Tag Archives: Movie

Gamera: Guardian of the Galaxy I MEAN UNIVERSE PLEASE DON’T SUE ME DISNEY/MARVEL (Part 1 of 2)

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downloadLooking back on the unmitigated diaper fire that is 2016, I noticed I’ve only done one Gamera review this year!  I’ve got something ultra special planned for next month, so I had to squeeze in some more titanic turtle before the year is up!  Being November, I naturally picked one where our chivalrous chelonian roasts some turkeys!

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (or its Japanese title Gamera: Giant Monster Midair Battle) was unleashed in 1995 and successfully rebooted the Gamera series. Directed by Shusuke “GMK!” Kaneko, scored by Kow “GM-FUCKING-K!!!!” Otani, with special effects by Shinji “did the fighter jet scene in GMK!”  Higuchi.

I really really like GMK, and Gammy here is what most of that dream team was doing pre-GMK.  If you’re playing a drinking game where you take a shot every time you read GMK, please call 911.  If you’re still conscious, great! This movie is a ton of fun, gave Gamera the second chance he always deserved, and in a lot of ways outshined Toho’s Godzilla output of the time.  Keep reading to find out how!

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I go for a Spin Godzilla with Shin Godzilla

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shin-godzilla-official-teaser-poster

Holy shit guys, there’s a brand new Godzilla movie! Shin Godzilla, straight from Toho Studios.  The first Japanese Godzilla flick in twelve years, it made a big splash in Japan critically and commercially, and it came to the States for a limited engagement.

If you’re a monster fan like me you’ve probably peeked at some production art and promotional stills, checked out the trailers, and wondered how it all fit together while trying (and in my case failing) to dance around spoilers.  Godzilla himself looks particularly shocking, with an aggressively ghoulish, gruesome design that evokes charred, burning flesh and exposed bloody muscle. He looks like Burning Godzilla and Lord Zedd had a baby and then peed on it.  I truly mean that as a compliment.

It’s a look that wouldn’t work for a kaiju-battling hero monster or a majestic beast meant to be an agent of natural chaos, but it works pretty perfectly for an unsettling, looming horror monster.  But despite all appearances, Shin Godzilla isn’t the full-on creature-horror experience I was expecting. It’s something substantially drier and denser, with a surprising amount of wry humor.

It’s all spoilers all the time from here on in, so if you’re okay with that read on! If you’re not okay with that, I guess like… you could go play Frog Fractions. Oooh, or Wonderputt!

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Trollhunter is Droll Fun(ter)

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trolljegeren_ver2Most of the movies I review on MONSTERS CONQUER THE WORLD have been/will be from Japan or Hollyweird, usually in that order.  And while those two chunks of planet Earth put out the most giant monster movies, I really get a kick out of seeing what the rest of the world chips in to the genre.  This month I trek to impossibly picturesque Norway for the 2010 found-footage horror-comedy dark fantasy Trollhunter.  Or Troll Hunter.  Or Trolljegeren.  You get the gist.

Trollhunter takes the familiar formula from movies like Ghostbusters and Men in Black and makes it uniquely Nordic. Stoic deadpan, Scandinavian social satire, down-to-Earth working people, and OH YEAH GIGANTIC FUCKING TROLLS take center stage in this kick-ass movie.

Bundle up, turn all the lights on, and don’t say your prayers, because we’re digging in to Trollhunter!

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OMG GMK LOL BBQ DTF

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Guys, I’m fucking pumped.  This month I’m reviewing one of my all-time favorite movies: godzilla-GMK-posterGodzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (or GMK for short). It’s a movie as rad as its title is long.  Directed by Gamera wunderkind Shūsuke Kaneko, this 2001 movie masterfully mashes together monsters, magic, and mystery.  It stars a deliciously evil Godzilla, bolstered by heady themes, spectacular visuals, engrossing human characters, and slam-bang oh-shit monster wrassling insanity.

Let’s pick apart what makes it so fucking awesome, find all the juicy little Easter egg-y nuggets, talk about how we almost got Godzilla vs. The Mutated Spaceman instead, and reveal which GMK star spent the 70s shredding in a funk band!  Kick over some little statues and absorb some souls, it’s time to All-Out Attack!

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More like 20 Million Smiles to Mirth

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20-Million-Miles-to-EarthSo far on Monsters Conquer the World I’ve covered a substantial chunk of Eiji Tsuburaya’s work. Tsuburaya is the monster maestro that pioneered Suitmation, giving us a fantastical world of gigantic monsters and heroes portrayed with live actors and scaled sets.  So with Tsuburaya kicking ass over in Japan, what was happening in the western world?  Did Hollyweird just settle for compositing close-ups of iguanas in with footage of actors? Yeah, sometimes!   But also no! When the studios gave a shit (and for whatever reason didn’t want to go with practical props/puppets), that’s where one mister Ray Harryhausen would step in!

Harryhausen, like Tsuburaya, took an established method of visual effects, innovated the bejeezus out of it, created some of the bitchingest sci-fi/fantasy films of the pre-Star Wars era (and a couple post-Star Wars), and inspired entire generations of filmmakers.  Harryhausen’s stop-motion animated critters are fucking rad, so this month I’m finally reviewing one of his colossal creations: 20 Million Miles to Earth! The 1957 creature classic is super-duper straight forward, but its bad-ass visuals and even a little bit of soul make it a Harryhausenian slam dunk.  Grab some sulfur to snack on and prep your eyes for THE MIRACLE OF DYNAMATION!

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We Can Plan to Scan the Snowman Ban(ned) in Japan

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Jujin_Yuki_Otoko_posterI thought I was so cool, I had the next few months’ reviews all planned out. Then out of nowhere, Godzilla fan and all around cool internet person Chickenman456 gives me the hook-up on Half Human, the BANNED monster movie Ishiro Honda, Eiji Tsuburaya, and Tomoyuki Tanaka collaborated on immediately following Gojira. Not just the gutted American version (which itself is not particularly easy or affordable to come by), but the borderline impossible to find Japanese original as well!  It’s something I always kind of casually kept an eye out for, but never really expected to find… kind of like this movie’s heroes and its titular titan!

We’ll find out why it got banned in its homeland, how the Hollywood release chopped it from 94 minutes to 63 (despite adding a bunch of shit!), and more! Put on your parka, it’s time to dig into Half Human!

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Gimme some more-ah Hedorah!

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5354832036_bbcaab4cb6_bEarth Day and 4/20 were this month, so I had to review 1971’s oddball eco-conscious epic, Godzilla vs. Hedorah! This seems to be a love it or hate it entry in the Godzilla series. It boasts artsy weirdness, scenes of kid-friendly wackiness immediately contrasted with people-melting mass-murder, a gelatinous dookie beast from outer space, trippy cartoon segments, and I’m gonna go ahead and spoil it because it’s so fucking rad: Godzilla shoots his atomic breath at the ground to take flight. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the movie, you gotta at least watch this 30 second clip of the best thing in the universe.

If you haven’t guessed already, I fall squarely in the “love it” camp.  I have good company, too! Legendary film critic Roger Ebert listed it as his favorite Godzilla film.  Series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka wasn’t so pleased: upon viewing the rough cut, he fired Hedorah writer-director Yoshimitsu Banno.  We’ll talk about that, how the suit actor portraying Hedorah had to get surgery–while still in the monster suit!–how Hedorah indirectly spawned 2014’s Godzilla, and all kinds of other fun insanity! Get on the floor-ah, here comes Hedorah!

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I’ve got 10 Cloverfield Lane on the 10 Cloverfield Brain

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10c_1-sht_online_teaser_alt10 Cloverfield Lane came out this month! Just like its 2008 predecessor Cloverfield, it was a surprise announcement, and the true nature of the film has been shrouded in secrecy.  And just like with Cloverfield, 10 Cloverfield Lane built up excitement and mystery with a complex and creepy alternate reality game (or ARG).

So what’s the connection between the two movies? What did J.J. Abraham Lincoln mean when he said 10 Cloverfield Lane isn’t a sequel but a “blood relative” to Cloverfield?  Is it a mean older brother? Precocious twin sister? Cool uncle? Cousin that’s constantly in and out of jail? Grab a Slusho, lock yourself in your doomsday bunker and keep reading to find out!

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Eye of the Jiger

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Jigerposter1Hope you had a good (or at least not-shitty) Varantimes Day!  I always like to try and tie my reviews to something current-ish, so this month I went hunting for a little giant monster romance! Last year worked out great with Rodan‘s star-crossed terror-dactyls. This year… let’s just say kaiju generally aren’t lovey-dovey creatures.

Gamera gets pragnent in this one! Implies a little hanky-panky, yeah?  Except Gamera is a boy and there’s no sex, just a (non-erotic) shanking.  Also two kids abort the murderous monster-baby.  Hahaha, hoo boy.  This is truly one of the craziest, most fun entries in the classic Gamera series, and that’s saying a lot considering we got shit like this in a previous installment.

So light some candles, put on some slow jams, and check yourself for ancient curses and/or monstrous parasites, because we’re talking about 1970’s Gamera vs. Jiger!

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Give Groot the Boot: There’s No Dispute that The Iron Giant is Vin Diesel’s #1 Cute, Nearly Mute Brute

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27b51c785f7cf49c22e3129a63283eeaIt’s a whole new year, homies! I want to kick this one off with something a little different.  Looking back at my last five reviews, three of them star established franchise monsters (my personal unholy trinity of Godzilla, King Kong, and Gamera), four were made in Japan, three were made in the glory days of the 1960s monster boom, and four were high-flying monster-mashing battle royales.

For real, at the rate I write these, I could probably review nothing but 1960s Japanese kaiju films and be flush with content for years.  I would also be flush with fun, because those are the best movies in the universe.  BUT that’s not the sole point of MONSTERS CONQUER THE WORLD! I like to sweep the greater giant monster moviescape and yak about shit from different regions and time periods. In addition to perusing Japan’s kaiju collection, I’ve also sampled monster fare from the good ol’ US of A, jolly old England, and even mother-fucking real-life Mordor North Korea! So this month I’m reviewing another really unique entry in the colossal creature canon: The Iron Giant.  It’s an American movie from 1999 that focuses more on heartwarming, unusual friendships than city-shattering mayhem.  It’s a little more E.T. than Godzilla.  And even weirder: it’s animated!

So grab your vintage Superman comics, chew on some scrap metal, and get ready to duck and cover with the Iron Giant!

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