Shameless Self Expression

Hiroshi Koizumi and Minoru Chiaki play Japanese pilots who land on a mysterious island that harbours two gigantic warring monsters who will soon take their squabble to Osaka; Anguirus (an Ankylosaurus-type monster) and Gigantis (whom you can call Gojira or Godzilla if you like). Takashi Shimura turns up as Dr. Kyohe Yamane, dismayed at mankind’s reliance on nuclear/atomic technology and the monstrosities it creates in its wake.   I’d been dying to see this, the second in Toho’s long-running “Godzilla” (or “Gojira” , if you prefer) franchise for decades. It’s one of the few Toho kaiju films I’d never caught up with, and I was only able to access the dubbed American cut called “Gigantis the Fire Monster” . I wish it weren’t the case, as I prefer to watch them in their original Japanese and preferably uncut. However, the dubbed American versions were where I started with the long-running franchise, so it’s not the worst thing in the world, I suppose. The original cut is directed ...

Set in the 1930s, bored waitress Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) hooks up with recently paroled criminal Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) as the lovebird duo pull off a series of heists. It’s fun for a while, but then the reality – and spectre of death – sets in. Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons play Clyde’s brother Buck and his hysterical wife, whilst Michael J. Pollard plays gnome-like getaway driver C.W. Moss.   A model of its type, this 1967 telling of the famed bank robbing couple from director Arthur Penn ( “The Left-Handed Gun” , “Little Big Man” ) fires on all cylinders. Stunningly shot by Burnett Guffey ( “From Here to Eternity” , “The Birdman of Alcatraz” , “King Rat” ), wonderfully edited and directed, and the cast is mostly outstanding, too. Faye Dunaway became a bit of a style icon here as Bonnie Parker, and excels as the clearly bored and frustrated young woman. It’s the role – and the performance – that really made her a star. Although I think Bruce Dern or Jon Voight w...

In ancient Egypt, Kharis (Christopher Lee) is distraught over the death of his lover, Princess Ananka (Yvonne Furneaux), and he finds his way into her tomb and begins reading from the Scroll of Life, to try and bring her back from the grave. He gets caught, has his tongue cut out, and is mummified whilst still alive. Cut to 1895 and Peter Cushing and Felix Aylmer play John Banning and his archaeologist father Stephen who have just uncovered the tomb of Ananka. Whilst John is nursing a leg injury, Stephen enters the tomb of Ananka, but what he finds in there renders him in such a state of shock that he is catatonic. A few years later, Egyptian servant George Pastell uses the Scroll of Life to resurrect Kharis, who in his mummified state stalks those who dared uncover the tomb of his beloved.   I like Universal’s 1932 version of “The Mummy” just fine (it’s better than Lugosi’s “Dracula” for one thing), but we all know it would be a lot harder to sit through (especially today) i...

When the Americans and Russians conduct separate oxygen bomb tests at the North and South poles at the same time, it results in disastrous effects across the entire globe. Britain undergoes a bizarre and out of season heatwave, for instance. Daily Express journo Edward Judd investigates, and finds out that there has been a sizeable tilt in the Earth’s axis. And that’s just the start of the problem. With Judd and his Daily Express comrades continuing to chase the story, scientists work on trying to solve the problem and save humanity from burning to a crisp. Leo McKern, Michael Goodliffe, and Arthur Christiansen are the Daily Express workers, whilst Janet Munro is a government switchboard operator whom Judd acquaints himself with. A young Michael Caine turns up briefly near the end as a copper.   Talky but mostly very effective 1961 science-fiction disaster movie from director-producer Val Guest ( “Hell is a City” , “The Quatermass Xperiment” , “Killer Force” ) and co-writer Wol...

The past of Dom (Vin Diesel) catches up with him, when Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) informs him that a secret device that can control any weapons system has been stolen, and Mr. Nobody’s prisoner, criminal mastermind Cipher (Charlize Theron) has been kidnapped. The culprit? Dom’s long-thought-to-be-dead brother Jakob (John Cena, who couldn’t look less like Vin Diesel if he tried). The brothers were estranged many years ago over the death of their race driver father. Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Nathalie Emmanuel, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, and Dame Helen Mirren all reprise franchise roles. Michael Rooker looks like the father of “Joe Dirt” , playing a man from the Toretto family’s past.   Vin Diesel seems to have won control in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise war over Dwayne Johnson, and that’s a shame to people like me who only started to tolerate this series once The Rock showed up. This 2021 film from director Justin Lin ( “T...