Shin Godzilla (Review)
Shin Godzilla
aka シン・ゴジラ aka Godzilla Resurgence
2016
Written by Hideaki Anno
Directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi
![]() |
New facial cleanses have gotten out of control!
|
Godzilla was on one of his occasional breaks after his Final War while the US developed their own Godzilla franchise. But after that monster hit, Godzilla reawoke in Japan to return with a spiritual successor to the original Gojira that is also one of the most successful films in Japan. Godzilla is back as a force of nature, the appearance and response directly referencing the Japanese Fukushima earthquake/nuclear disaster. Much of the film is spent in a West Wing style series of high level government meetings, in which entrenched minsters and officials do little of consequence in order to avoid looking bad if their actions don’t have the desired effect. While that sounds like it could be terrible, it’s actually really good, the scenes are cut quickly and innovatively to keep things moving briskly along while still giving you the feeling that the characters were in long unproductive meetings.
Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi were given free reign to tell their story, the pair having collaborated on Evangelion, with Anno subsequently directing cult live action films such as Cutie Honey and Higuchi doing effects work on the Gamera trilogy and directing the Attack on Titan features. Their strong pedigree promised that we would get something unique and entertaining, and the pair delivered with a strong entry.
The effects are a bit mixed, the final form of Godzilla is well done, but the earlier forms look goofy and some effects with them seem more rushed. While most of the music is new, there is some nice Akira Ifukube put in at the right time, with tanks driving around and blasting away that helped made the scene come together, you won’t care that everything is now CG instead of models and a guy in a suit. It really is modern mixed with the past, besides the retro tank fight, we have unmanned drones attacking Big G at one point, and the final sequence has a bunch of industrial and civilian vehicles that make up the heart of Japan’s economic might being used to save Japan.
Read more…
Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Akira Emoto, Arata Furuta, Godzilla, Hideaki Anno, Hiroki Hasegawa, Issei Takahashi, Japan, Jun Kunimura, Kanji Tsuda, Keisuke Koide, Ken Mitsuishi, Kengo Kora, Kenichi Yajima, Kimiko Yo, Kyūsaku Shimada, Mansai Nomura, Mikako Ichikawa, Pierre Taki, Ren Osugi, Satomi Ishihara, Sei Hiraizumi, Shinji Higuchi, Shinya Tsukamoto, Takumi Saito, Tetsu Watanabe, Yutaka Takenouchi
Summer School (Review)
Summer School
1987
Screenplay by Jeff Franklin
Story by Jeff Franklin, Stuart Birnbaum, and David Dashev
Directed by Carl Reiner
At one point Summer School was a cable staple, but I first saw it as a lad probably in ’88 or ’89 during a Showtime free preview weekend on cable. You see, we had HBO and Cinemax, but not Showtime, which meant there was a huge chunk of films that we didn’t have the pleasure of watching a billion times. Summer School was one of those, but it was also popular enough it was used to entice people to sign up for Showtime, which we never did, but we did watch their free films. After that, I managed to miss it the hundreds of other times it played on the TBS/TNT/USA channels, until 27 years later when it was screened in an theater again.
Summer School was actually part of a Dean Cameron triple-feature that also saw Ski School and Rockula played at a Midnites for Maniacs event at the San Francisco New Mission Theater. Not only was there three Dean Cameron movies playing, but Dean Cameron himself was there to regale us with a few tales of his career and filming these pictures.
Summer School is both an artifact of the time and a harbinger of the future where school testing has become controversial. The kids here being unmotivated high school students who failed a required basic skills test they need to graduate and their teacher. Freddy Shoop is the gym teacher more interested in having fun and summer vacation than teaching, but he’s roped into the summer school gig because he’s up for tenure. His girlfriend goes off to Hawaii without him, and Mr. Shoop now has a room full of rambunctious kids and no desire to be a responsible adult. It’s fun seeing Marc Harmon as the beach bum teacher when he’s now best known for headlining NCIS for a bajillion years, especially since he fills the fun-having teacher role so easily.
No good 80s film is without a stuffed shirt villain, and the vice-principal Phil Gills (Robin Thomas) fills that role nicely, being a constant thorn in Shoop’s side while also dating his love interest, Robin (Kirstie Alley). He is satisfyingly slimy and provides a great foil for the hero and students while putting in a good, cheesy performance that only rarely slips into cartoonish territory.
Read more…
Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Carl Reiner, Courtney Thorne-Smith, David Dashev, Dean Cameron, Duane Davis, Fabiana Udenio, Gary Riley, Jeff Franklin, Kelly Jo Minter, Ken Olandt, Kirstie Alley, Mark Harmon, Patrick Labyorteaux, Richard Steven Horvitz, Robin Thomas, Shawnee Smith, Stuart Birnbaum
Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory (Review)
Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory
aka 春子超常現象研究所 aka Haruko Chojo Gensho Kenkyujo
2015
Written and directed by Lisa Takeba
Fun time Japanese films are a bread and butter of TarsTarkas.NET, so of course we’re gonna check out a film about a girl who marries her tv. As a bonus, we got a wonderful film with a lot to say about entertainment culture and consumerism, much of which is as relevant in the US as it is to the Japanese audience. Also there are UFOs, random commercials, sideshow entertainers battling it out, and random cosplayers to spice things up!
Haruko is a young Japanese lady who spends her days alone in her apartment depressed and wishing for something paranormal to happen. Her early life had her interested in adventures, but thanks to a trauma involving spying her teacher father kissing a schoolgirl while out trying to hunt UFOs, she has abandoned her passion for the paranormal and just works a dreary job, watches tv, and makes tea stain art that she tries to sell on the street.
All of this changes one day when her ancient tv transforms into a real person! Well, a real person with a tv for a head, because he is a television brought to life. So much so that he’s called Terebi instead of getting a real name, and Haruko is harassed into paying tv licensing fees for him. Terebi is a young stud, and soon he and Haruko are lovers, but soon Terebi becomes unsatisfied with a homebody life (thanks in part to some harassment by children) and sets out to get a job, eventually becoming a successful television personality. This new lifestyle causes some friction, along with suppressed memories of a former life, Haruko’s desperate housewife coworker, and a perverted neighbor.
Read more…
Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Aoi Nakamura, Brother Tom, Fumiyo Kohinata, Japan, Lisa Takeba, Moeka Nozaki, Sayaka Aoki, Takumi Saito, Tetsuhiro Ikeda, Yumiko Takahashi