Mighty Peking Man is one of the greatest films of its kind. It’s fast paced and infectiously likable. The miniatures used in the film aren’t that bad. Of course, they look a little bit phony, but on the whole they are pretty good for a film of this vintage. The real goofball part of the this film is its plot, which serves up every corny ‘jungle movie’ plot contrivance it can muster — and the film is all the better for it. The funny thing is, and I know that this film is just a King Kong ripoff, but when the climax of the film comes around — and anyone who has seen Kong will know whats going to happen — I actually got emotional. I’m too manly to admit to a tear welling up in my eye, but I really sympathized with Utan’s plight.

Release Year: 1959 Country: United States Starring: David Love, Dawn Anderson, Bryan Grant, Harvey B. Dunn, Tom Graeff, Robert King Moody, Helen Sage, Frederick Welch, Carl Dickensen, Sonia Torgeson, James Conklin, Gene Sterling. Writers: Tom Graeff Director: Tom Graeff Cinematographer: Tom Graeff Producer: Tom Graeff Availability: Buy it from Amazon If there were a contest [...]

For me it was like witnessing the moment of impact between all of those things that provide me with some of my most profound movie-watching pleasures. In fact, had I known several years ago that I could be watching films that combined wrestling, men in togas throwing boulders, giant suitmation monsters, and Kumkum dancing frenetically to catchy Bollywood music, I probably never would have seen Mother India or Sholay in the first place. So it’s probably best for the sake of my film literacy that I didn’t. Instead, let’s just say that the broadening of my experience of Indian commercial cinema to include its products both high and low has deepened my appreciation for it considerably.

Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster began life as Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah, a rejected script for a proposed co-production between Toho and America’s Rankin/Bass Productions. That fabulous bit of synergy finally saw fruit with 1967′s wonderful King Kong Escapes, but before that transpired, Godzilla producer Tomoyuki Tanaka determined the need for a new Godzilla film for the upcoming 1966 holiday season, and further decreed that said entry should be oriented toward a teen audience and feature a South Seas theme. In response, the Operation Robinson Crusoe script was hastily retooled — primarily, it seems, by crossing out the name “King Kong” wherever it appeared and penciling in “Godzilla” in its place.

Release Year: 1969 Country: United States Starring: Anthony Eisley, Megan Timothy, Scott Brady, Kent Taylor, Gary Kent, Greydon Clark, Lee Parrish, Bruce Kimball. Writer: David Hewitt Director: David Hewitt Cinematographer: Gary Graver Music: Charles Walden Producer: John Hewitt Availability: Buy it from Amazon Here’s a quick way to make yourself appreciate The People That Time [...]

Paired with the really weird LSD atmosphere of the movie, the cast simply makes At the Earth’s Core a treat despite its many impossible to ignore faults. Many times, I’ve been able to dismiss a film’s short-comings and justify my adoration of it by spinning some yarn about how I saw the movie as a young boy, and blah blah blah. Not so with this one, though. I first saw At the Earth’s Core when I was in college. Realizing that I was witnessing something completely weird, I threw a tape into my VCR and recorded about 70% of the film. It became one of the most cherished gifts I ever gave my stoner buddy Ken (the other cherished gift was Young Taoism Fighter). But I can’t even play the “dude, I was so wasted” card, because I was stone cold sober at the time

Perhaps producer A.C. Lyles was severely traumatized by a bunny rabbit. Because that’s what Night of the Lepus is about: bunny rabbits. Giant, killer bunny rabbits that terrorize the American west and lumber in slow motion across miniature sets, devouring all the humans in their path and, presumably, crapping all over the place. In the end, we’ll probably never know how this movie ever got made, and I suppose that, even though I would love to have my curiosity regarding the matter satiated, all that really matters is that it was made. Some way or another, someone convinced people to make a movie about ranchers battling giant slow motion bunnies.

2005, Japan. Starring Masahiro Matsuoka, Rei Kikukawa, Kazuki Kitamura, Don Frye, Akira Takarada, Kane Kosugi, Maki Mizuno, Masami Nagasawa, Chihiro Otsuka, Kumi Mizuno, Masakatsu Funaki, Masato Ibu. Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. Written by Isao Kiriyama and Ryuhei Kitamura. Purchase from Amazon.com. It’s no exaggeration to say I grew up on Godzilla films. They are the [...]

Following the surprising success of Anaconda, in which a giant and fake looking CGI snake terrorizes Ice Cube and is finally subdued by Jennifer Lopez’ ass (or something like that), dozens of even cheaper, even faker looking giant snake movies have flooded the Sci-Fi Channel, much to my continuing delight. They’re all pretty much the [...]

1967, Japan. Starring Toshiya Wazaki, Peggy Neal, Eiji Okada, Shinichi Yanagisawa, Itoko Harada, Franz Gruber, Mike Danning, Toshinari Kazusaki, Keisuke Sonoi. Directed by Kazui Nihonmatsu. Sadly enough, I’ve had this film sitting around on my cluttered shelves for about ten years now, and I only got around to watching it very recently. What a sad, [...]

Release Year: 1966 Country: Japan Starring: Russ Tamblyn, Kumi Mizuno, Kenji Sahara, Jun Tazaki, Kipp Hamilton, Haruo Nakajima, Nobuo Nakamura, Ikio Sawamura, Yoshifumi Tajima, Ren Yamamoto, Hiroshi Sekita, Nadao Kirino, Goro Mutsumi. Director: Inoshiro Honda Writer: Inoshiro Honda, Takeshi Kimura Cinematographer: Hajime Koizumi Music: Akira Ifukube Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka Original Title: Furankenshutain no Kaiju: Sanda [...]

Green Snake accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is to pull people into its rapturous beauty then leave them confused and depressed at the tragedy of human stubbornness and greed. As a tragic love story, it operates well. As a indictment of political and religious intolerance and persecution, it works even better. Too bad it wasn’t as successful at the box office as it should have been, but then, no one wants an unhappy ending. Tsui Hark was hoping that an unhappy ending in the film would make a real-life happy ending a little more feasible. Whether or not that’s the case remains to be seen, but no amount of politics can change the fact that Green Snake is a profoundly affecting, ambitious, heart-breaking story.