Directed by Kensho Yamashita and written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara, this is the sixth and next to last movie of the Heisei era that begins with The Return of Godzilla in 1984 and ends with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah in 1995.
SpaceGodzilla was first conceived in 1978 and is similar to new kaiju villain Biollant. Creature designer Shinji Nishikawa saw SpaceGodzilla as a Western dragon-like creature with large fin-like wings on its back. Godzilla’s son would be redesigned to be cuter and not like the dinosaur in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.
Speaking of Biollante, Godzilla’s cells were brought into space by that creature and when they’re exposed to intense radiation from a black hole, SpaceGodzilla is born. The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center comes to Birth Island and use a mind control device on Godzilla while The Cosmos, Mothra’s twin priestesses, appear to psychic Miki Saegusa and warn her that SpaceGodzilla is coming.
Even M.O.G.U.E.R.A. (Mobile Operations G-Force Universal Expert Robot: Aero-type), the new version of Mechagodzilla, fails to stop the creature from coming to our planet. Godzilla can’t even keep the monster from stealing his son and starts to use volcanoes to grow in power.
How wild is it that former All Japan Womens wrestler Masanobu Okamoto AKA Little Frankie was Little Godzilla?
If this movie had come out when I was a little kid, I would be drawing SpaceGodzilla in every class instead of learning about things I would never need to know from grade school. As it is, I’ve been drawing him in my notebook at work for the last day or two.
Directed and written by Shinpei Hayashiya, this is the story of the real-life Japanese battleship, the Yamato, which fights giant monsters in the Pacific Ocean. Yes, the same battleship from Space Cruiser Yamamoto AKA Star Blazers.
The crew doesn’t believe when they hear that the oceans they’ve docked in are protected by the man-sized, carnivorous Bonefishes and the Hell King of the Seas, Reigo. Well, they try and shoot what they think is Reigo and discover they’ve only murdered its child. Now filled with rage, the crew of the largest battleship in the Japanese Navy must battle the largest creature in the world.
There was also a 2009 sequel, Raiga: God Of The Monsters. This movie was retitled Reigo: King of the Sea Monsters and re-released to take advantage of the 2019 release of Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Hayashiya also made the Gamera fan movie, Gamera 4: Truth, and the cast includes Susumo Kurobe, the original Ultraman, and Yukijiro Hotaru from the 1990s Gamera trilogy.
You can watch this on Tubi or buy the blu ray from SRS.
Chiisaki Yūsha-tachi Gamera (Little Hero: Gamera) is the 12th Gamera movie and the second reboot. It’s also the first movie in the series made by Kadokawa Daiei Studio after the company purchased Daiei Film. There was no sequel and no more Gamera films until 2023’s Gamera Rebirth animated series.
In 1973, Kousuke (Kanji Tsuda) watched as the town of Shima, Mie was destroyed by several Gyaos until Gamera saved the day, helping everyone to escape before destroying himself to stop the threat. Thirty three years later, he’s a widower with a son named Toru (Ryo Tomioka). Life is hard and his son worries constantly about losing everyone in his life after the death of his mother.
One day, he and his friends Katsuya and Ishimaru discover an egg near where Gamera was last seen. It soon grows into a small turtle that can spin and fly just like the larger kaiju. He’s just in time, as there’s another kaiju called Zedus who is eating people and destroying cities. He easily defeats Toto who is saved by the government and healed. However, the red stone that is needed to give him his full power has been given to Toru’s friend Mai (Kaho) for luck as she goes into surgery.
Directed by Ryuta Tasaki, who has directed several Kamen Rider movies, and written by Yukari Tatsui, this had some complain that it was too kid-friendly. Maybe they hadn’t watched any Gamera movies before, those that believed all the older movies were for grown-ups.
45 years after the original Godzilla attacked the world, maser-cannon technician Lieutenant Akane Yashiro (Yumiko Shaku) struggles to win over her fellow Japan Self-Defense Force soldiers when her failure to stop a new kaiju leads to several soldiers dying. Yet she’s picked to pilot the tool they will use to fight back, Kiryu, which is a cyborg built on the corpse of the first Godzilla. You may know it better as Mechagodzilla. Kikai-ryu means “machine dragon.”
The problem is that the new Godzilla’s roar unlocks memories in Kiryu which cause it to destroy humans. Yashiro must also win the respect of 2nd Lieutenant Susumu Hayama (Yūsuke Tomoi), the heart of Tokumitsu Yuhara (Shin Takuma) and learn how to use the Absolute Zero Cannon to stop the new Godzilla before it destroys Tokyo.
Japanese baseball player Hideki Matsui, whose nickname is Gojira and who played for the Yomiuri Giants, the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Angels, the Oakland Athletics and the Tampa Bay Rays before finishing his career with the Yankees, shows up in the movie. He’s hitting a home run when Kiryu shows up and also saves some children later in the movie.
Lord Doom, evil master of Proyas the Dark Planet, has unleashed Kraa the Sea Monster on Earth. He knocks out a space station to keep the Planet Patrol — who have their own movie a year later — unaware of what he’s doing to our planet. That said, one of the patrol, Mogyar lands in New Jersey, complete with an Italian accent, as he was supposed to go to Italy and work with scientists there to stop the giant monster.
This uses footage from Zarkorr! The Invader and that’s fine, as these movies eventually cross over. Directed by Aaron Osborne and Dave Parker and written by Neal Marshall Stevens, this was also named for a Marvel comic, just like that movie. Zarkorr comes from the Tales of Suspense #35 story “I Accepted the Deadly Challenge of Zarkorr!”Kraa comes from the Tales of Suspense #18 story “Kraa, the Unhuman!”
Mogyar is a clam that speaks with the most racist Italian accent possible. I loved him!
Directed by Michael Deak and Aaron Osborne and written by Neal Marshall Stevens, this movie has aliens send a 185-foot, laser-eyed monster called Zarkorr to destroy Earth. The only man who can stop it is postal worker Tommy Ward (Rhys Pugh), who is helped by a 6-inch-tall pixie named Proctor (Torie Lynch), who is a mental image projected into his brain by another group of otherworldly creatures. However, the beast can’t be destroyed by any weapon.
The Zarkorr scenes directed by Michael Deak were filmed before Neal Marshall Stevens wrote the script. That’s the kind of movie that you’re getting into. However, those are the best parts of this movie. Zarkorr is pretty awesome and I wish that he was in his own movie instead of this, something better and with a bigger budget. Yet he rises above, even if he gets defeated by a mirror.
The Muscle King is taking over the world with his kaiju but he never planned on Pai Energy, the power that comes from gigantic breasts. I am not making this up, trust me. That’s what powers the Sexy Rangers, who are the last — and most attractive — line of defense for our planet.
There’s never any nudity but it’s that Japanese perviness that lingers too long on cleavage, like when a character gets knocked down in an SNK fighting game and you wonder, “Did we need that juggle?”
Enemies include Queen Amorous, Uni Kong and a humanoid Polaroid camera who is called Unicong Camerang that takes photos of the girls in sexy poses. I guess he’s one of the bad guys, even if what he delivers seems positive.
Director Shinji Nishikawa wrote Godzilla vs. Destoroyah and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II and was the designer for Godzilla, Biollante and other monsters on Godzilla: Final Wars, Godzilla 2000: Millennium and Godzilla vs. Biollante.
If you watch Japanese female pro wrestling, you may recognize two faces.
Yuzuki Aikawa was known as “The Gravure Queen of the Next Generation” — glamour modeling — who was the first Wonder of Stardom and Goddess of Stardom Champion and the first face of Stardom. She plays Pai Blue.
Yoko Yamada is an arm wrestling, MMA and freelance pro wrestler fighter. She started her career with S Ovation’s and Mariko Yoshida’s promotion Ibuki and is almost like a video game character come to life, as her father left the family when she was young as he was a gambler. He only came back when he had a stroke and she fights to raise money for his care. She plays Queen Amorous.
You can guess what movie this is trying to be. Also known as Lost on Adventure Island, this begins when Anna (Crystal Holland, who was only in two other movies, Surrender In Paradise — which is also about a shipwreck but at least has Ginger Lynn and Lois Ayres in the cast — and A Little Bit of…Hanky Panky) runs away from home and sails the seas, at least until her ship hits a battleship and she wakes up on an island filled with dinosaurs and, yes, King Dong who is really Supersimian, a female giant gorilla who is interested in Anna’s lover Alex (Chaz St. Peters).
Directed by Yancey Hendrieth, who also plays Buddy the Gorilla, and who wrote this along with his wife Dee, who plays Anna’s mother, this has a cast and crew that didn’t make another movie. Even Keith Finkelstein and David Dane, who did the stop motion effects for the dinosaurs and Supersimian. Buddy is just an ape suit.
It’s no Flesh Gordon, so just imagine how rough of a watch this was. Yet when someone asks, “Have you ever watched a porn parody of King Kong?” I can answer positively.
In his latest movie, which he directed — and wrote with Marques Houston — Stokes introduces us to Kelsey Manning (Alisa Holiday), a woman who learns that her husband is living three lives. Instead of just putting up with his cheating or moving on, she connects with the other wives and they all plan revenge.
It all starts with Trevor (Daniel J. Johnson), her husband, being strung-up half-naked out a window. “I bet you wonder how we all got here, right?” She asks. Yes, we are wondering.
Life was good once. Trevor was the love of her life, “until he wasn’t” as she reminds herself.
Our next wife is Olivia (Erica Pinkett), who also thinks that she’s the only woman in Trevor’s life. They even have fancy black and white photos of themselves together in the bedroom.
The film cuts back to the night of the surprise party, as Kelsey leads a blindfolded Trevor into a hotel room where he’s confronted by Olivia and Naomi (Jadah Blue), the other wife. But before we meet her, we’re at a conference meeting where he announces that his company, Turnstr, has reached a million subscribers and is going public. Then he sleeps with an intern named Kat.
This movie is filled with flashbacks as now we go back two months to meeting some of Olivia’s friends at a wine place. He meets her friend Tracy’s man, Steve, who is having a party to celebrate her. This wine bar just lets you grab bottles and pour your own, so I have no idea how you pay.
There’s a flashback to Trevor meeting Olivia, so we’re…I don’t know how many flashbacks deep we are. But we’re back at another wine bar, then we’re back at Trevor getting hung out the window. And then we flashback another two months to another date with Trevor and Naomi, who wonders why she’s never met his family. She asks if it’s because she’s a socialite and not someone who works for a living. He’s also using a British accent when he’s around her.
I can barely keep up with my wife much less three wives. How is that even possible for this guy? How much energy does he have? I’m exhausted and I’m just watching the movie and not living it. Also, now Trevor has a British accent with Kelsey. Did he always have a British accent? Am I losing my mind?
Now there’s a two years ago flashback!
This movie is the Inception of Tubi Originals!
Now everything starts falling to pieces for Trevor, as he makes a breakfast meeting and a lunch one for the same day with two different women. In the same city. Are area codes even a thing these days?
We fast forward to all of the girls holding the ropes that have Trevor swinging above the pavement.
And then, if you can believe it, another flashback. Trevor seems to want to start planting seeds and having kids with these women and I have no clue how much energy this bigamist has. Maybe he just says these things to make them happy. I don’t know. He does have an amazing kitchen. Several kitchens. How does he know where to sleep? How does he do taxes for three residences? Am I going too deep into the reality of this?
When it comes to Kelsey, he tells her a totally different story about why he can’t have kids. Now he’s not using the British accent, in case you’re keeping track. He tells a story about his father dying from a drug overdose, but is that story true? How does he keep track of all of these lies?
It gets worse. Kelsey stopped using birth control hoping to have a kid with Trevor and when she told him she was pregnant, he made her have an abortion, which destroyed any chance for her to have children after. And now, as she confides in the other wives, he’s hanging from a window crying.
Then the ladies start to fight, as Naomi thinks that she’s the woman that Trevor picked. She doesn’t want to go to jail for murder, but. the other two girls have a plan. Well, Olivia has the plan and she’s the one that wants revenge. Trevor was the dream guy for all of them but he wasn’t real. And he was married to all three of them.
I’ve lost track of the flashbacks.
This movie isn’t even halfway over.
The big reveal is that Trevor has life insurance in all of the names of his wives and plans on cashing in. That’s when the girls come together to lure him to the hotel we started this movie in.
I will say that this is the most involved Chris Stokes movie yet and I was with it for the whole trip. There’s even some special effects at the end of this that are way past anything Stokes has done in his movies before, making this look like the most polished movie he’s done yet.
A giant sea serpent — much like the Loch Ness Monster — called Willatuk has been in the waters of Seattle for a long time. Well, at least as far back as 2012, when director O.W. Tuthill made Seattle’s Loch Ness: The Lake Washington Sea Monster.
Now, he’s showing how the residents of Seattle deal with the monster, like Chief Clamintile of the Wonkatilla Tribe, whose people worship it as the God of Ocean, or the hunter (Dan Schwert) who has been brought up by his father to kill the beast.
It’s all narrated by Graham Greene and the director/writer is better known for his music work, so that sounds good. I’m kind of astounded by this because a movie that has a horrific monster poster ends up being about interfamily strife and how we deal with the world. Of course, some of the actors are better than others, but this is an oddball movie that just worked for me, as it has a vision and didn’t get notes from anyone. It’s very much it’s own movie.
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