Category: At The Movies

Packing up my dinosaurs

Once again, Ray Bradbury: “I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

That “never” is not quite true. Bradbury said that one of his formative moments came when he listened to his little pals who made fun of his collection of Buck Rogers comic strips, and he tore them up. Within a month, 8-year-old Ray realized that dang it, he loved Buck Rogers and no one was going to stop him. He wrote years later of his admiration for that kid.

Why do I like Godzilla movies? some people ask. Even I don’t know the answer. I do know I grew up with the 1956 American remix of the film, with Raymond Burr, and when I finally saw the 1954 Japanese original, I recognized not just a fun monster movie but a magnificent statement about war and peace and how technology can be twisted for evil purposes.

I start watching a new Godzilla movie hoping to experience a story with that kind of power, and I confess they almost always fall short of that lofty expectation. Still, I will hold onto my collection of Godzilla movies as long as I live, for the same reason little Ray rebuilt his Buck Rogers collection, not entirely certain why, but knowing in his heart of hearts that Buck Rogers was essential to who he was.

Like Ray, I don’t mind when people criticize my Godzilla fixation, and if it gets overbearing I pick up my dinosaurs and leave the room. To those willing to tolerate  me for a moment, I will recommend they at least watch that 1954 movie or the 2023 masterpiece Godzilla Minus One. We all have “guilty pleasures” we can’t explain, but we are guilty of taking pleasure in them. I won’t try and stop you, and I will try to smile patiently if you try to stop me.

Happy Godzilla Day

It was Nov. 3, 1954, that the film Gojira premiered in Japan, introducing one of the great film monsters of all time. The date means that I am older than Godzilla, but my younger brother is not.

Thanks to the American remix that appeared in 1956 and became a staple of “Chiller Theater” type TV shows, the big kaiju that destroyed Tokyo is an indelible feature of our childhood — as he said the other day, “That means our entire lives have been consumed by ‘Ah, a trilobite!’ and ‘Godzilla must not be destroyed.’”

Godzilla and I were 50 years old when the original Japanese film was finally given general release in the U.S. — I was in Walmart to buy the DVD the day it went on sale. I had always heard it was a powerful movie that took a strong stance against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but I was staggered by just how powerful.

I could imagine the military-industrial complex, the one Eisenhower warned us about, feeling so threatened by the movie that they not only suppressed the original Japanese movie for a half-century, they produced an edited version that downplayed the peace message, and who knows? Maybe they even encouraged the silly sequels that transformed a metaphor for nuclear destruction into a cartoon.

The film that Toho Co. Ltd. released to commemorate the 70th anniversary, Godzilla Minus One, is another powerful anti-war film in its own right, set as it is in post-War Japan and showing the effects of World War II on the side that surrendered, as well as doubling down on the original metaphor. They are two of my favorite films for that reason: They are so much more than idle entertainment.

It’s amazing to me how the Americanized version of the 1953 film, starring Raymond Burr, used almost the same scenes in a different order to soften the impact of that anti-war message. Some of it was simple omission — there’s a touching scene after the destruction of Tokyo with an auditorium full of children singing a mournful hymn. To erase the original message, all they had to do was not translate the words of that hymn until 50 years later:

May we live without destruction
May we look to tomorrow with hope
May peace and light return to us

Seventy-one years after the world met Godzilla, may we redouble our efforts to end the horror of war wherever it rears its ugly face, and eternal shame on the merchants of destruction and their political allies.

W.B. at the Movies: Shin Godzilla

I tell people I am not obsessed with Godzilla, but there I was last Thursday, a beautiful summer afternoon, indoors in the dark, watching a nine-year-old Godzilla movie that is back on the big screen for a few days.

There was a time when I would argue that Shin Godzilla may be the best film in the series since the first one in 1954. But then 2023 brought us Godzilla Minus One, and not even this 2016 masterpiece comes close.

Shin Godzilla is brimming with dark humor. Countless mostly forgettable bureaucrats are identified in bold captions as they endlessly discuss what to do about the giant beast wreaking havoc in the rivers and then the streets around Tokyo. They adjourn one meeting in order to call another meeting into order and then another, while the monster — which is kind of cute in its earlier form — casually tosses boats and cars around like a golden retriever playing in a children’s pool filled with plastic balls.

Eventually even the bureaucrats realize how ineffectual they are, and the task of resolving the Godzilla problem is placed in the hands of a crack team of nerds and misfits. Politicians depicted not only as buffoons but narcissists who see opportunities for advancement in human tragedy! Now this is my kind of Godzilla movie.

In case we didn’t get the joke, we are treated to a press conference in which an officious official blithely reassures the public that the river creature may have legs but it is simply too large to support its own weight and therefore cannot make landfall to threaten Japan’s interior. A meek aide whispers in his ear, and he cries, “It HAS?!”

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is depicted as a tone-deaf bully willing to sacrifice Tokyo by dropping a nuclear bomb on Godzilla while the monster is wreaking its havoc downtown. The task force’s mission is to stop Godzilla before the U.S. can nuke Japan a third time.

It’s a rousing story in its own way and depicts the big guy as a terrifying threat, as opposed to so many movies when Godzilla is kind of a hero. The scary monster is the Godzilla I knew and loved — at his worst, he is a metaphor for the nuclear bomb, the worst manmade disaster ever unleashed.

I’m still not sure if going inside on that beautiful afternoon was the best life choice, but this was a limited run of a film that really ought to be seen on the big screen.

To my original point, Shin Godzilla is a great Godzilla movie that will appeal to people who have acquired that particular taste. On the other hand, Godzilla Minus One is simply a great movie that I do not hesitate to recommend and even urge people without that acquired taste to see.

Director Takashi Yamazaki spoiled us with his magnificent story of Koichi Shikishima, the failed kamikaze pilot who takes in war orphans Noriko Oishi and the little girl Akiko. I don’t remember the names of the characters in Shin Godzilla, but in their defense, I think that’s part of the movie’s point.