"Godzilla 2000" (1999) d/ Takao Okawara

Tonight, I'm the bearer of both good and bad tidings here at the Wop. Bad, first: This review will wrap up the specialty month of Kai-June. I had planned on writing about several more movies before June ended, but they don't call it summer for nothing. Since we've already covered what I believe to be the best all around Godzilla movie to date here, some nine years ago, I figured we could close up shop this time around on a similarly high note, with the first in the Godzilla Millennium series, which also happens to be the first Japanese movie to utilize a completely cgi-Goji in a shot while lessening the overall impact of miniatures. Fear not, purists. It all works somehow. And then some.


"Park by Macy's I said! This is the last time I let you drive the flying saucer in the mall parking lot..."
By the turn of the twenty-first century, Godzilla is a devastating nuisance to his native Japan, meriting a "Godzilla Prediction Network", that studies the great beast at every opportunity like he was a tornado with dorsal spikes and nuclear breath. Elsewhere, the science chappies have uncovered a UFO dormant in the Japan Trench for the past sixty million years, that awakens just as they're in the process of raising it for further studies, and flies off. Unaware that Japan's defense forces are equipped with full metal missiles that will undoubtedly pass through him like fecal matter in a goose's turd cutter, Godzilla carries out a fierce attack anyway when the flying saucer suddenly interrupts, looking for genetic hand outs from the big green goliath. When Godzilla is defeated by the interstellar interloper, he retreats underwater to rejuvenate himself a la Gamera, while the ship hits the pause button, landing itself on terra firma,  to recharge it's own space batteries. Everybody needs a break, man.


"Jump over my tentacles! Bubble gum! Bubble gum! Five cents a packet!"
Shinoda (Takahiro Murata), the head of GPN, discovers that the secret to Godzilla's constant cell regeneration lie in something called Organizer G1, but the alien craft soon obtains the knowledge and heads for Shinjuku, where it lands atop Tokyo Opera City Tower, and begins to hack all of Japan's computers for more information. While changing the surrounding atmosphere to better suit it, the ship issues an obligatory invasion message to all Earthlings, as it seeks out Godzilla DNA so that it might transform into something more comfortable for it's coming efforts. Godzilla makes the scene, and takes down the UFO, but not before it can absorb some of Big G's mojo, transforming itself into a monstrous Millennian before the DNA takes control of the hulking form, changing it even more drastically into the monster, Orga, whose giant mitts pack a serious wallop. Godzilla v Orga for bragging rights over the planet, with no time limits, and to the death. Just the way you want your kaiju movies to wrap up. Check it out to see how it finishes!


"C'mere, you ticklish? Coochie coochie coo..."
I'd merit a guess that the drastically divergent Mire-Goji here is the natural adult progression of Godzilla, Jr., who survived the eye-popping, jaw-dropping finale of Godzilla vs Destoroyah (1995). He'd reappear in the next entry, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, the following year, with a lighter green skin tone and brighter spikes, before undergoing further modifications for his 2002 scrap against Mechagodzilla, who'd undergone some big changes himself by then. Despite a few flubbed effects match ups here and there, 2000 remains one of my favorite Godzilla movies, with a script made wittier for Western audiences ("those full metal missiles will go through Godzilla like crap through a goose!", for example.), packed to the dorsal spikes with loads of good giant monster action, and the most wicked-looking Godzilla suit ever committed to celluloid. For those reasons and more, three Wops have been bestowed upon it, and it comes highly recommended to kaiju fans everywhere. As we watch the radioactive beast once again lumber off into the ocean on his lonely journey home, and little high pitched Japanese kids in vasectomy shorts wave him on, we ponder his triumphantly destructive return one day and smile.


Of all the buildings he could eat, Godzilla foolishly picked a Sriracha sauce factory.

"Gamera vs. Barugon" (1966) d/ Shigeo Tanaka

The following review is dedicated to Stacie "Final Girl" Ponder, surely one of my inspirations to do this very thing I do on a semi-regular basis for nearly ten years now. Tonight, we'll look at my favorite of the Showa Gamera series, which really ain't saying too much, when you look at the other films we're dealing with here. I rarely missed the opportunity to catch it on late night tv, where it usually turned up during my childhood, regularly reveling in the Daiei Studio-based rottenness that comprises the giant fire breathing turtle's first turn as a hero instead of a villain. Seeing how it's only the second Gamera movie, the producers really didn't wait too long to give the big guy a change in heart, did they? Let's check it out, shall we...


"Don't go fuckin' around opal huntin' in that cave now. You'll regret the fuck out of it, son."
When last we left our terrible terrapin, he was trapped inside a rocket destined for Mars. Unfortunately for earthlings, the rocket crosses paths with a wayward meteorite that frees Gamera, who returns to Earth and abruptly demolishes Kurobe Dam. Meanwhile, a World War Two vet named Kano sends a trio of adventurers to an island in the South Pacific to retrieve a fist-sized opal he hid in a cave years earlier. On the island, Onodera (Koji Fujiyama) proves to be a right greedy bastard, indeed, letting one of the other men die slowly from a scorpion sting, and double crossing Keisuke (Kojiro Hongo), Kano's younger brother, setting off a cave-in with grenades. While Keisuke is rescued by the villagers and more specifically, a tasty primitive native bird who cleans up real nice, named Karen (Kyoko Enami), Onodera foolishly incubates the would be opal with an infrared light as he returns to the mainland via ocean liner. From the gemstone hatches Barugon (not to be confused with Giant Japanese Frankenstein's floppy eared foe, Baragon), who grows to monstrous size, sinking the ship and destroying Kobe harbor in the process. In Osaka, Barugon utilizes his hyper-extending tongue which emits a freeze ray and his spiky back, from which a destructive rainbow emerges to negate both the defense forces and Gamera, who shows up just in time to get frozen solid. Oof-ah.


"I'm always chasing rainbooooows, waiting to find a little bluebird in vaiiiin..."
Onodera, who refuses to believe that the opal was really a monster's egg, plans to dive to the ship's wreckage in the harbor and retrieve the gemstone, but accidentally relates to Kano that he murdered two men to get the opal, not excluding his younger brother. He then abruptly kills Kano and his wife to further mask his own treachery. Keisuke and Karen stumble upon Onodera, who they leave tied up, only to be rescued by his own wife later on. The duo work in conjunction with the defense ministry to lure Barugon into a nearby lake, using a massive diamond, and it nearly succeeds if it weren't for Onodera who boldly makes the scene and steals it, only to get tongued, gem and all, directly into the giant lizard's waiting yap. Serves you right, greedy wankstain. Next, the defense forces reflect Barugon's rainbow beams back at the creature using giant mirrors, successfully weakening him, just in time for...Gamera's triumphant return (yeah, wasn't this a Gamera movie to begin with?), and a final kaiju throwdown to the death. Who will come out victoriously, the giant flame-eating tusked turtle that flies? Or the giant horned chameleon/gecko with the lopsided face and an aversion to water? To find out, you must get your hands on a copy of it!


"Ahhhh, you're wailing on the asymmetrical side of my grillpiece!"
Unlike most of the other early Gamera films, there are no annoying Japanese children scream-whining Gamera's name to speak of throughout the running time of this one, which I suppose makes the adult drama and crappy giant monster effects more palatable to me,  in this case. The purple blood of monsters flows graphically and frequently here, as is usually the case in the Daiei series. Weren't the vast majority of these movies marketed towards little kids? Strange. You'll never mistake this for a good movie, a good monster movie, or even a good Gamera movie, ferchrissakes, no matter what kind of spin you put on it. Thus, it receives the solo woppo of reverse-excellence, on the rating scale. It might be my favorite, but I wouldn't expect it to become yours, by any stretch. Hell, even if you dig rotten monster movies, you're gonna wanna approach with caution.


Gamera gives Barugon the Mary Jo Kopechne treatment.

"Gamera vs. Viras" (1968) d/ Noriaki Yuasa

We'll get it all underway with this, the fourth Gamera movie to be released by Daiei Studios in 1968, as directed by Kenji Yuasa, the man behind such series entries as Gammera the Invincible (1966), Gamera vs Gyaos (1967), Gamera vs Guiron (1969), and the notorious Gamera, Super Monster (1980), as well as the Ultraman 80 tv series. If your sole exposure to Japan's terrible terrapin is the well-crafted Heisei series of the mid to late nineties, watching any of the Showa series could exact a horrible toll on your very sanity, and any clean underwear you may be wearing at the time. Don't say I didn't warn youse guys...


Always supportive of scouting, I'll take three Girl Scouts boxes. Of cookies...of cookies. 
Somewhere in space, a strange alien craft that resembles bumblebee striped bouncy balls held together by an o-ring (probably because it is just that) is about to conquer the Earth when the planet's giant flying, flame-breathing, tusked turtle guardian, Gamera, makes the scene in time to blow it to shit. A second identical circle of balls is dispatched from the home planet to succeed where the first failed. It would seem that Earth is an ideal conquest for these aliens, who resemble Japanese men in surgeon gear and Puma sneakers, but with Gamera defending his turf so voraciously, the spacemen are forced to study their foe extensively before plotting their second attack. By "studying their foe extensively", I of course mean watch no less than fifteen minutes of highlights from the first three Gamera movies on their vessel's video screen. Yes, even black and white footage from the first film. They decide that Gamera's Achilles heel, like John Wayne Gacy, is little boys, and it just so happens that there's an International Scouting Jamboree going on, where two mischievous pranksters, Masao and Jim (Toru Takatsuka, Carl Craig) have backwards rewired a mini-submersible's controls, and are late for role call. Oh, you boys!


"Shouldn't the camera be around your neck, Masao?",  queries Jim (Carl Craig).
With the help of a "Super Catch-Ray"...ahem, the sinister surgeons abduct the boys, using the young hostages as leverage with the giant turtle, who is fitted with a mind control device that the aliens utilize to wield the monster's destructive force against Earth's meager defenses, in another prolonged stock flashback sequence showcasing Gamera's prior attacks from the previous movies. The boys prove to be not only cleverer than Japan's scientists of the day, but also the otherworldly invaders, using Jim's lasso to free themselves from the aliens' bindings, switching out modules in the control panels to reverse the aforementioned Super Catch-ray and beam themselves back to terra firma with their glowing eyed captors mostly clueless until it's too late. With Gamera no longer under their control, the alien leader, a silly-faced space squid named Viras is forced to take more drastic measures, beheading his crew and absorbing their bodies to grow to an appropriately giant size for a knock down, drag out fight to the death against Gamera in the ridiculous finale. Can you handle it?


"Oof-ahh!! My Labonza!",  cries a punctured Gamera.
American scout/lasso champ/photography enthusiast, Carl Craig would not appear in any more films, but would go on to fulfill his dreams by becoming an Air Force pilot. Fancy that. While it's no secret that any of the Showa Gamera films are shoddy, cheap, tyke-oriented Godzilla rip offs that are effortlessly dissectable by anyone, whether they're in possession of bubble gum machine space robots or not, tonight's review stands as a noticeable drop off in overall quality and production values from the previous three entries, and as you'll see throughout the month, it gets progressively worse from here. If you're game for cheap laughs (and who isn't?), you may enjoy these movies considerably more than I've predicted. A single Wop is more than generous here. All eleven Gamera films released from 1965 to 1999 were collected in a dvd set by Mill Creek Entertainment in 2014, and should still be relatively cheap to obtain. Approach with caution anyway.


My sentiments exactly.

Angillas, there's something funny going on around here...

              We're kicking off a month of reviews of films that take the path less trampled, of course, I'm talking about the realm of the Japanese Kaiju movie, of which there happen to be several sub-genres to choose from, like kaiju eiga, kaijin, and daikaiju, translated roughly as monster movies, humanoid monsters, and giant monsters, respectively. I set out to focus on the latter, most recognizable category of giant monsters, as handled by studios like Toho and Daiei with their long running Godzilla and Gamera franchises, though I'm not ruling out any movies that fall solely into the former two categories. Why pigeonhole yerself, sez I. Regardless,  eager woprophiles can expect to see lots of intricate miniatures being tail-swiped and stomped over in slow motion by Japanese gents in rubber suits, stock footage of panicked citizens evacuating cities, ineffective military units being melted by hateful kaiju death-breath, self-aware Ultra-esque robots tag teaming with giant radioactive lizards to square off against giant beetles and space bird-cyborgs with belly buttons like a table saw, and much more all June long.

              My love for such movies dates back to the Little Wop days of yesteryear, when it wasn't uncommon for my old man to pile us into his '67 Chevy Impala on the weekend and drive us to one of the plethora of  area drive-in theaters that once proliferated this valley in the early to mid-1970s, for a drive-in double bill of destruction that usually featured a Godzilla movie or one of the Sinbad series that featured the legendary stop motion animation creature effects of wizard Ray Harryhausen. As you could imagine, I wouldn't trade my memories growing up for a canister of G-cells or the keys to my own Maser tank. Anyway, we haven't covered too many of these movies to date, so we've got a long list to choose from this month. I think we'll kick off the festivities with a little Daiei number you might find interesting. Remember, Jet Jaguar always has right of way.  Let's make it!


A retro- Kaiju (14) eye view from the top of Big Wop. You ants... look just like ants down there. Skreeeeeooonkk!!!