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Godzilla Minus One earned the franchise its first Oscar for special effects, setting the stage for a loyal following. Godzilla's attacks span the globe, focusing on iconic cities like Tokyo and New York, with devastating results. Godzilla's power as a metaphor for nuclear weapons shines through, creating a chilling commentary on society.

Godzilla has been through multiple iterations since its 1954 debut, but the monster's attacks on humanity have been wildly varied, with some far worse than others. The Japanese production Godzilla Minus One became the first movie in the franchise to obtain a well-deserved Oscar for Best Special Effects, although the entire franchise has developed a following over the years, with good reason. Godzilla's abilities and strengths have been compared to nuclear power over the years, creating a metaphor for atomic weapons and their threat to society.

Some of Godzilla's strongest attacks were in Tokyo, of course,...

Last year, legendary filmmaker John Carpenter teamed up with Shout! Factory to host a kaiju movie marathon called Masters of Monsters, which consisted of the original Godzilla film, Rodan; Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster, and The War of the Gargantuas. That marathon was re-run earlier this month. Now the folks at Far Out magazine have dug up a 1996 article from Film Comment magazine in which Carpenter named The War of the Gargantuas as “the ultimate Japanese monster movie” – and included it on a list of his seventeen favorite “guilty pleasure” movies. It’s a fun list, so we have it included below, with thanks to this site.

Carpenter started out the Film Comment guilty pleasures article by saying, “I wasn’t raised a Catholic, so guilt never played much of a role in my life. We Methodists don’t worry about guilt all that much. In terms of cinema, however, guilt has always been very important.

Twenty years after its initial release, the 2002 Godzilla franchise entry Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla is finally set to reach U.S. theatres for the first time this November! The release is set to happen, appropriately, on Godzilla Day, which happens to be Thursday, November 3rd. Fathom Events is bringing Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla to 450 theatres across the United States, and Syfy Wire confirms the film will be “complete with English subtitles and a never before seen featurette direct from Japan. Fans will be greeted with an exclusive message from Keiji Ota, Toho International’s Chief Godzilla Officer.“

Tickets are now available on FathomEvents.com, so check and see if Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla is going to be playing at a theatre near you.

Directed by Masaaki Tezuka from a screenplay written by Wataru Mimura, Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla has the following synopsis: A new Godzilla causes the Jsdf to construct a cyborg countermeasure from the original monster’s remains.

It’s another CineSavant review of a movie largely unavailable, especially the original Japanese version. This third Ishirô Honda / Eiji Tsuburaya outer space action epic is probably the best Toho science fiction feature ever, an Astral Collision tale in which the drama and characters are as compelling as the special effects. Nothing can stop a colossal planetoid heading toward Earth, but science comes to the rescue with the biggest construction job ever undertaken by mankind. The fine screenplay generates thrills, suspense and human warmth. It also takes place in the far, far future: 1980.

Gorath

CineSavant Revival Screening Review

Not On Region A Home Video

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 88 83 min. / Yôsei Gorasu

Starring: Ryô Ikebe, Yumi Shirakawa, Akira Kubo, Kumi Mizuno, Akihiko Hirata, Kenji Sahara, Jun Tazaki, Ken Uehara, Takashi Shimura, Seizaburô Kawazu, Takamaru Sasaki, Kô Nishimura, Eitarô Ozawa, Hideyo Amamoto, George Furness, Ross Benette, Nadao Kirino, Fumio Sakashita, Ikio Sawamura, Haruo Nakajima.

**Massive spoilers for every Godzilla movie, with the exception of the 2014 reboot, and Mothra follow**

August 6th and 9th, 1945 forever changed the course of history. When the first nuclear bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, World War II ended, but a new fear was born that dominated the thoughts of all men, women, and children for decades to come. The Cold War, atomic bomb testing, a cartoon turtle telling children to “duck and cover”, and this new technology that had the actual potential to literally end the world changed the perception of what was scary. Art reflects life, so cinema began to capitalize on these fears. Gone were the days of creepy castles, cobwebs, bats, vampires, werewolves, and the other iconic images that ruled genre cinema in film’s earliest decades. Science fiction was larger than ever and giant ants, giant octopi, terror from beyond the stars, and...