Godzilla Raids Again ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Review
During its initial 1954 theatrical run in Japan, the original Godzilla film earned ¥183 million (just under $510,000). Godzilla would return a year later with a sequel as the studio wanted to strike while the atomic fire was hot.
Pilots from the Kaiyo Fishing company take to the air to guide their trawlers on the sea towards schools of fish, but on one mission a pilot encounters….monsters. Godzilla is back on Iwato Island, fighting a giant Ankylosaurus who is soon named Anguirus by the people of Japan, who still remember the destruction of Godzilla. Fearing another attack they use some of the things they learned in the encounter with the first Godzilla, but nothing can kill the monster, short of the late Dr. Serizawa’s Oxygen Destroyer, which died with it’s inventor last film… The JSDF (Japan Self-Defense Force) cut power and lure the monster away in the dark with flares, trying to keep Godzilla out of Osaka, but a group of criminals escape their prison transport and ultimately cause an explosion at an oil refinery that draws the kaiju back…
Mayhem ensues and models and set pieces are stepped on by giant feet and smashed by giant tails, burnt with atomic breath, and as a fan, I’m loving every minute of it. This film was directed by Motoyoshi Oda as the director of the previous film, Ishirō Honda, was busy with another project. The film is still excellent, but I did notice the effects and transitions were not as seamless as they were in the first film. It could be the change in directors, or it could be that the film was rushed into production so they didn’t lose any box office momentum.
This one was memorable for many reasons, it was a sequel and it was the first time we had two giant monsters facing off against each other, even if ultimately the biggest fights were between the monsters and the humans. I think Godzilla himself looked better last film, but he still hasn’t found his best look… or at least my favourite look. Fortunately there are thirty-odd more films to find it.
Bottom Line: Godzilla may have been buried in an avalanche to save the day, but you know he’ll be back.
Godzilla (Gojira) (1954) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Review
The best science fiction is the one that is used to tell two stories, one obvious and hopefully entertaining one, but the other tells the story that addresses a bigger social issue such as environmentalism, racism, war that cannot be told through traditional means so sci-fi becomes the metaphor to tell that story. Godzilla was a very thinly veiled atomic weapons warning message, a metaphor for Hiroshima and a warning to us all and the thin line the world walks with regards to growing nuclear arsenals.
All that aside, Godzilla quickly became a cultural icon. You know the roar.
In this first film, Godzilla is a monster. A monster likely created by man, and a monster out to step on mankind. We woke him from his sleep with radioactive tests and he’s not happy about it. Godzilla surfaces from Tokyo Bay and Shinagawa gets stepped on. We the viewers though get a masterful tale of action, drama and suspense full of incredible miniature work and models mixed with expert camera perspectives and special effects. Director Ishirō Honda does a fantastic job mixing in stock footage seamlessly with the practical effects, even if the monster was a man in a rubber suit.
Japan fights back against the nearly unkillable Godzilla though, with science on their side to try and stop what science accidentally created. Electricity won’t stop the monster, missiles won’t stop the monster, what can? Only Dr. Serizawa’s newly invented Oxygen Destroyer may have a chance…
Spoiler Alert… nearly 70 years later so I think this is fair game, Dr. Serizawa’s Oxygen Destroyer actually kills the first Godzilla, but you can’t keep a good kaiju down, future stories and sequels were made, because as they said at the end of the film, there might be more Godzillas out there. It would be foolish to think that there couldn’t been more of these monsters lurking in the ocean depths, and with that thought in mind more monsters were born! Anguirus, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Rodan and others soon were rampaging across the screen…
Bottom Line: This was the first one, and it set the tone and set the bar, giving us a franchise that has lasted now 70 years. All hail the King of the Monsters.
Relax, I’m From the Future ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Review
Stasis or static? The moment is mine… There’s a noise in the distance, and a puff of smoke when Casper (Rhys Darby) travels back in time to set things right that once went wrong? To profit? To save the world? He has a plan so just relax, he’s from the future.
No matter how hard they try to pull me away, I’m still a film guy at heart. And I always will be. When I heard that Wango Films was producing a time travel/sci-fi/comedy last year, I was very intrigued to say the least. When I found out that some of the cast (Gabrielle Graham, Julian Richings, Zachary Bennett) and writer/director Luke Higginson from the film would be at Hamilton Comic Con this year, I was even more intrigued. Sitting in on their panel and learning that the film would have a very special presentation on October 3rd, 2023 in Hamilton, which is a hop, skip and a jump away from me with another Q&A with Higginson after the screening I knew I had to attend and I am very, very glad that I did tonight.
Casper time travels back to the early 21st century and struggles to get a foothold in our time until he meets Holly (Gabrielle Graham) who takes pity on him and gives the seemingly homeless man the nachos she was going to throw away. When Casper recognizes the band on Holly’s shirt, they form a type of friendship and soon end up hanging out at the band’s show where Casper soon convinces Holly he’s from the future and he has a plan.
The first step of his plan is to get money, and with the knowledge of our time that he brought back with him, they soon start raking in the cash with sports bets and lottery wins. With phase one firmly underway, it’s almost time for phase two: save the world. But who or what is he saving the world from? Could it be the actions of of Percy (Julian Richings), a cartoonist who only becomes famous after he kills himself? Could it be from Chuck’s (Zachary Bennett) descendants because Casper has built a bunker on his property and is burying items from our time with a radioactive signature to be found in the future? And what about Doris (Janine Theriault), who appears to be a time traveler as well?
First the film is based on (or expanded from) Higginson’s short film of the same name, which played at TIFF in 2013 . Second, this was a very funny film, even though it had some darker moments and was partially the writer’s response to his frustration with the state our world is currently in and the uncertain future we’re creating. The film was very well shot, and very well written. The dialogue was very funny, at times evoking a lot of laughs from the audience in The Westdale, which was a very nice venue to see a film. I had never been here before but really enjoyed myself, it had a nice old style feel to it and a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere.
It’s great to find little independent theatres like The Westdale in Hamilton where independent films can be showcased and seen the way they should seen. Independent filmmakers put a lot of work, a lot of time and usually a lot of their own money into their projects and you know they want them to be seen in their full cinematic glory on a big screen in front of a packed house. This was a great independent film, and a great Canadian film, shot in the Hamilton area and never once shying away from the fact that it was taking place in Canada.
Bottom Line: Do you want to know what my opening line “static or stasis?” means? You better watch the movie when it comes to you. Catch Relax, I’m From the Future in select theatres and soon on VOD somewhere… and after that, our fingers are crossed for a home video release.
Please help support independent film whenever you can!
Bottom Line 2: There was a great “blink and you’ll miss them” cameo from Wango Films founding partners Tim Doiron and April Mullen which was very funny too.
Ava ★ ★ ★ ½ Review
Disclaimer – I watched this two years ago… which is also the last time I even thought about posting anything. I started a review and left it in drafts, now I don’t remember that much about the movie. For some reason tonight I clicked this old bookmark and read what I had left behind. It might be time to dust this off a bit, even though I haven’t really watched that many movies since the pandemic hit, but I can give this a try again. I haven’t posted anything since February of 2020. I did find putting my thoughts on “paper” rather therapeutic back then and I could probably use that again. Maybe I can do this again. Maybe I will.
Disclaimer 2 – It’s been a year and a half since I wrote that previous disclaimer and didn’t post this. Well, let’s throw it up there and see what happens, eh?
Ava is a deadly assassin who works for a black ops organization, travelling the globe specializing in high profile hits. When a job goes dangerously wrong she is forced to fight for her own survival when Management decides to close her.
I quite enjoyed this one, because the standard “agency turns on the agent who has to go on the run” storyline isn’t all that happens here. Ava (Jessica Chastain) doesn’t actually go on the run, she doesn’t actually know at first that she’s a target, though after an attempt on her life while in Boston to visit her family for the first time in eight years, she does suspect it… John Malkovich plays “Duke”, her assassin mentor and superior who lies to her and brushes off the attempt as the unluckiest junkie in the world picking the wrong person to mug, but verifies his own suspicions that Ava is due for termination after a meeting with Simon (Colin Farrell), another former protégé, who is now his superior.
Good action, good fights, and a lot of really interesting characters. They really gave a lot of back story to Ava, which was kind of missing in films like Atomic Blonde and Anna even though I was reminded of both with Ava. A fun watch, with some decent action and decent fights. Worth watching if you’re a fan of the cast.
Bottom Line: I really enjoy Jessica Chastain’s work. Pretty much everything I think I’ve seen her in has been good and that was part of why I watched this one. Give it a try, and maybe even keep your eyes on this space…. something might happen again… you never know, and stranger things have happened… Cheers everyone.
Coco – ★ ★ ★ ★ Review
So this review has been sitting in my drafts folder since May of 2018… Guess who doesn’t remember a whole lot about the movie? Me. Because I didn’t have anything actually typed up… Just a blank template waiting to be reviewed… well, let’s have a go eh?
So Coco did win the Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song, and it was a visual treat. The animation was fantastic. The story was interesting and was a great little piece about family, forgiveness, fame, and a bit of an insight the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead.
The story follows a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who wants to be a musician , even though his family forbids any sort of music. His great-great-grandmother was married to a musician who broke her heart when he left her and their daughter, so music is bad. Miguel is still obsessed with music and secretly plays the guitar, like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz, an old time actor. When Miguel discovers a hidden picture of his great-great-grandfather holding Ernesto’s famous guitar, he concludes that he is his descendant and sets off to enter a Day of the Dead talent show. After strumming the late actor’s guitar, Miguel is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, where he teams with Héctor, who offers to help him find his Ernesto, his great-great-grandfather, who can give him his blessing and get him back to the land of the living before it is too late, and Miguel is trapped forever. Things of course don’t work out so easily as family connections and deceptions are revealed.
Lots of fun, and I was surprised to see that they kind of included a murder mystery into this one. A little heavy for a kids movie you might think, but it all worked out pretty well…as far as I remember… Disney and Pixar films are always full of heart and that’s why I enjoy them.
Maybe it’s time to start doing these reviews more regularly, and in a timely fashion again… I have finally started watching more movies again, so perhaps we’ll give it a whirl…stay tuned everyone.
Bottom Line: Does anyone know if Disney ever marketed or sold skull guitar toys or replicas? I’d have bought one.
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight – ★ ★ ½ Review
I still love cartoons, and the DC cartoons are usually really good. Sometimes they’re original stories, sometimes they’re inspired by famous comic book storylines, and other time they’re just straight adaptations from the original source material. Gotham by Gaslight was the first of the Elseworlds stories, which were basically stories using familiar DC characters in alternate universes or times. The roots mostly remained the same, but there were differences, making for some interesting stories. Gotham By Gaslight, is set in Victorian era Gotham City, and Bruce Wayne is the bat-garbed vigilante, the Batman. In this story he’s up against a serial killer called Jack the Ripper.
Both the artwork and animation were quite good, but it didn’t give me a true Victorian era feeling, perhaps because it was set in Gotham and not London. It kind of felt more steampunk than Victorian too. The voice talents were also excellent with Bruce Greenwood leading the way as Batman and Bruce Wayne.
The story was interesting enough, but veered quite significantly from the original graphic novel. I won’t tell you how because it’s a major spoiler, but it was this divergence that kind of soured me on the whole thing. There were lots of nice little nods and hat tips to the main DC Universe of comics we are more familiar with and the story was interesting enough. I think I would have preferred though if it had just stuck to the original story. Maybe there will be more of these, and even though I didn’t particularly care for this one I will keep watching them.
Bottom Line: If DC is going to continue with the Elseworld cartoons, maybe a Superman: Red Son could happen. That would be interesting.
Dear Dictator – ★ ★ ½ Review
When an outcast teen, Tatiana, gets a school assignment to write a letter to a person she admires, she jokingly writes to a General Anton Vincent, a foreign dictator, because she likes his fashion sense. Vincent takes to the admiration, and the two become unlikely pen pals, however, when Hector has to flee his country during a coup, he seeks refuge in the house of his only remaining friend. After arriving in America, Hector teaches Tatiana how to be a real rebel, helping her deal with the bullies and popular cliques at her school.
It could have been good… It should have been good. I really just wanted it to end rather quickly though. I didn’t really enjoy it, as the humour seemed forced and the casting actually may have been a problem. I love Michael Caine, but having the cockney accented star play an island dictator doesn’t really fit. Some of the casting did work very well though. Katie Holmes was quite good and so was Odeya Rush as Tatiana, who I had remembered from Lady Bird.
Nothing really clicked here and the story just didn’t work the way that it should have based on the premise. Not very funny, not serious either it wasn’t really worth watching. They can’t all be winners.
Bottom Line: I really hope that Caine has a bounce back role, because I don’t want to remember him for projects like this one. He is quoted as once saying “You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one”, and when speaking of Jaws: The Revenge, he said “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” I wonder what Dear Dictator paid for…
Please Stand By – ★ ★ ★ ★ Review
Okay, here it goes again, since the hemorrhoid people in my spam folder seem to want me to keep blogging, I’ll try another review, remember though, I watched a lot of these films over a year ago, so my memory is probably going to be fuzzy at best. A lot has happened…
As I recall, the film centres on Dakota Fanning, an autistic girl named Wendy who has been put in a group home by her sister (Alice Eve) who feels she can no longer capably care for her sister as well as her own young family. The home is run by Toni Collette and all goes smoothly until Wendy breaks out of the home and hits the road to deliver a Star Trek script she wrote for a fan writing contest. The giant Trekkie reasons she’ll win the contest and win the money to help her sister keep their family home and help her raise her niece Ruby, but she missed the mail-in date so she has to deliver the script in person. Normally hijinks would ensue at this point of a film, but instead Wendy endures harassment, a mugging, is almost cheated again, survives a bus crash. Wendy comes through as tough and capable, though still a bit naive to the world outside her home. Escaping from the hospital to complete her journey, she stows away on a bus to complete her journey to Los Angeles, but upon exiting the luggage compartment she encounters the police. Officer Frank (Patton Oswalt) calms Wendy down and gains her trust by speaking to her in Klingon, a skill his partner Officer Doyle (Robin Weigert) didn’t know he had… Eventually of course she is reunited with her family and does make it to the Paramount lot to submit her script.
It was a very good film. I really enjoyed it. It cared for it’s characters and told a really good story. I really loved the scene with Patton Oswalt speaking Klingon. To me, this probably made the movie, though every scene with Wendy and the tiny dog Pete from her home was gold too. Alice Eve is a personal favourite of mine too, and her character (and performance) seemed very real and relatable.
Bottom Line: I love Star Trek, so it was nice to see it used as a narrative tool in the film as it was.
Murder on the Orient Express – ★ ★ ★ ½ Review
Guess what, the book was better. Well, that’s not really fair to say, the movie was very fun and very good, of course having read the book many, many moons ago I knew “whodunnit”. Funny story about that, I went with a friend to see something in theatres, maybe Star Wars? I don’t remember now, but what I do remember was seeing the trailer for Murder on the Orient Express and turning to my friend and quipped “You can tell who the killer was just from that….”, not knowing that she hadn’t read the book. Lesson learned….again. As my mother told me once (not that long ago), not everyone shares my sense of humour…
When the luxury train the Orient Express gets stuck in the snow during a wintery mountain pass, the nasty Mr. Ratchett (Johnny Depp) is discovered murdered in his car. There are a dozen suspects on the unusually full train ride, but coincidentally one of those passengers happens to be renowned sleuth Hercule Poirot!
Director Kenneth Branagh also stars as Poirot and delivers a great take on the iconic detective. The entire cast was very good. I worry sometimes when I see a film full of stars, that the story will be diluted so everyone gets enough screen time, but that was not the case here, as Christie had already counted on making every character in the story matter.
As I said, I’ve read the book (several times actually) so I wasn’t surprised by anything, as the story on screen was very much the story on the page. Orient Express is a classic so you can’t really change much and have it still be the Orient Express. What I enjoyed most about this rendition was the excellent acting and the very good cinematography. Every scene looked brilliant. One overhead shot of the train cabins panning from the murder scene to Poirot’s investigation room was a particular favourite of mine. If you’re in the mood for a good mystery, this one is definitely worth watching. Again, it’s a classic story that every mystery fan should experience even if it’s just so they can keep up with my bad jokes.
Bottom Line: The end of Murder on the Orient Express looks like it will lead directly into Death on the Nile, another Christie book, but this time it’s one I haven’t read. So the question now becomes do I read it before seeing the film?
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Review
Well, it’s been a year since I’ve posted anything, and over a year since I saw this movie…. what can go wrong?
Let’s see…. I really enjoyed it, I remember that much. A young girl’s rape and murder are unsolved so the mother of the victim, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), rents the billboards on the main road into their small town and posts on them: “Raped While Dying“, “Still No Arrests?“, and “How Come, Chief Willoughby?” The billboards upset the townspeople, including Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and the young racist and alcoholic Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell). Chief Willoughby really is trying to solve a very difficult case, but is also dying of cancer. Officer Dixon really doesn’t seem that bright, and definitely doesn’t support Mildred but does support his chief. Mildred’s own son doesn’t even support her. As her campaign continues the town turns with her and against her, with many twists and turns in the development of all the characters.
McDormand won the Oscar for Best Leading Actress, Rockwell won best Supporting Actor, beating out co-star Woody Harrelson who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Needless to say the performances were great, though I wonder if McDormand was even acting, I think she was just being herself. The role was written with her in mind, so that makes it a bit easier. Regardless, she did a fantastic job bringing depth and realism to the role. Rockwell is one of my favourite actors and I’m very glad that he won the award. Three Billboards was part mystery and part character study mixed with a lot of dark humour that I loved, and quite a few surprises along the way too.
Bottom Line: I really thought it would win Best Picture, unfortunately it didn’t but I still won the office Oscar Pool that year.
theswitz 
