Welcome to a brand new, city-crushing series! We here at Max, Mike; Movies like to be larger-than-life so we’re trying to come up with some larger-than-life ideas for AHHHHH! A GIANT MONSTER IS ATTACKING THE CITY!! Ohhhhhh! Is it the judgment of the gods? Is it a metaphor for nuclear destruction? Perhaps it is the friend of all children! Hmmm, one would think the friend of all children would step on fewer orphanages, but perhaps the monster is just lonely or misunderstood. Giant monsters: so like us, and yet so not. But boy, do they generate a great number of movies, so we’re gonna talk about a bunch of them and perhaps THAT will save the city! Hey, it’s worth a try! We’re kicking off our new series, “Oh No! A Giant Monster!” with an early J.J. Abrams movie, produced by Steven Spielberg, so you know there will be adorable kids and plenty o’ lens flares! What more could a movie need? Why, a giant monster, that’s what! Give a listen and find out if we are all DOOOOOOMED or if beauty will kill the beast.
Poll question: what movie really represents your childhood?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Now to make Max take two more steps backwards towards the exit when he sees me. In 1995 I saw the film “Welcome to the Dollhouse” with my good friend Sterling by Todd Solondz. After the film we didn’t say a word until we were out of the theatre and she said, “While that film doesn’t exactly parallel our lives, I think it completely explains why we are how we are now.”
There are a million giant monster films I hope you talk about (might have to be a recurring series!) and I know you both have seen quite a few so I will try and make my suggestions relatively brief. Max mentioned Gamera the giant Monster; it’s not a great film but it was mom’s favourite giant monster. The Host, though that monster might not be giant enough. Beast from 20 000 Fathoms or an even further away Harryhausen monstr – 20 Million Miles to Earth. Reptiligus is awful but it has the seed of a good movie in there, but you should watch the cut clip where the janitor sings the “song of Reptiligus” to a group of children. I am a huge promoter of Godzilla Minus 1; I don’t think you covered that one yet. Or why not Godzilla Final Wars? It’s a combo of Godzilla the Matrix and maybe battleship Yamato. The villain alone is worth seeing and it will definitely leave you saying “WTF did I just watch?” Mike might want to do “Night of the Lepus” as I remember him talking about it at the Picnic!
“Welcome to the Dollhouse” . . . is your childhood. Vince, I’m sending you chocolate and a weighted blanket.
“Reptililicus”? Really? Well, who knows . . . If “Godzilla Final Wars” is the one I’m thinking of, I remember it being really wild. Don’t they even take a shot at the American Godzilla in that? The Matthew Broderick/Jean Reno one? They refer to some monster that kind of looks like that version as “that fish-eater”?
“Night of the Lepus.” Oh . . . do we dare?
Final Wars is exactly the film you are thinking about! They killed American Godzilla! Reptilgus is terrible but could be fun to talk about. The male leads always seem about to bang. It was written by Ib Melchoir who also wrote the surpriseingly good Planet of the vampires that insprired Alien.