“The earth doesn’t belong to humans alone. It’s ours too, and we should defend it.” —Mothra
GHIDORAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER is Godzilla movie #5, released in 1964, 8 months after MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA. Like numbers 1,3, and 4 it’s directed by Ishiro Honda. And by now he’s getting cocky, so he uses cool freeze frame credits of Godzilla and his co-stars Rodan and Mothra #2 (one of the two larva of the previous Mothra. Godzilla killed the original Mothra and the other larva died of unknown causes between installments.)
The movie opens on the roof of a clock tower where a gathering of the UFO Society (who wear lab coats like legit scientists – they’re not kooks) try to receive a transmission from space. When they fail they blame the attendance of skeptical TV reporter Naoko Shindo (Yuriko Hoshi, KILL!). “They sensed your mistrust through your brain waves.”
They’re desperate for help from beyond, because shit is getting crazy. We hear about a heat wave in January, constant sirens, an encephalitis outbreak. “Everything has gone haywire,” we’re told, and “It’s getting strange out there. The Earth has gone mad.” Yeah, I know the feeling. I’ve lived through some times that feel like that. Also, “Strange things have been happening beyond our galaxy too,” whatever that means. There are meteor showers happening all around the world. (read the rest of this shit…)
Godzilla picture #3, 
Since I dug revisiting the original 1963 version of 
t see the new GODZILLA VS. KONG in a theater, because we still have the pandemic here (and apparently slower vaccine distribution than some other states). But I’m excited to at least get to watch it on TV tonight. I don’t know if it will live up to my hopes, but I’m glad it inspired me to rewatch the original East-meets-West giant monster mashup, 1963’s KING KONG VS. GODZILLA.
STRAY DOG is an Akira Kurosawa film from 1949 – only seven years into his directing career, but about a third of the way into his filmography. I believe it’s the first one I’ve seen by him that wasn’t a period piece. At the time he had gotten really into the Maigret books and decided to write a detective novel. It took him longer to adapt the book into a screenplay than to write the book itself. Apparently it started the genre of police procedurals and/or detective movies in Japan. Pretty impressive side-achievement to kick off an entire category of movies different from the ones he was known for.
After this summer’s fun-if-flawed 
