Here’s the first teaser for the third season of Stranger Things!
Don’t expect to learn anything about what’s actually going to happen during season 3 from this teaser. In fact, the main message of this trailer seems to be, “We’re in production. Get off our freaking back.” The teaser, however, does make sure to remind us that Cary Elwes and Jake Busey will be joining the cast in season 3.
So, all of you Jake Busey fans — rejoice!
(And really, who isn’t a Jake Busey fan?)
Interestingly enough, at one point, I wanted to write a movie specifically for Cary Elwes and Jake Busey, one in which they played tabloid journalists who ended up stranded in a town controlled by a Wurdulak. I really should get back to work on that…
Anyway, enjoy the teaser! The third season of Stranger Things come to Netflix in 2019! Will we once again convince Case Wright to watch and review it for us? Keep visiting the site to find out!
So, this year I am making a sincere effort to review every film that I see. I know I say that every year but this time, I really mean it.
So, in an effort to catch up, here are four quick reviews of some of the movies that I watched over the past few weeks!
Crisscross
Released: 1992
Directed by Chris Menges
Starring David Arnott, Goldie Hawn, Arliss Howard, Keith Carradine, James Gammon, Steve Buscemi
An annoying kid named Chris Cross (David Arnott) tells us the story of his life.
In the year 1969, Chris and his mother, Tracy (Goldie Hawn), are living in Key West. While the rest of the country is excitedly watching the first moon landing, Chris and Tracy are just trying to figure out how to survive day-to-day. Tracy tries to keep her son from learning that she’s working as a stripper but, not surprisingly, he eventually finds out. Chris comes across some drugs that are being smuggled into Florida and, wanting to help his mother, he decides to steal them and sell them himself. Complicating matters is the fact that the members of the drug ring (one of whom is played by Steve Buscemi) don’t want the competition. As well, Tracy is now dating Joe (Arliss Howard), who just happens to be an undercover cop. And, finally, making things even more difficult is the fact that Chris just isn’t that smart.
There are actually a lot of good things to be said about Crisscross. The film was directed by the renowned cinematographer, Chris Menges, so it looks great. Both Arliss Howard and Goldie Hawn give sympathetic performances and Keith Carradine has a great cameo as Chris’s spaced out dad. (Traumatized by his experiences in Vietnam, Chris’s Dad left his family and joined a commune.) But, as a character, Chris is almost too stupid to be believed and his overwrought narration doesn’t do the story any good. Directed and written with perhaps a less heavy hand, Crisscross could have been a really good movie but, as it is, it’s merely an interesting misfire.
The Dust Factory
Released: 2004
Directed by Eric Small
Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Hayden Panettiere, Ryan Kelly, Kim Myers, George de la Pena, Michael Angarano, Peter Horton
Ryan (Ryan Kelly) is a teen who stopped speaking after his father died. One day, Ryan falls off a bridge and promptly drowns. However, he’s not quite dead yet! Instead, he’s in The Dust Factory, which is apparently where you go when you’re on the verge of death. It’s a very nice place to hang out while deciding whether you want to leap into the world of the dead or return to the land of the living. Giving Ryan a tour of the Dust Factory is his grandfather (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Suggesting that maybe Ryan should just stay in the Dust Factory forever is a girl named Melanie (Hayden Panettiere). Showing up randomly and acting like a jerk is a character known as The Ringmaster (George De La Pena). Will Ryan choose death or will he return with a new zest for living life? And, even more importantly, will the fact that Ryan’s an unlikely hockey fan somehow play into the film’s climax?
The Dust Factory is the type of unabashedly sentimental and theologically confused film that just drives me crazy. This is one of those films that so indulges every possible cliché that I was shocked to discover that it wasn’t based on some obscure YA tome. I’m sure there’s some people who cry while watching this film but ultimately, it’s about as deep as Facebook meme.
Gambit
Released: 2012
Directed by Michael Hoffman
Starring Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz, Alan Rickman, Tom Courtenay, Stanley Tucci, Cloris Leachman, Togo Igawa
Harry Deane (Colin Firth) is beleaguered art collector who, for the sake of petty revenge (which, as we all know, is the best type of revenge), tries to trick the snobbish Lord Shabandar (Alan Rickman) into spending a lot of money on a fake Monet. To do this, he will have to team up with both an eccentric art forger (Tom Courtenay) and a Texas rodeo star named PJ Puznowksi (Cameron Diaz). The plan is to claim that PJ inherited the fake Monet from her grandfather who received the painting from Hermann Goering at the end of the World War II and…
Well, listen, let’s stop talking about the plot. This is one of those elaborate heist films where everyone has a silly name and an elaborate back story. It’s also one of those films where everything is overly complicated but not particularly clever. The script was written by the Coen Brothers and, if they had directed it, they would have at least brought some visual flair to the proceedings. Instead, the film was directed by Michael Hoffman and, for the most part, it falls flat. The film is watchable because of the cast but ultimately, it’s not surprising that Gambit never received a theatrical release in the States.
On a personal note, I saw Gambit while Jeff & I were in London last month. So, I’ll always have good memories of watching the movie. So I guess the best way to watch Gambit is when you’re on vacation.
In The Arms of a Killer
Released: 1992
Directed by Robert L. Collins
Starring Jaclyn Smith, John Spencer, Nina Foch, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Sandahl Bergman, Linda Dona, Kristoffer Tabori, Michael Nouri
This is the story of two homicide detectives. Detective Vincent Cusack (John Spencer) is tough and cynical and world-weary. Detective Maria Quinn (Jaclyn Smith) is dedicated and still naive about how messy a murder investigation can be when it involves a bunch of Manhattan socialites. A reputed drug dealer is found dead during a party. Apparently, someone intentionally gave him an overdose of heroin. Detective Cusack thinks that the culprit was Dr. Brian Venible (Michael Nouri). Detective Quinn thinks that there has to be some other solution. Complicating things is that Quinn and Venible are … you guessed it … lovers! Is Quinn truly allowing herself to be held in the arms of a killer or is the murderer someone else?
This sound like it should have been a fun movie but instead, it’s all a bit dull. Nouri and Smith have next to no chemistry so you never really care whether the doctor is the killer or not. John Spencer was one of those actors who was pretty much born to play world-weary detectives but, other than his performance, this is pretty forgettable movie.
Overboard
Released: 1987
Directed by Garry Marshall
Starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Edward Herrmann, Katherine Helmond, Roddy McDowall, Michael G. Hagerty, Brian Price, Jared Rushton, Hector Elizondo
When a spoiled heiress named Joanne Slayton (Goldie Hawn) falls off of her luxury yacht, no one seems to care. Even when her husband, Grant (Edward Herrmann), discovers that Joanne was rescued by a garbage boat and that she now has amnesia, he denies knowing who she is. Instead, he takes off with the boat and proceeds to have a good time. The servants (led by Roddy McDowall) who Joanne spent years terrorizing are happy to be away from her. In fact, the only person who does care about Joanne is Dean Proffitt (Kurt Russell). When Dean sees a news report about a woman suffering from amnesia, he heads over to the hospital and declares that Joanne is his wife, Annie.
Convinced that she is Annie, Joanne returns with Dean to his messy house and his four, unruly sons. At first, Dean says that his plan is merely to have Joanne work off some money that she owes him. (Before getting amnesia, Joanne refused to pay Dean for some work he did on her boat.) But soon, Joanne bonds with Dean’s children and she and Dean start to fall in love. However, as both Grant and Dean are about to learn, neither parties nor deception can go on forever…
This is one of those films that’s pretty much saved by movie star charisma. The plot itself is extremely problematic and just about everything that Kurt Russell does in this movie would land him in prison in real life. However, Russell and Goldie Hawn are such a likable couple that the film come close to overcoming its rather creepy premise. Both Russell and Hawn radiate so much charm in this movie that they can make even the stalest of jokes tolerable and it’s always enjoyable to watch Roddy McDowall get snarky. File this one under “Kurt Russell Can Get Away With Almost Anything.”
A remake of Overboard, with the genders swapped, is set to be released in early May.
Shy People
Released: 1987
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
Starring Jill Clayburgh, Barbara Hershey, Martha Plimpton, Merritt Butrick, John Philbin, Don Swayze, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Mare Winningham
Diana Sullivan (Jill Clayburgh) is a writer for Cosmopolitan and she’s got a problem! It turns out that her teenager daughter, Grace (Martha Plimpton), is skipping school and snorting cocaine! OH MY GOD! (And, to think, I thought I was a rebel just because I used to skip Algebra so I could go down to Target and shoplift eyeliner!) Diana knows that she has to do something but what!?
Diana’s solution is to get Grace out of New York. It turns out that Diana has got some distant relatives living in Louisiana bayou. After Cosmo commissions her to write a story about them, Diana grabs Grace and the head down south!
(Because if there’s anything that the readers of Cosmo are going to be interested in, it’s white trash bayou dwellers…)
The only problem is that Ruth (Barbara Hershey) doesn’t want to be interviewed and she’s not particularly happy when Diana and Grace show up. Ruth and her four sons live in the bayous. Three of the sons do whatever Ruth tells them to do. The fourth son is often disobedient so he’s been locked up in a barn. Diana, of course, cannot understand why her relatives aren’t impressed whenever she mentions that she writes for Cosmo. Meanwhile, Grace introduces her cousins to cocaine, which causes them to go crazy. “She’s got some strange white powder!” one of them declares.
So, this is a weird film. On the one hand, you have an immensely talented actress like Jill Clayburgh giving one of the worst performances in cinematic history. (In Clayburgh’s defense, Diana is such a poorly written character that I doubt any actress could have made her in any way believable.) On the other hand, you have Barbara Hershey giving one of the best. As played by Hershey, Ruth is a character who viewers will both fear and admire. Ruth has both the inner strength to survive in the bayou and the type of unsentimental personality that lets you know that you don’t want to cross her. I think we’re supposed to feel that both Diana and Ruth have much to learn from each other but Diana is such an annoying character that you spend most of the movie wishing she would just go away and leave Ruth alone. In the thankless role of Grace, Martha Plimpton brings more depth to the role than was probably present in the script and Don Swayze has a few memorable moments as one of Ruth’s sons. Shy People is full of flaws and never really works as a drama but I’d still recommend watching it for Hershey and Plimpton.
Earlier this week, Derrick Ferguson interviewed me for his blog Ferguson Ink! I discussed my favorite movies, my reviewing philosophy, and a lot of other things! Please read this interview and also check out Derrick’s sites, Ferguson Ink and The Ferguson Theater, as well as his patreon site! Thank you!
Los Angeles psychedelic rockers The Electric Prunes rose to #11 on the Billboard charts with their 1966 hit, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)”:
The band were noted for their early use of fuzz-tone guitars, wah-wah pedals, and other studio tricks to add an eerie ambience to their rock’n’roll noise. Though they never had another hit, their 1968 album “Mass in F Minor” has become a psychedelia collector’s Holy Grail, a complex, baroque rock concept LP composed and arranged by David Axelrod (the jazz producer, not the political pundit) sung entirely in Greek and Latin. The record was so complex, in fact, The Prunes had difficulty playing the songs, and studio musicians were brought in to fill in the gaps. A song from “Mass in F Minor” called “Kyrie Elieson” gained some notoriety when it was used in Dennis Hopper’s 1969 biker classic EASY RIDER:
Needless to say, this song was not originally recorded by The Rolling Stones. Despite what the title has led some people to assume, the song actually has nothing to do with the Rolling Stones. Instead, the song was written by Bob Dylan. It’s long been debated just who exactly Dylan was addressing in the lyrics. Some people think that Dylan was writing about Edie Sedgwick. Grace Zabriskie, who is probably best known for playing Sarah Palmer on Twin Peaks, has long claimed that she was the one who inspired the song. It would appear that only Bob Dylan knows for sure and it’s reasonable to assume that he’ll never tell.
Regardless, I really like this song. A part of it is because I relate to the lyrics. I almost feel like they could have been written about me at a certain time in my life. The other reason I love the song is because the taunting tone of the lyrics makes them perfect whenever you’re looking for something to say to someone who you dislike. For example, someone once unfollowed me on twitter and I responded by tweeting the lyrics of this song at her until she finally deleted her account. That was fun.
Anyway, it seemed somewhat inevitable that this song would be covered by The Rolling Stones. This video, which was directed by the prolific Michel Gondry, follows a young woman as she discovers how it feels to be a complete unknown. The woman in the video is played by future Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette.
Tabloid journalism has been around far longer than the cable “news” channels of today, with their 24 hour a day barrage of nonstop sleazy scandals and “fake news”. A circulation war between publishers Joseph Pulitzer (New York World) and William Randolph Hearst (New York Journal) in the 1890’s, filled with sensationalized headlines and mucho muckraking, gave birth to the term “Yellow Journalism”, derived from Richard Outcault’s guttersnipe character The Yellow Kid in his comic strip Hogan’s Alley, which appeared in both papers. This legacy of dirt-digging and gossip-mongering continued through the decades in supermarket rags like The National Enquirer and World Weekly News, leading us to where we are today with the so-called “mainstream media” stretching credibility to the max and bogus Internet click-bait sites abounding. All of which leads me to FIVE STAR FINAL, a Pre-Code drama about headhunting for headlines starring Edward G…
Today is 4.26, also known as “Alien Day”, and named after the planet in James Cameron’s Aliens (LV-426 / Acheron). It’s a celebration of the entire Alien Franchise, but I’m only focused on the first film as I finally saw it in the theatre in 2017.
This isn’t so much a review as it’s just my history with Ridley Scott’s Alien. You can find actual reviews all over the internet, and I know very few people who didn’t enjoy the movie. This piece assumes you’ve seen the film and are familiar with it. There are also spoilers within, though with a nearly 40 year old film, I’m not sure if it can be classified as such.
When I was little, my older brother and I shared a room in my grandmother’s house. Below our bunk beds was a open space that contained a set of boxes and each box contained a collection of our toys – board games, knick knacks, things like that. If you needed something, you went under the bed to fetch it. Only thing is, I always reached into those boxes with my eyes closed.
I have a vague memory of when my older brother received 3 toys that affected the way I looked at things. The first was a board game for the movie Alien. On it, you had a map of the Nostromo, about 3 Astronaut pieces and one for the Alien. I can’t recall the exact nature of how it was played, but I do remember it having to do with finding a way to reach the Narcissus – the escape ship – before the Alien reached your character. Each player also had their own Alien they could use to hunt the other characters before they could escape.
The Alien Board Game. Fox marketed toys for Alien (an R rated film), possibly fearing the mistake they made with Star Wars.
The second was a movie viewer. I had to do some hunting around the net to find it, and thanks to The Toy Box, I was able to locate one. These viewers (made by Fisher Price and by Kenner) were really popular, especially after the Star Wars boom. You loaded it with a tape and it would play out a scene. For the Alien tape my brother had, it would play out the egg opening face hugger jump sequence. I rewound that too many times, and perhaps it’s the reason I’m afraid of spiders. I don’t really know for sure. The tape used below goes through most of the film’s plot, so if you haven’t watched the film by now, consider yourself spoiled.
The last toy was the reason I never went into the toy boxes. My brother owned an 18 Inch tall Alien figure, complete with a glow in the dark headpiece and a functional second set of teeth. It was one of the scariest things I’d seen as a kid.
All of this was thanks in part to Star Wars. With the mistake Fox made in giving the merchandising rights for Star Wars to Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd., they missed out a major chunk of revenue. So when Alien was set to launch 2 years later, they greenlit an entire toy line for the film, even though the movie was rated “R” and the toys demographic couldn’t really see the movie without parental supervision. For the time, that was a pretty amazing thing.
Back in the early 1980s, my father invited my older brother and I to his place to see Alien. I was about six or seven years old at the time, with my brother a few years older. My parents worked nights, so we pretty much lived with my grandmother. He was always into movies and he acquired a RCA Videodisc Player, along with that film and First Blood. Although I was sick, I still went and watched it. I vomited twice during the playthrough, but it was so worth it.
I’d come to find out years later from my Mom that my Dad really didn’t need to invite us. He was just too scared of the movie to watch it alone. According to family legend, Alien was a date movie for my parents, and halfway into the film, my Dad (along with most guys, I’ve heard), was using my Mom as a shield. Mind you, this was a guy who kept multiple firearms in the house and knew how to use them.
Alien was the brainchild of Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. Having worked on Dark Star for John Carpenter, O’Bannon wanted to create another space film, but with a more serious tone. They came up with the story, inspired by 1958’s B-movie classic It! The Terror From Outer Space and decided to roll with it. The feel for their story would be more like a set of space truckers hauling ore and picking up a stowaway space possum in their cargo.
And that’s Alien in a nutshell. A crew of seven astronauts heading towards Earth in their mining vessel are awakened from hyper sleep when their spaceship – The Nostromo – picks up a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. They are given orders to investigate the signal, but when one of them is incapacitated by an alien life form, it brings trouble to the rest of the crew once they all return to the ship. Can they survive?
The casting for Alien is damn near flawless. There isn’t a single person that feels out of place. The characterization for everyone is straightforward, from the wisecracking pair of Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto to the very systematic Ian Holm as the Nostromo’s Science Division expert, it doesn’t take long for one to get to know them or at least wonder if they’ll make it through the story unscathed. Whether it’s Veronica Cartwright’s Lambert, who is nervous and jittery mid way through the film (and with good reason) or Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley who sees the potential threat before it gets out of hand, everyone here plays their part well.
Ridley Scott was a young director brought on board to create the film. Now, normally, this is where the movie would be made and that really would be that. Scott’s visit to an art gallery in Paris would change the make up of the movie, according to the behind the scenes documentary. What set Alien aside from other space/horror fanfare were the influences of two major artists at the time, Jean Giraud and H.R. Giger.
Concept Art by Jean Giraud, a.k.a. Moebius.
Having seen his work in France, Ridley Scott felt that Giger had to be brought on board. Giger agreed to use some of his designs for the film and actually helped create the entire Space Jockey set. For the late 1970s, Giger’s look – elongated bones with sexual undertones – had to be a shock to audiences. Giraud, known to many fans as Moebius, was one of the greatest illustrators to have lived. Giraud was previously brought on to work on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune, but after that fell through, he ended up working with Scott for a bit, mainly coming up with the designs for the suits in the Nostromo. Together, both their designs would be used to bring something entirely new to audiences at the time. Also on hand was Carlo Rambaldi (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Dune), who helped design the Alien’s mouth and motor features. In the effects department, Dennis Ayling, Nick Allder, and even Batman’s Anton Furst had a hand in setting the atmosphere for the Nostromo and LV-426. The result is a sense of claustrophobia. The Nostromo’s hallways aren’t the immaculate ones you’d find on board the Enterprise or the roomy ones on the Millennium Falcon. They’re tight, dimly lit with an obvious function over form factor to them. It’s a space rig.
With older monster films, the creature usually is just one form. Giger’s Alien had three distinct forms used, which has always made me curious for the initial audience reactions. The first encounter is with a the Facehugger, an arachnid like creature with a tail that restricts the breathing of its potential victim. Add to this the notion that it uses molecular acid for blood. How do you even fight such a thing? Imagine thinking this is the “big bad” you’re going to see throughout the movie. Scott was particular in having the advertising reference as little as it could about the Alien itself (though the toy line kind of ruined that).
Just when you’re comfortable with the possiblity of facehuggers crawling around, the movie switches gears and introduces us to the Chestburster, a phallic snake of a creature (thanks again to Giger). . The scene was fantastic. Although the cast was told what was supposed to happen with Kane (John Hurt), they weren’t completely filled in on how it was supposed to occur. It was a two part process. The first involved trying to hold down Kane, and the second was setup with John Hurt in the table to have the “push through”. So, when Kane lets out that one big scream, everyone’s reactions are real. You can see that both Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Dallas (Tom Skerritt) are completely stunned. Veronica Cartwright (and her character Lambert) caught the worst of all this and also had the best reaction. When the Chestburster appears, the effects blood pumps caught Cartwright full on and it was all kept on film. I’m told that the scene in its initial run had people curling in their seats, standing to move to the back of the theatre (for some distance) or walking out altogether. What I wouldn’t give for a Time Travelling DeLorean and an Opening Night movie ticket to that.
So now, there’s a snake running loose on the ship. The film spares very little time before our newborn becomes an adult. Mostly sleek and skeletal, the adult Alien is the stuff of nightmares, but thanks to Scott, and Cinematographer Derek Vanlint, we don’t see much of the Alien until the last act of the movie. Like the Batman, we only see it pounce, and that’s a testament both to the lighting used and the editing of shots. Scott’s close-ups on the Alien’s mouth and forehead doesn’t give anyone enough time to fully make out what it is entirely. Credit also goes to Bolaji Badejo, who portrayed the Alien. At 6’10”, Badejo was perfect for the creature sense of stature and movement, particularly with Harry Dean Stanton’s Brett having to stare up at him in shock.
The production wasn’t without an issue here or there. Giraud’s suits – which had a samurai feel to them – had problems with the ventilation, so some of the actors nearly experienced exhaustion while working in them. This was later remedied, of course.
Alien remains one of Jerry Goldsmith’s best scores, though it’s also a simple one. The music isn’t so much horrific as it just classical. The music in Alien isn’t really used to imply any kind of horror (save for perhaps one sequence), but perhaps that’s a good thing. The music lets the movie do the talking instead of throwing zingers. There’s very little I can say about the score outside of that.
Alien would go on to spawn seven extra films, though personally, only James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) are the two worth seeing. Alien 3 (1992) is beautiful, thanks to David Fincher and Cinematographer Alex Thomson, but also kind of damaged the timeline.
So, turn out the lights, settle in with the food of your choice and enjoy Alien Day.
The Space Jockey. Much of Giger’s designs looked like bone.
* – A thank you goes out to Kevin Carr of Fat Guys At the Movies. He once featured It! The Terror From Outer Space years ago during the weekend Live Tweets he used to host. It was a treat to watch.
Long before Marvel Studios convinced everyone in Hollywood that shared cinematic universes were the way of the future, Toho gave the world Destroy All Monsters!
First released in 1968, Destroy All Monsters featured almost every monster that every destroyed Tokyo. As you can see in the picture below, this was a collection like no other. Long before the Avengers, it was all about … The Monsters!
Check out the cast of Destroy All Monsters:
Some of these monsters are more identifiable than others. Everyone knows Godzilla and I imagine that the majority of our readers can identify both Rodan and Mothra (who spends most of Destroy All Monsters in her larval form). And, of course, that’s everyone’s favorite three-headed dragon, King Ghidorah, hovering in the sky.
As for the rest of the cast, they may be lesser monsters but, just like Ant-Man and the Falcon, they all have a role to play. Up at the front of the group is Minilla, who is Godzilla’s bastard son. Walking next to Godzilla is Baragon, who was the antagonist in Frankenstein Conquers The World. The big snake is Manda, who previously appeared in a non-Godzilla film called Atragon. The spiky armadillo is Anguirus from Godzilla Rides Again and directly behind him is Gorosaurus, who previously appeared in King Kong Escapes. The big spider is Kumonga, who previously appeared in Son of Godzilla and apparently no longer wants to eat Minilla. Meanwhile, up in the air with Rodan and Ghidorah, you’ve got Varan the Unbelievablefrom the film of the same name.
When Destroy All Monsters opens, all of these monsters (with the exception of Ghidorah) have been trapped on Monster Island. Somehow, despite the fact that they’ve all tried to kill each other in the past, they’re now getting along just fine. There’s a research station located underneath the island, where scientists can both study the monsters and keep them from escaping. It seems like a great situation for everyone! The monsters get a home of their own and the humans don’t have to keep rebuilding their cities.
But then, one day, all communication with Monster Island is lost and the monsters themselves start to pop up all over the world. Rodan destroys Moscow. Mothra takes out Beijing. Gorosaurus totally destroys Paris. Why doesn’t America step up to save the rest of the world? Well, they’ve got problems of their own. Just check out who has surfaced in New York harbor…
After years of exclusively destroying Tokyo, Godzilla has finally decided to visit New York City! Of course, Godzilla ends up wrecking the place. He specifically takes out the United Nations and wins the hearts of libertarians everywhere.
It turns out that, once again, a bunch of aliens have invaded Earth and are using mind control signals to force the monsters to attack humanity. (After you watch enough Godzilla movies, you come to understand that this happens pretty regularly.) While a team of humans try to figure out how to disrupt the control signals, the monsters are busy destroying every major city that they come across.
However, as the lead human points out, the monsters instinctively know who they’re “real enemy” is and it’s only a matter of time until they turn on the aliens. The aliens, however, have a Plan B. And, like so many intergalactic schemes of the past, that Plan B involves summoning King Ghidorah.
The appeal of King Ghidorah is obvious. He’s got those big wings and those three heads and he breathes fire and he just looks like the type of monster that you would want on your side. But, at the same time, I really do have to question the wisdom of continually trying to use Ghidorah to defeat Godzilla. Ghidorah and Godzilla fought a countless number of times and never once did Ghidorah actually win. He often put up a fairly impressive fight and he usually managed to knock around Godzilla’s friends but, repeatedly, Ghidorah proved to be totally ineffective when it came to actually defeating or even slowing down Godzilla.
That said, Destroy All Monsters just wouldn’t be the same without King Ghidorah. Reportedly, this was originally envisioned as being the final Godzilla film and it’s kind of nice to see Godzilla hanging out with all of the other monsters. Ghidorah and Godzilla may not have been friends but Ghidorah is still as important a part of Godzilla’s life as Rodan and Mothra.
Like most of the Godzilla films of the late 60s and early 70s, Destroy All Monsters spends way too much time on its human characters but, even if there isn’t as much as you might want, the rubber monster mayhem is still enjoyably silly and fun to watch. All the monsters get together and play their role in saving the world. Call it Godzilla: Infinity Wars.
Today is 4.26, also known as “Alien Day”, and named after the planet in James Cameron’s Aliens (LV-426 / Acheron). It’s a celebration of the entire Alien Franchise, but I’m only focused on the first film as I finally saw it in the theatre in 2017.
Through the Shattered Lens 