Expelled Grey Matter

Akira Kurosawa, Toho's prestige director and one of their big moneymakers, failed to deliver his new film Red Beard for the end of of 1964.  Thus, instead of one Godzilla film, Japan was blessed with two that year.  They also got a bonus: not only was Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster a direct sequel to Mothra vs. Godzilla , but it was also a roundabout sequel to 1956's Rodan .  Directed by Ishiro Honda, with Eiji Tsubaraya as usual doing the effects work, Rodan was a step forward in the visual department and was notable for being the first kaiju movie in color.   To bring everything up to speed, Rodan and his mate were giant pterodactyls.  Instead of atomic breath they used their supersonic speed as well as their ability to build up gusts of wind to make a mess of parts of Japan.  In the end, after his mate is killed, the male Rodan flies into a volcano and is presumed dead.  Meanwhile, Godzilla was defeated by the two offspring of Mothra after she exerted the last of her ene

I must preface this by saying that, although they have been on my list to see for a long time, I have not seen any of the John Wick films.  To that end, I was also unaware that the writer of this film, Derek Kolstad, was also responsible for those movies.  Thus, initially I was surprised that a lot of people who hate this movie - many of whom are of the variety that think "LOL" is appropriate to include in a review they want people to take seriously - were referring to the main character as Saul Wick.  Although I will probably see similarities when I finally get around to them, the fact that this has been hung on a movie that has received some critical acclaim is not surprising.  The John Wick movies revitalized Keanu Reeves's movie career, while Bob Odenkirk has been riding high on his portrayal of Saul Goodman.  Both are way overdue to the usual hipster hate.  So, other than mentioning that I am aware of the connection, my approach to this film is that I first thought t

Amazing what barely a few minutes' footage of a giant octopus can do for a movie.  It not only made this a classic, despite the monster being absent throughout a large portion and the movie having many of the trappings of low-budget '50s sci-fi, but it also brought Ray Harryhausen together with producer Charles H. Schneer, with whom he would work the rest of his career and grace us with many better films than this. Largely Harryhausen was brought in because he could do decent effects for cheap, and by cheap I mean a situation where he couldn't afford to put the right number of arms on an octopus and had to angle his model to hide the fact that a couple were missing.  Still, there are a number of things about this movie that puts it ahead of its brethren of the time, and not just Harryhausen's octopus.  When a nuclear submarine is attacked by an unknown creature while on a shakedown cruise, Prof. Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue) and Prof. John Carter (Donald Curtis) are bro

Peter Jackson's entire film career was inspired by the original King Kong .  In a way it was also what his entire film career was working up to.  Although his life's work will probably be defined by the Lord of the Rings films, even as early as Dead Alive there were influences from King Kong in his films, and he had started working on his own version after The Frighteners .  Unfortunately the early attempt was scrapped due to the terrible 1998 version of Godzilla and an equally abysmal remake of Mighty Joe Young.  However, once he was done with his Tolkien trilogy, Peter Jackson was free to do whatever he wanted.   The time spent bringing Middle Earth to life probably helped, since digital effects improved immensely during that time, in no small part due to his own company Weta.  The effects in King Kong are clearly Jackson's style, with a design of Skull Island isn't that far from looking like a twisted version of Middle Earth while retaining the look that Willis H. O&

After the success of King Kong vs. Godzilla  Toho decided that it would be a good idea to bring the big guy back permanently.  This time they paired him up with one of their other popular kaiju, Mothra, who had her own movie in 1961.  Directed by Ishiro Honda, written by Shin'ichi Sekizawa and with Eiji Tsubaraya providing the effects the movie pretty much expanded on the idea, first shown in Godzilla Raids Again , that the world is full of creatures that have been waiting for centuries to be awakened by human arrogance.  Where Godzilla touched on issues regarding post-war Japan, its place in the world and the shadow of nuclear destruction, Mothra had undertones of colonialism, including disregard for native traditions and the capture of the two Fairies (Yumi and Emi Ito) who are brought back to be put on display for Japanese audiences.  This causes the Mothra larvae to create a cocoon on Tokyo's radio tower, hatching a giant moth who pretty much makes it clear that the Fairie

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was one of the few times I felt that a science fiction movie did a good job of feeling like a science fiction novel.  Peripheral characters developed, expectations were subverted and new characters that had actual importance rather than serving the main character appeared.  Even Katniss, who I feel is purposely a blank slate, grew a bit.  It served those who like the books well, and for those of us who had not read them it made the world of Panem that much more intriguing. Then, as usual, the studio decided to milk the series for every last drop.  I thought the last two Harry Potter movies were overly padded, and they encompassed a huge book, whereas Mockingjay was just shy of 400 pages - i.e., a normal sized novel.  It made about as much sense to divide this into two movies as it did dividing The Hobbit into three.  The other problem is that, though not reading the books, I was kind of aware that Katniss took somewhat of a backseat Mockingjay .  She go

King Kong was the inspiration for numerous monster films just as Willis H. O'Brien, the man who worked on the stop motion animation for the big guy, was influential in special effects.  It was not just the stop motion, but the blending with live action and all the other techniques that were used to try to make the creatures look, as much as possible, like living, breathing specimens.  The movie was so popular that, even 20 years later, it was seeing re-release, albeit in severely edited form.  Its popularity touched off a wave of giant monster films in the 1950s.  O'Brien not only influenced special effects, but influenced and mentored artists in the field as well.  One that he did would go on to exceed him with his own innovative techniques, and that was Ray Harryhausen.  He expanded on what what he had learned and, although he himself started with a number of giant monsters trampling large cities, graduated to making some of the most inventive creatures in movie history.  Hi

The first two Godzilla films followed closely on each other and it was made quite clear that they were two different monsters.  That helped since the suit changed quite a bit between the two and so did the tone. While it seems that it may have been by design to catch Godzilla Mania while it was still hot and then retreat, the truth was a third movie was planned that was to further explain where the monsters were coming from, and it's a plot that should be familiar to anyone who has seen the recent Godzilla vs. Kong : the Hollow Earth, populated by giant creatures from bygone times.   That third movie didn't materialize, mostly due to budget reasons.  As for his popularity in the United States, technically only one movie had come out; Godzilla Raids Again was released as Gigantis: The Fire Monster in the U.S., five years after its Japanese premier and three after Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a highly edited version of the first movie.  As for King Kong, he was as popular as

Leave it to film critics and everyone with a political agenda to spend close to 90 years picking apart a movie about a giant ape.  Still, it should be a compliment to directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack that this movie has stood the test of time and has received praise for being more than just a light adventure film with monsters.  It is that, but it is also one of the best of its kind, and one that hasn't been equaled despite two attempts to remake it for contemporary audiences.   Director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), famous for making nature films in exotic surroundings, is in a hurry to get to an undisclosed location.  The only thing he needs is an actress to take along, as he believes the presence of a woman in his movie will draw a bigger audience.  When his casting agent fails to find one on the eve of the voyage Denham himself goes looking among the soup kitchens of New York and finds Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and convinces her to come on the voyage.  The firs

All things must end at some point and, though Star Trek as a universe was far from meeting its last days, the cast of the original series had an amazing run considering every obstacle the show had to overcome.  The original television series ended in 1969 and, except for an animated show, there was a 10-year hiatus.  There was (and still is) friction between the leads and supporting actors, there was Gene Roddenberry doing everything he could to give Harlan Ellison a run for his money when it came to being difficult, and by 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation  was the most popular television show in syndication.   Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country  had a tough job.  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , as high-concept as it was, ended up being a failure at the box office.  While William Shatner took the brunt of the blame the truth was that budget cuts, studio indifference and trying to release the film against one of the most populated blockbuster summers of the 1980s had a lot to d

Science fiction films in the 1950s largely followed a set formula.  That is why there are so many of them, and so many of them that have largely been forgotten.  Most of them ended up as "B" pictures, supporting larger films, or just thrown together as quickly as possible to entertain the kids on a Saturday afternoon.  While some directors thought putting a diving helmet on an ape suit was good enough there were others that wanted their creatures to be a bit more believable.  By the time Ray Harryhausen did the effects for 20 Million Miles to Earth , it wasn't so much that directors were getting him to add interesting creatures to their movies, but more along the lines that he was getting creatures and stories together so that a studio could hire someone to direct, and some actors that looked the part so that he could display his latest creations.  It was no secret that, in some cases, watching Harryhausen's creatures come to life was really the only reason to see the

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Lost World in 1912 and was alive to see his story about explorers finding living dinosaurs on an isolated South American plateau brought to life.  Supposedly he was rather pleased with the result.  A lot of that was due to Willis H. O'Brien, who had been working with stop motion animation, doing short films for Thomas Edison for a number of years and had, by the early 1920s, began combining the animation with live action.  These advancements led to the ability to make a film like The Lost World , which, though in some ways appearing crude today, was just as influential as Metropolis when it came to special effects.  It didn't hurt that, although a number of liberties were taken with the story, it was an elaborate and exciting adventure epic.  Also, while Harry O. Hoyt is credited with direction, a good portion is animation under direction of O'Brien, who brings to life an entire world of dinosaurs, and not just one or two models.  Professo