Bela

Bela Lugosi is Count Dracula.

Godzilla -1.0 (Minus One) Review

SPOILERS

I recently read Shigeru Kayak’s original novel of Godzilla, translated by Western Michigan University Professor Jeffrey Angles (2023, University of Minnesota Press). The novelization differs from Ishirô Honda’s 1954 film in explaining a bit more about the origin of the Kaiju Godzilla as conveyed by Ōdo Island villagers. The sea monster is a beast of the deep that surfaces due to atomic weapon deployment killing off its food supply. It’s not a mutation resulting from nuclear radiation but a monster awoken from it. Godzilla has always been there, but never surfaced or had cause to until the atomic age. Likewise, in the new film director Akashi Yamazaki presents the Ōdo Island emergence of Godzilla as a prehistoric remnant. It’s just a pissed off deep sea beast staking a claim on its territory. Only later, during testing in Bikini and the South Pacific is there a brief montage of genetic modification to Godzilla.

Minus One differs from every Godzilla film sans the original in being an intimate portrayal of characters and at no point in the film are the bomb deployments at Hiroshima and Nagasaki mentioned. Minus One is really a character study with the main protagonist being a tormented Kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) who decides he didn’t want to be a “divine wind” and is further troubled by multiple encounters with the title beast. The first act establishes his relationships with a lost woman Noriko (Manami Hamabe) and an infant orphan, a neighbor Sumiko (Sakura Ando) and his fellow “mine sweepers” Yoji (Kuranosuke Sasaki), Sosaku and Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka). The latter almost steals the show as an Imperial weapons designer who ultimately conjures up a plan to grapple with Godzilla. Did anyone see parallels with the wooden mine sweeper and Quint’s boat the Orca?

In many ways Minus One is a remake of Gojira and there’s plenty of homages (and I am sure Easter eggs) to the original. It’s also a detailed film with exquisite cinematography (Kôzô Shibasaki), score (Naomi Satô)(yes, we hear Ifukube’s classic theme), and design. I’m a WWII buff and can attest that the WWII era Imperial naval ship designs and army tank were well thought out. The nimble aircraft is based on an authentic experimental fighter the Kyūshū J7W Shinden which featured a nose-mounted canard and a rear propeller as depicted in the movie. Kenji even correctly notes that only two were known to exist (one is located in the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.). When Koichi ultimately enters and sails off in the aircraft to meet Godzilla we officially enter into Kaiju film bliss. What a phenomenally constructed sequence.

I won’t reveal that ending, but I thought it was a brilliant twist on the Godzilla Buster in ’54. What a feral and ominous beast the designers came up with this time. There is no humanization here. Godzilla is pure ferocity and power. In terms of look I rank this version right up there with GMK, 2000, and 1964 (MosuGoji). In terms of G film ranking: Top 3. Gojira is still tops for me, but this might be the best film all around considering production values, acting, script, cast, score, and how it comes together. I still like Shûsuke Kaneko’s GMK (2001) and rank it near the top. In terms of all giant monster films Minus One is top five film for me, with King Kong (1933) still the “8th Wonder of the World”.

ps – Was that a nod to Reptilicus at the end of Minus One?

5/5 Stars. One of the best monster films ever made. Will become a classic.

RIP Richard Marvin Butkus

I met Butkus once and I saw him play near the end of his career. My dad talked about him as if he had landed in a flying saucer from another planet. I have heard from more than a few former players he may have been the best football player ever. RIP Super Crunch #51.

Hideous Sun Demon

RIP Ricou Browning

Sorry to hear about the passing of Ricou Browning. He was the last living actor who played one of the original Universal Studios monsters. I met him several times and I usually chatted with him about dive watches, which we shared an interest. He directed most of the under-water sequences of the Bond flick Thunderball. He was old school and those hands-on stunt-actor-director-technician types are just about extinct. RIP.

RIP Stella Stevens

RIP Rachel Welch

Las Vegas Monster

While visiting the “King Kong at Ninety” exhibit at Eastern Michigan University’s art gallery I took some pictures of the “Las Vegas Monster” rendered by Willis O’Brien. There was a lot of reflection on the protective glass panes so I touched up a few of the images. Compare the O’B conceptual renders to Pete Peterson’s short test reel of the creature. The first thing I noticed was two barbels (tentacles?) on Pete’s version —probably as a cost saving much like Ray Harryhausen scaling back the cephalopod’s arms in “It Came from Beneath the Sea”.

Fini

RIP Kirstie Alley

Gort

Voigtländer Classic Heliar 50mm f1.5. Gort ion beam added with Lens Effects.