If you have Turner Classic Movies in your cable or satellite lineup, they are running a Dino-marathon tomorrow starting at 8PM eastern (as always, check your local listings). They kick it off with the original 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, which pretty much began the whole monsters smashing Tokyo genre. They follow that with 1957’s Rodan, where a giant pterodactyl smashed up Tokyo, and then for something a bit different 1964’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, where Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah smash up each other and a lot of Tokyo. They round that out with 1970’s Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero in which aliens try to use Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra to take over the Earth, during which process Tokyo gets smashed up. Next they present two films in which Tokyo suffers no damage: Dinosaurus! (cavemen vs. dinosaurs in modern times) and the Valley of Gwangi (cowboys vs. dinosaurs).
Another Marvel film this time, although not on the path to The Avengers, but the 1960s origin story X-Men: First Class. This reboots the X-Men franchise with younger (i.e. less expensive) actors and explore how the characters and situations got to be the way they are.
Kung Fu Panda 2 hits the big screen this weekend, and promises to be every bit as much fun as the first one. There are some who think the Tree of Life could be genre, but I have my doubts and will therefor be hangin’ with the Panda this time around.
This weeks winner has to be Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a mix of the brilliant Tim Powers book with the Disney Pirates franchise. So far every film in this series has been top notch, and I really hope they keep up the quality with this one. When I first read the book a bit over two decades ago I was sad at the time that it was a story that could never make it to the big screen, and I am now happy to have been proven wrong.
Priest comes from the TokyoPop graphic novel series, and is the first of their movie projects. Now that they have shut the doors on their US operations I don’t know if any of the others they had planned will make it to the big screen, but at least we get this one this weekend. The girl has been kidnapped by the renegade vampires, and the heavily armed priest is out to get her back. Also this weekend, The Big Bang is Antonio Banderas as a noir-ish detective on his strangest case yet; scientists are out to recreate the Big Bang, and all sorts of things are going wrong.
A new trailer for the remake of Conan the Barbarian has been released, and I am a lot more likely to see the film now that I have watched it. For tonight’s viewing though Danny Choo’s Culture Japan has launched for free at Crunchyroll. You are never going to get a better understanding of the phenomena than by watching Tokyo’s top Otaku take you behind the scenes of the latest Manga, Anime, Music, and Games, explaining it all. They have a dozen episodes now for premium members (that’s the entire first season!), with 5 online right now for everyone and more coming over the next 2 weeks; enjoy!