After the chilly to flat-out disdainful reception Guillermo del Toro’s tribute to giant monsters (and the giant robots who fight them), Pacific Rim, saw this past July, one might question the wisdom of bringing the most iconic movie behemoth of all time, Godzilla, back into the fold via mainstream blockbusting. Yet that’s exactly what Gareth Edwards, the man behind the 2010 cult monster flick Monsters, plans on doing with the backing of Legendary pictures; in point of fact, we’ve been hearing a great deal about his film since the San Diego Comic-Con this past summer, so, obviously, del Toro’s success or failure could never have had a motivating factor in getting the movie made…
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The Criterion Files: Godzilla
Godzilla Directed by: Ishiro Honda Written by: Ishiro Honda, Takeo Murata Starring: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura Cinematography by: Masao Tamai Music by: Akira Ifukube Release: November 3, 1954 I remember strongly disliking Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla the first time I watched it. Grant that at the time I was both young and unwittingly self-indoctrinated to believe the king of all monsters to be a big, cuddly good guy rather than a metaphor for atomic horror; going from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla vs. Hedorah, Son of Godzilla, and The Terror of Mechagodzilla to the film that started it all was something of a shock to my eight-year-old…
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G-S-T Review…Pacific Rim
Let’s begin this review on the bluntest note possible: Pacific Rim is the summer’s best blockbuster by several leagues. That may read as grotesquely biased coming from someone who grew up on Ultraman, Ray Harryhausen, and Toho films and discovered mecha anime titles in his college years; it probably doesn’t help my case that Guillermo del Toro happens to be one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers, either. But if my loyalty to del Toro and my passion for the kaiju films he has modeled so much of Pacific Rim after give me a clear dog in the seasonal fight for popcorn supremacy, my sentiment about his latest film remains as…
