's the world's biggest telegraphing of an Important McGuffin (the pipe), and also there's this weird prophecy thing happening (which, if the aliens knew the prophecy has them doomed to fail, why would they set out to follow it so closely?) and oh right, Interpol is just kind of there to shoot aliens when the plot demands it. Also, Godzilla goes super saiyan and turns into a giant magnet. Kind of a mess, but KING CEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAASAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH 2 vaguely dog-looking protector gods out of 5.

Am I going to continue making my way through all these Showa-era films? YOU BET YOUR FUCKIN' ASS I AM.

Flew to the US and back, which means I watched some movies I would have otherwise never gotten around to, probably:

Hellboy (2019. Or was it 2018? Who remembers or cares): This caught a lot of shit for not having Ron Pearlman or Guillermo Del Toro involved, as my hazy memories recall, and you know what I get it. It's not a fantastic movie - David Harbour is a good Hellboy, and some of the art design (particularly the creatures at the end) are Metal As Fuck - but the story is only sort of fine and kind of a rehash of stuff the comics explored better. I dunno, it was fine. Ian Mcshane was delightful because I think he is physically incapable of being anything else but delightful. Milla Jovanavich started out as an interesting villain but then just kind of went off the rails by the end. The visual effects were super, super inconsistent, and honestly they should've just leaned all the way into the cartoonish look if they couldn't get consistantly realistic results. Wouldn't mind seeing Harbour get another crack at stomping around being sardonic.

3 demon worms from beyond space and time out of 5

John Wick: Okay look I just wanted to watch John Wick again, leave me alone. This movie still owns. 5/5

Vice: I don't know why I watched this. Movies about how shitty people did a bunch of underhanded/corrupt/outright criminal shit and got away with it just make me mad! Christian Bale is acting the shit out of this in a way that's a little distracting, and the weird monologue he gives at the end just... I don't know man, it didn't work for me. The narrative framing, such as it was, also kind of seemed unnecessary? I feel like this movie didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, and apart from making me feel some sympathy for Mary (who I did not realize was Allison Pill until the very end) nothing else really seemed to come together. Anyway, fuck Dick Cheney. 2 war crimes out of 5

Clear and Present Danger: Somewhat because I loved watching Willem Dafoe in John Wick, I watched this movie again. Harrison Ford is great in this, and some of the dialogue is just... so dumb. Hearing Ford fiercely and angrily shout "you broke the LAW" made me giggle. James Earl Jones is the most fatherly motherfucker to ever do it, and gives an appropriately rah rah America speech about how you made a promise to your boss, who is the AMERICAN PEOPLE, Jack, so get out there and uh I guess shoot some dudes in Columbia? I didn't catch the end of this movie that I watched a billion times as a kid, so I missed the part where Clark basically murders the dude responsible for the clusterfuck. Oh well. 3 exploding coke factories out of 5

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase: No, I'm not sure why I watched this. I'm about the farthest away from the target audience as you can get, but you know what? They did an okay job with this. I didn't hate it! There was a mystery, and some drugs, and an old hippie lady who claims to have "fought communists" which seems like... I dunno, a little weird? They sort of do an origin story for Nancy, who is appropriately plucky and (unlike her book counterpart) a bit more of an outsider - she skateboards (actually I think it's a longboard, but you get what I'm saying) and occasionally Breaks The Law. There's a twist at the end that you could easily see coming, but again, I'm not the target audience. They also do a surprising amount of legwork trying to elide the fact that one of the mystery team (such as it is) starts the movie being a spoiled rich bully and then kind of switches over so suddenly that it nearly gave me whiplash. The reluctance the rest of the team has to trust her immediately is... portrayed as a bad thing? Or being unreasonable? I'm not sure. Look, I think George was right to be mad is all. Some of the moments in this movie that were clearly meant to show that Nancy needs her friends worked, some of them fell flat (her freakout in the hotel room at the thought of losing her dad gives her some vulnerability and shows that she's carrying some trauma around, which makes her more grounded, but said freakout is almost immediately solved by Helen going like "hey cut it out" and that just seems to be enough? Which is less good.). I have now put too much thought into the themes, plot, and execution of Nancy Drew. I think my nieces would probably be into this. 2 hallucinated Nutcracker statues out of 5.

BONUS: Dark Souls on the Switch: Hey playing Dark Souls on an airplane is a fun thing to do, even if you (like me) get all the way to Orenstein and Smough and then just kinda die on them a bunch as you get increasingly tired.

They Shall Not Grow Old: Finally got around to this one after my brother insisted I do so, and I do not regret it. It's an incredible look at the first world war in a way that is frankly unprecedented. The cleaned and colorized footage looks amazing, but the real treasure is the narration - all of it from the mouths of veterans of the war. It's a credit to the editing that they take all these stories and weave the narrative of the war itself together, and not once do they need to have anyone come in and explain what's going on. The testimony and footage speak for themselves.

Once the actual fighting starts, it's maybe one of the hardest things I've ever sat through. There's no heroism to it, it's just carnage and listening to, for example, a soldier talk about killing a wounded kid out of a sense of mercy that is maybe the most gutting thing I've ever heard. It is... awful.

5/5 I don't have a joke because that would feel wrong

John Wick 3: I'm gonna be real with y'all, I live a life without regrets, but part of me does regret not getting my ass to the local cinema what shows films in OV out here to catch one of the like, two showings of John Wick 3 that existed back when it released. That said, I picked up a digital copy over the weekend, just bought the damn thing, because I loved 1 and 2 - and enough people I know who saw 3 convinced me it was probably a safe bet that I'd want to watch the movie multiple times.

Hey look they were right. This movie was basically just one long gun fight with a few character moments which were pretty good! Halle Berry got to run around kicking ass in a way I don't think she's done since... Die Another Day, maybe? It was fucking rad! Lawrence Fishborne has some nice scenery to chew on and continues to be just the best dude as the King of the Bowery (Avert your eyes, my sweet), and he and Keanu play off one another in the way you want them to. The story itself is surprisingly coherent, and I for one am fully here for it. I really like the way they've quietly been building out this weird world and its factions, and like, if these people were wizards instead of assassins this would just be Harry Potter. The final battle in the Continental might be one of the coolest sequences I've ever seen in my goddamn life. The last shot of the film made me actually throw my hands up in the air and yell "yoooooo" alone in my apartment. Keanu Reeves is a treasure.

Bring on John Wick 4 I say.

5 shotguns out of 5

Yeah Witcher 2 is fantastic, gameplay-wise, compared to 1 - and I do like basically all of the improvements they made in 3, not the least of which is Roach. God bless Roach.

That said I really do wish potions lasted longer. The 30 second stuff is just a huge bummer. I definitely grabbed the upgrade that makes food regeneration last for 20 minutes, I'll tell you that for free.

@soulcake: Was the ending bad to start with? I was fairly pleased with how it all wrapped up, though obviously there is a bit of a cliffhanger with the Nilffgardian invasion kicking off and all - which is just them setting the table for a sequel and kind of feels similar to the end of the first Witcher, which ends with the first attempt on King Foltest's life by an unnamed witcher of the Viper school.