One signed by the author, another by the editor.
I will have copies of this in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog (probably November).
Posts Tagged ‘kaiju’
Library Additions: Two Signed Books
Tuesday, June 4th, 2024Movie Review: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024Title: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Director: Adam Wingard
Writers: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater, Adam Wingard (story)
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle, Alex Ferns, Fala Chen, Rachel House
IMDB entry
Like the previous entry in the series, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire works because it understands what people going to a Godzilla films do and don’t want to see: monsters fighting, not people bickering.
You know that part of the Pitch Meeting video for Godzilla vs. Kong where the writer goes “Giant monkey punches giant lizard!” and the producer immediately stops worrying about logic?
Yeah, I’m that guy.
The movie starts with Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall, sporting Jamie Lee Curtis’ hairstyle) mystified by signals detected in their hollow earth station that also seem to be giving her adopted deaf monster-whisperer Iwi daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle) visions. In the Hollow Earth, Kong is suffering from loneliness and a infected tooth, and comes up to the surface to have it replaced (!) by kaiju veterinarian (!!) Trapper (Dan Stevens). Meanwhile, Godzilla rises from his slumbers, slays titan Scylla (sort of a giant crab thing) in Rome, and then levels a nuclear power plant to feed on the radiation and power up for…something.
So Kong goes back to the Hollow Earth, followed by all the human characters in the above paragraph, plus conspiracy theory podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry, who, like Hall and Hottle, is reprising his role from Godzilla vs. Kong). Naturally, things go wrong for them and their redshirt gravity ship pilot. Meanwhile, Kong is lured by a mini-Kong to locate a tribe of giant primates ruled over by the cruel Scar King, with the assistance of his own enslaved titan Shimo, a cross between Stegosaurus and a D&D ice dragon, complete with the latter’s freeze breath.
Naturally, Kong goes up against the Scar King, and naturally, it being the first big Kong fight, he loses, because it turns out that Scar King is a better tool user than he is.
All of this, of course, sets up a tag team Kong and Godzilla vs. Scar King and Shimo fight at the climax.
The Monsterverse approach has evolved to “You will completely suspend all your disbelief, and in exchange we promise to overawe you with wonders.” Which solves the long-running problem with Godzilla movies, in that you never really care about the human characters. By minimizing their screen time to the bare minimum to move the plot forward in favor of more kaiju battles, this results in a quicker sprint past various plot improbabilities. (A kaiju dentist! A giant exoskeleton arm for Kong we just had lying around the hollow earth!)
To those who complain that the plot improbabilities in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire are way too improbable, I would like to remind them that, merely by buying a ticket, viewers have already accepted the existence of a hollow earth and a high-speed subterranean tunnel between Pensacola and Hong Kong that was evidently built in less than a decade by private funds without anyone finding out that was on display in the first Godzilla vs. Kong. Compared to that, a giant Kong exoskeleton lying around in a convenient location is rounding error.
Also, to those that further complain the Monsterverse is too silly compared to the original Toho movies, I say: Remember this?
Or this?
Can you make a Godzilla film where the human characters don’t suck? It’s possible. The original Gojira and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack both come to mind. I have not seen Godzilla Minus One (the timing just didn’t work out for it’s short run here), which Critical Drinker and others have indicated does a much better job on the human story front.
But instead of human drama, you get more kaiju fights, giant crystal energy pyramids, and a flaming cavern right out of a D&D supplement.
It’s a fair trade.
As a bonus, here’s the Pitch Meeting video for this one.
Halloween Horror: Kaiju No. 8 Trailer
Friday, October 13th, 2023Not sure if this quite qualifies as a Halloween Horror, but it includes monsters, and it struck my fancy.
Basically, it’s an anime series focused on a guy who’s crappy job is to clean up after kaiju attacks.
It’s basically Damage Inc. meets Godzilla. Plus the teaser trailer is giving off a tiny bit of a FLCL vibe.
I don’t subscribe to Crunchy Roll (or any streaming service), but I’d seriously consider buying the DVD set when it eventually comes out.
Movie Review: Godzilla vs. Kong
Tuesday, April 20th, 2021Godzilla vs. Kong
Directed by Adam Wingard
Written by Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields (story), Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein (screenplay)
Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Julian Dennison, Kaylee Hottle and Demian Bichir
This is the best of the Monsterverse movies. The people at Legendary Films seem to have finally figured out what viewers actually want (hot kaiju-on-kaiju city-destroying action) and what they want left on the cutting room floor (boring human backstory).
The movie opens with King Kong contained within a Truman Show-type dome over Skull Island and Godzilla attacking the Florida research facility of sinister Apex Cybernetics (think Yoyodyne or Weyland-Yutani). The movie quickly splits into two strands: Millie Bobby Brown’s character (a bit less useless than in Godzilla: King of the Monsters), her tubby geek friend (Julian Dennison) and a conspiracy theorist (Brian Tyree Henry) try to penetrate Apex systems to learn The Real Truth, while Kong, along with his deaf Child Monster Whisperer companion (Kaylee Hottle; think Kenny from Gamera, but much less annoying) and guardian Rebecca Hall (the bank-teller from The Town) help Alexander Skarsgard take Kong to Antarctica on an Apex-underwritten mission to the hollow earth to uncover a new power source.
If the last part sounds extremely unlikely, you’re right, but they’ve cannily kept explanations to a bare minimum to keep you moving on to the next monster scene. (You know that 5-15 minute segment where they have to knock out Kong to get him on the ship? They snipped that sucker entirely out and cut to him already in giant chains mid-voyage.) The first battle between Godzilla and Kong takes place at sea, with round one going to our reigning lizard champion.
There’s some delightful stuff with Kong reaching the hollow earth, where he roams the verdant green-and-purple landscape, fights some Quetzalcoatlesque giant flying serpents (which this rundown dubs “warbats”) and finds a giant ancestral throne room and (plot point alert) a Kong-sized Zilla-spined axe.
In the other plotline, the Scooby Gang discover that Apex is breeding Skullcrawlers (from Kong: Skull Island), and are promptly whisked via high speed underground tunnel to Hong Kong (Monsterverse tech seems to be advancing much faster than our own), where they discover that Apex head honcho Walter Simmons (Demian Bichir, basically playing Evil Tony Stark) has built to his own Mechagodzilla to put man back at the top of the food chain.
If you watched the Toho Godzilla films, you pretty much know how this is going to turn out.
We finally get Godzilla and Kong smashing up neon-lit Hong Kong in a truly epic battle royal that Mechagodzilla later joins. Legendary really makes use of the possibilities of CGI to make you feel like you’re in the middle of a battle between two giant monsters, with the viewpoint frequently swooping in and around the action. There’s even a scene where Mechagodzilla emerges from a hillside that I would swear is an almost exact lift from a Toho hillside monster emergence scene.
This is the Godzilla movie where Hollywood finally figured out how to get out of its own way. No “reinvented” Godzilla, no tedious backstories, no time wasted on pointless human drama, no 15 different studio executives having to stick their dicks in the soup to justify their salaries. Just compelling kaiju on kaiju action rendered with top-notch modern CGI that puts you in the middle of the city-stomping. (And none of the “they make their own weather so everything is dark and stormy” effect used to excess in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.) It bests all previous Moinsterverse films in just about every area (except Kong: Skull Island in cast; Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman and Tom Hiddleston beat Eleven, Ben Affleck love interest and a random Skarsgard hands down).
And it’s light-years better than the 1962 King Kong vs. Godzilla, which features perhaps the saddest Kong ever committed to film. (Banglar King Kong doesn’t count.)
If you like Godzilla movies, this one is well worth catching while it’s still in theaters.
Movie Review: Kong: Skull Island
Friday, April 2nd, 2021Kong: Skull Island
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Written By Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly and John Gatins
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Tom Hiddleston, John C. Riley, Brie Larson
With Godzilla vs. Kong upon us, I finally watched Kong: Skull Island. Even though I’m a Godzilla partisan, overall I think it’s the best executed of the Monsterverse films. (I’m seeing Godzilla vs. Kong this weekend.)
In 1973, with the Vietnam War winding down, LANDSAT has discovered Skull Island in the South Pacific, previously hidden because it’s perpetually ringed by storms. An Air Cav force, lead by Samuel L. Jackson in the Samuel L. Jackson role, escort a group of ostensible scientists to the island, including John Goodman (head of barely-funded Monarch, secretly looking for monsters), Tom Hiddleston (an ex-SAS pathfinder/tracker mercenary) and Brie Larson (a photographer). Soon they run into Kong, who crashes their helicopters a lot quicker than the Viet Cong. Jackson immediately goes full Ahab while another group runs for their life and right into John C. Riley, playing the American version of Sir Basil St. Exposition as a stranded WWII American flyer, along with the silent but friendly native tribe. Riley quickly explains to them that not only is Kong king, but he’s the good king, saving people from the monstrous subterranean “Skullcrawlers,” which look like giant tatzelwurms with vaguely possum-ish snouts.
The plot unfolds more or less the way you would expect.
This seems the best of the monsterverse movies because it has the best cast, and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (who’s primarily worked in TV) seems to have come closest to realizing his vision for it. It quickly and efficiently gets the ensemble to the island with a minimum of character exposition accompanied by a great classic rock soundtrack that runs the gamut of CCR, Jefferson Airplane and Black Sabbath. Jackson, Goodman and Riley all turn in their usual solid work in roles that might seem trite with less stellar performers (see: everyone who’s not Brian Cranston in the previous Monsterverse films). Larson is less annoying than her Marvel role. The support cast of mostly redshirts also do good work. Only Hiddleston comes across as Johnny Onenote And His Pet Stoic Gaze, but the script doesn’t give him much to do.
The special effects work on Kong is extremely solid (which you would expect from Industrial Light & Magic), even if not as expressive as the Andy Serkis version from Peter Jackson’s remake. The Skullcrawlers are appropriately menacing. But it’s the Huey flight sequences where the effects really shine. It’s obvious from the shot composition that Vogt-Roberts watched Apocalypse Now a whole bunch of times…
By jettisoning the “Kong takes Manhattan” plot from the previous versions, and dialing the Beauty and the Beast bits down to a bare whisper, Legendary Films has created a swift-moving kaiju film that even casual fans of the genre should enjoy.
Netflix Reveals MST3K Turkey Day “Gauntlet”
Monday, November 12th, 2018The cat is now officially out of the bag:
Quick thoughts:
- Going to be an awfully wet season.
- Since the Joel era already did Cave Dwellers, does that make ATOR the first movie they’re riffed twice? Edited to add: People on Facebook are telling me that Cave Dwellers is actually the second Ator movie, not the first.
- Jonah should go on Conan, promise to show a clip from them riffing Atlantic Rim…and then it be a clip of them riffing the wheelchair falling scene from Mac and Me…
Godzilla: King of the Monsters Trailer Drops
Saturday, July 21st, 2018Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah? (The same lineup as Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, the fifth Shōwa-era Godzilla film.) I suspect things will get a little windy…
Due May 31, 2019.
First Pacific Rim Trailer Drops
Thursday, December 13th, 2012The first trailer for Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro’s kaiju vs. giant mechs film, is out.
Oh yeah. I’m there.
Howard Waldrop and I have signed up to review this next year.