Monster of the Day #1525

I like how he wears the octopus like a boa. And sorry, had trouble with the front page image. I might have to resave the image after work.

I hope you guys had a great weekend. I worked all day Saturday to catch up on some stuff, so that wasn’t great. Also lost an hour to daylight savings, which always makes me grumpy. Oh, well, back to Monday.

I finished Monarch of the Glen, which again I watched ass-backwards, starting with the final two ‘seasons’ (sixteen episodes) which featured Tom Baker. Then I started from the beginning. It was weird to see the show start with mostly other characters. I can see why fans got upset after the lead actor left midway through season five, yet I can also see why he gave up the steady gig. There wasn’t much of anywhere for his character to go. Meanwhile, fans also had to be upset by the major, crazy changes that occurred between seasons. The big love interest from the prior season? Suddenly gone with nary a mention. Oh, and that supporting character is suddenly the lead character now. Still, not a bad show, if occasionally a bit twee.

Anyway, I had to clear my TV plate, as Iron Fist premieres next Saturday.

  • bgbear_rnh

    I wonder how may times I saw this film as a kid. I would say about 20 times. Have not seen it in over 30 years. Russ Tamblym blended in quite well with the Japanese cast. I recall having a crush on Akemi.

    I think I have a copy, but almost afraid to watch it. Don’t want to spoil that childhood fascination.

  • Ericb

    This posters green Gargantua kind of looks like Carol Channing.

  • bgbear_rnh

    hah. I just noticed that they have “Fonda” instead of “Honda” as director.

  • Flangepart

    Liked this one. The scene where…she, starts to sing…I can’t be the only one who though “Please eat her so she’ll shut up!”
    Was that really her voice, or is someone else guilty of that ‘golden throat?’

  • Wade Harrell

    Man, that is one crazy looking highway overpass! Pretty dangerous even without the monsters fighting. Not that the roads at ground level are much better.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I’d say it holds up pretty well.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I so love this movie. I remember being stunned as a kid when they did the scene where Green Gargantua stuffs that woman into his mouth and then spits her chewed-up dress back out. Yikes! That was almost as gruesome to me as the scene in H-man where the girl backstage gets eaten up!

  • God, I Love these guys. Crappy ending, but fun flick. One of the better sequels out there.

  • The Rev.

    I agree. There are a couple of slow bits (and the song bit is infamously atrocious), but for the most part it’s good fun, with a really entertaining climactic battle. If nothing else, it holds a special place in many kaiju fans’ hearts for giving us the one instance of the maser cannons actually being useful. As far as non “Big Two” giant monster movies from the Showa era, I’d put it second only to Rodan, and it’s not too wide a gulf between them.

  • The Rev.

    (SPOILER if you somehow haven’t seen this yet.)

    I assume you just mean the very end, with the volcano? I’m going to be surprised if you also thought their big fight up until that point was crappy.

  • The Rev.

    Wow, this is a new one to me! I guess it’s the French poster?

    It’s like the giant octopus is his parrot. “Pieces of man! Pieces of man!”

  • Ericb

    Give the kid a break, the words got stuck in her throat.

  • Definitely the volcano. Really poor form. I’d have been okay with them both vanishing beneath the waves and neither (or just the good one) resurfacing (like Kong v. Godzilla) But pull out a random volcano to solve the problem? Nah. Didn’t like it in the original Gamera, don’t like it here.

  • God I love Rodan. Right up there with Godzilla and Mothra