Category: At The Movies

Could Zero be greater than One?

The sequel to Godzilla Minus One was given a preview over the weekend, and the initial reviews are of the raving variety.

You may recall my rhapsodizing over Takashi Yamazaki’s brilliant 2023 anti-war film and human drama masquerading as a monster movie. I told everyone I knew, and his or her brother, that you would not regret taking a couple hours out of your life to see that movie. Between the theater, streaming and BluRay, I have personally experienced the film at least a dozen times.

Now the people who saw the preview of Godzilla Minus Zero are talking as crazy as I did after seeing the first film.

The Variety article I first saw quoted first reviewers as calling it things like “jaw-dropping spectacle,” “glorious continuation of the first film,” “A truly epic cinematic feat,” and “overwhelming achievement.”

I saw one comment that compared the two movies to The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II, which won the Academy Awards for Best Picture in 1972 and 1974. Could Yamazaki’s sequel be as good as, or arguably better than, his first masterpiece?  

The review that sent my expectations into the stratosphere was from a reviewer named Jacob Fisher, who said, “Such a brilliant deep dive into the facets of trauma & never-ending cycles of war/hatred.”

Yes, Godzilla is a guilty pleasure for me, but the reason I obsessed over Godzilla Minus One was that it told a story with themes deeper than any Godzilla film had ever explored — the aftermath of a devastating war, survivor’s guilt, and redemption from shame. Fisher suggests that once again Yamazaki tells a human story more important than the amazing special effects that bring a giant monster to life.

Now the challenge is to avoid spoilers for six weeks so that I can walk into a theater on Nov. 6 not knowing precisely what is about to unfold on screen. Three years ago I had heard the film supposedly was really good but I didn’t know much else. Now I’ve heard that the sequel to one of my favorite movies might be even better. That’s all I really want to know in the meantime.

Gettin’ old

I saw a meme on Facebook marking the 75th anniversary of the release of The Day The Earth Stood Still in September 1951, one of the all-time great science-fiction movies. I shared it with my brother with the note, “Eeesh! Remember when 75-year-old movies were silent films?”

“Yes, I think about that a lot,” he said. “Not sure, but aren’t Vietnam vets older than the World War I vets we saw in the Memorial Day parades when we were kids?”

“Well, we were kids 40 years after WWI ended, and the Vietnam War ended 50 years ago,” I said, adding, “NOOOOoooo….!”

Miscellaneous thoughts about nothing much

Listen to this post:

It was breathlessly reported this week that the new Toho Ltd. Godzilla movie, Godzilla Minus Zero, has a running time of 2 hours, 15 minutes, which makes it the longest Godzilla movie ever filmed in Japan. A couple of the American-made movies of the past decade have been a little longer than that. The last Japanese film, Godzilla Minus One, clocked in at 2 hours, 2 minutes.

People like to talk about such stuff in enormous detail — what do we hope happens to the characters and will any of the other giant monsters like Rodan or Mothra make an appearance — and although I do enjoy the sneak previews we get in the trailers, I’m mostly content just to wait and see what happens when the lights go down on Nov. 6.

The Green Bay Packers’ first pre-season game is scheduled for tonight, and so talking season is upon us again. Sports fans in general and specifically Packers fans love to talk about their team. There are radio stations devoted to nothing but talking about the upcoming games and the games that were just completed and what it all means. Me, I will enjoy the three hours watching the game and won’t think much about it again for the next 165 hours before the next game.

I had a shocking realization last weekend when it occurred to me that the new Spider-Man movie had been out for a week and not only have I not seen it yet, but I had not even thought about it since around July 29 when I thought, “Huh, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is coming out in a couple of days.” 

Now, I have been a Spider-Man fan since the summer of 1963, when I spent 12 of the 25 cents my dad had given me — comic book money — on an interesting looking new title called Amazing Spider-Man #4. If I wasn’t at the first showing on the first day, I definitely have been there sometime during the first few days every time a new Spider-Man movie has arrived.

This time, it completely slipped my mind. For more than a week! I hope this doesn’t mean I finally grew up after 73 years. Probably not. Did I mention the new Godzilla movie is 2 hours, 15 minutes long?