Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by NewBloggerThemes.com.
Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by NewBloggerThemes.com.
Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by NewBloggerThemes.com.
Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by NewBloggerThemes.com.
Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by NewBloggerThemes.com.
Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) has announced the first films for its 2027 edition, taking place from 24 February to 7 March. Scotland’s leading international celebration of film has confirmed its Country Focus theme, shining a spotlight on Canadian cinema, as well as its highly anticipated Retrospective Programme, which will give audiences the chance to catch […]
LESSON #1: NO NON-JAPANESE ENTITY SHOULD EVER TOUCH THIS CHARACTER AGAIN— I’ll be blunt, narrow-minded, and selective. Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero, the direct sequel to his brilliant Godzilla Minus One, is the second straight film—and third if you go back to 2016’s modern reboot of Shin Godzilla from the directing team of Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi–-that stands as superior and concrete proof that no non-Japanese studio or filmmaker should ever touch this historic kaiju character again. I don’t care if Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, or the great Steven Spielberg himself develop some kind of kismet hankering to make a Godzilla film. They don’t belong anywhere near it.
What Godzilla has become inside the five films (and, soon to be, six this coming March) of Warner Bros. Pictures’ MonsterVerse franchise series is a cartoonish embarrassment. Sure, there are versions of Godzilla in the property’s long, 72-year history that are playful romps of rubber-suited, model-destroying entertainment. Sure, those new WB films made their respective boatloads of money playing in that same type of sandbox. Those cheesy and approachable versions have their easy and disposable places in the rotation of movie escapism, but at what cost to the betrayal of the character’s roots and potential?
Watch the serious-as-heart-attack takes from writer/director Takashi Yamazaki of Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla Minus Zero and be religiously converted. They return Godzilla to its place as a proper terror and stomping metaphor for larger connective themes completely discarded by Hollywood films that would rather stage CGI action figures punching each other for arbitrary reasons. Eschewing the big studio machine to work on shoestring budgets with a shrewdly efficient eye for DIY filmmaking, Yamazaki and his dedicated team of artists in front of the camera and behind it have, in two compelling films, created a stunning, scary, and tangible monster with renewed life to extend its legend and stand the test of time.
LESSON #2: TELL A HUMAN STORY FIRST— Like Godzilla Minus One, the angle that elevates and unlocks Godzilla Minus Zero from the other pretenders is its insistence on telling a human story first and a monster movie second. If you’re going to have a big scary creature come and destroy homes and take lives, the gravity of those losses increases when the people and places have been established to actually matter. When done right, one key death can feel like a thousand. When they don’t, any collateral damage is just disaster movie fodder for the sake of body count and spectacle. This is all such a simple stance of common sense and hierarchy that it’s stunningly bad when so many other movies can’t meet that bar or, worse, don’t even try. Even though I’m picking on this past decade, I didn’t forget about you, Roland Emmerich. You failed this first in my lifetime, and the stink still permeates.
The year in Godzilla Minus Zero is 1949. Two years have passed since Godzilla’s defeat at the hands of a collective effort of dozens of organized Japanese World War II veterans combining explosive assault with advantageous scientific gambles. In many ways, the extreme post-war survivor’s guilt central in Yamazaki’s first film has multiplied in some directions where new death has occurred, but also evolved into renewed purpose to carry on and heal. Those who survived have tried to rebuild livelihoods. Former kamikaze pilot and death blow deliverer Kōichi Shikishima (Your Name’s Ryunosuke Kamiki) has reunited with and married his feared-to-be-lost love, Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe of Shin Kamen Rider), and started a family orphanage home with their adoptive child, Akiko (Sae Nagatani), and trusty neighbor Sumiko (Shoplifters star Sakura Ando, unfortunately given less to this time around). At the more national level, Shikishima’s former employer and trusted science leader, Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka of the Always: Sunset on Third Street series), has surrounded himself with fellow specialists to head the country’s Large-Scale Disaster Response Bureau to prepare for the next grave national threat.
Sooner than anyone would like, after Godzilla’s path of destruction, a new flying creature that can shoot lightning bolts from its mouth emerges and demolishes Matsumoto City in the Nagano region. Noda’s team, including a recruited Shikishima advising new pilots, mobilizes to brainstorm an effective defensive response while researching what makes this new monster—dubbed Ghidorah—tick, looking for any advantage or weakness to exploit. Meanwhile, to everyone’s horror—especially Kōichi’s and Noriko’s—Godzilla is found alive, prowling the oceans on the other side of the country. When a smartly planned counterattack on Ghidorah fails, the next wildly ambitious plan is to—fears be damned—pit Godzilla against this now three-headed titan.
While the promise of this showdown in Godzilla Minus Zero fires up the nerve-wracking cues of Naoki Satō’s enveloping musical score (and maybe shuffling a little ELO in my own head), what is considered more than possible kaiju fireworks is whether or not our ordinary people can survive these steep prospects. Each of the motivated protagonists, including new cast additions on Noda’s team played by Min Tanaka of 47 Ronin and Mother’s Masami Nagasawa, knows the odds and goes through reflective scenes weighing whether or not to continue with the perilous operations or, with respectful understanding and no calls for cowardice, make the equally difficult choices to step away and care for their loved ones. For Kōichi and Noriko, that means escaping with Akiko or staying to fight and risk making her an orphan again. Let me tell you; a crying child is a hell of an arm-twister.
LESSON #3: TELL A MONSTER MOVIE SECOND— The road to these tough decisions and the focus on the human elements, even if they gobble up considerable running time during the rising action and denouement, do not take away from the ever-present threat of the monsters. The jaw-dropping—and jaw-chomping—displays of kaiju power engineered by Takashi Yamazaki’s Oscar-winning special effects department are a sterling feast for the eyes and ears. Just as was the case three years ago, what Yamazaki and his deft hands are doing for under $15 million to sear IMAX-level screens and blow out Dolby speakers puts massive blockbusters with 20 times the budget to shame for their detail and grandeur.
All of that constitutes the magnified power wielded by Godzilla Minus Zero. You have dramatic substance made to be as invested and important as the showy spectacle worthy of your big screen ticket price. So few movies truly do that, where heart-stirring tears flow alongside the pulse-quickened hairs standing up on the back of your neck. Miraculously, Takashi Yamazaki has captured that complete experience of depth and care for two films in a row. His hands are the honest hands—the serious hands—and the only hands that should be moving this scaly, spiky, and eternally famous instrument of cause and calamity.
*Photo Credits – Kate Hollingsworth Photography | Kirsop Media* Steven Knight CBE, the creator/writer of Peaky Blinders and founder of Digbeth Loc. Studios, has become a Patron of Forward Film & Television Festival. Knight backed the festival from its launch in 2025. He joins comedian and presenter Joe Lycett, who was named Forward’s first patron […]
Global distributor, streaming service and production company MUBI is pleased to announce that MUBI FEST London, the immersive cinema event for film lovers, will be coming to London from 13 to 15 November 2026 at Hackney Picturehouse. MUBI FEST London will be a weekend-long celebration of cinema inviting Londoners to watch exciting previews of MUBI […]
The epic must see film Ramayana: Rise of a Legend goes on general release from today (5th November). It’s a rousing, spectacular tale of Gods and Demons, revenge and forgiveness, the spiritual path and war, love and honour, universal chaos and order, based on the ancient classical poem. With music by Hans Zimmer and AR […]
If you discovered and enjoyed—as many have—2020’s Becky during the COVID-19 pandemic's streaming malaise and circled back for its even-better 2023 sequel, The Wrath of Becky, you have a strong, ferocious inclination for what’s coming with The Last Temptation of Becky. With its arrival in limited theatrical release, this sequel expands one of the most unexpected and satisfying indie film offerings into an official trilogy. This series has become gilded, not in golden box office riches, but in a shiny red varnish of the bloody good fun these movies have shed, squirted, and sprayed across so many of its frames for six years now.
LESSON #1: HOW DID THAT GIRL TURN OUT?— For those not tuned into this series’ frequency, the boisterously bonkers Becky, featuring a 13-year-old girl played by the remarkable charisma bomb discovery of Lulu Wilson, slayed our hearts and an entire squad of home-invading Neo Nazis, led by a villainous Kevin James playing it straight. After watching that kind of romp and ringer, one might burp a little hiccup of existential empathy to wonder something like, “I wonder how that kid turns out later in life.” We didn’t have to wait long for the conclusion of The Wrath of Becky three years later to observe her being recruited at the not-so-tender-anymore age of 16 to become a CIA agent after single-handedly dispatching Seann William Scott’s redneck domestic terrorist cell. The Last Temptation of Becky presents the next arc of her jaded maturation.
Now 19 and knocking on the door of her twenties, Becky Hooper has traded her colorful teenage threads for the business suit and required disguises of an international spy. Eschewing any interactive social life while living out of an apartment in New York City and dodging most of the required anger management counseling prescribed by her employer, Becky immerses herself in her work alongside her frequent teammate, Jordan Rigby (13 Reasons Why co-lead Brandon Flynn) and her returning recruiter and superior officer, Agent Montana (Kate Siegel of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House series). With her signature snarl, she plays her part until, well, she doesn’t want to.
LESSON #2: THE DWINDLING ODDS OF PLAN C— As we’ve seen in two raucous adventures before The Last Temptation of Becky, Becky Hooper is the kind of gal who doesn’t flinch from taking matters into her own deadly hands. Humorously, when this switch is flipped in her psyche, meticulously planned missions go out the window while she wings it to enact her announced “Plan C” moves. Like all progressions of a good plan, the odds of success without a body count or international incident dwindle with each letter of the plan after “A.” Somehow, like always and demonstrated in the film’s opening action sequence, Becky miraculously manages to come out on top and caked in someone else’s crimson.
Something hanging over Becky Hooper’s head in The Last Temptation of Becky since the first film is a unique key that used to be hidden in her childhood home and was recovered by the CIA. New intel reveals its origins and that it opens or engages something important at The Wolf’s Lair, Adolf Hitler’s former Polish hideout that has been turned into a tourist attraction. Purposely allowing the key to fall into enemy hands, the agency has tracked the man seeking it. Played by the national treasure that is Neil Patrick Harris and fashioning himself as a destined new general (an ideal graduation of sorts from Starship Troopers), Wilhelm Reuss is a traitorous American professor who has secretly assembled a small army and conducted lab experiments at The Wolf’s Lair in an effort to resurrect the Nazi Party and start the Fourth Reich.
LESSON #3: YOU HAD US AT “KILLING NAZIS”— Once Becky Hooper gets wind of these developments, especially with her past dealings with supremacist groups and personal connection to the key, she ideally, yet bluntly, inserts herself under the alias of a grad student hiking Europe into this next incursion, turning a reconnaissance mission into a revenge quest. With murderous glee, despite being outnumbered and without backup, this is her chance to kill Nazis, to which she winks, “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” Girl, you had us at killing Nazis, a pastime of freedom that will never go out of style.
Three films deep in this gushing artery festival with The Last Temptation of Becky,folks are primarily coming back for two key reasons. The first is a formidable foe. Like the old myth of Chimera and Bellerophon, a hero is only as good as their villain. Gracing the poster above the title character, Neil Patrick Harris is a deft get. He squeezes every dastardly drop of assumed superiority out of the Wilhelm Reuss role. Even within this movie’s campy conceits, his calculated, imposing presence comes from the actor’s ability to spew disgusting rhetoric with eerie casualness, a wavelength he’s been perfecting since Gone Girl. While not a top physical opponent by any means, Wilhelm’s constant disdain is more than enough to trigger the corresponding bloodlust required of our champion Becky Hooper.
To repeat what was said in this review space three years ago, Lulu Wilson deserves a jetpack for stardom. Her game enthusiasm, quippy narration, and crass appeal have not waned a bit with age or the increased physical capabilities to stay involved in the stunts. Playing Becky—someone utilizing anger as a force and a protagonist way stronger than the typical Final Girl—should be the role of a lifetime. Instead, it’s a crime Lulu Wilson’s talent has only been tapped for two other small movies and a smattering of single-episode TV parts during the half-dozen years of this mini franchise up to The Last Temptation of Becky. James Gunn, this is your DCU Harley Quinn if you want to go brighter and younger than bringing back Margot Robbie.
Alas, the second chief draw for The Last Temptation of Becky is the peppy and promised carnage. The Wrath of Becky director and screenwriter Matt Angel returns as the main storyteller for newly joining director Jenn Wexler (The Sacrifice Game) and keeps this movie’s parade of mayhem tight. For the most part, the urgency for killing and surprise twists wonderfully interrupt diversions for practical downtime, tedious backstories, or lengthy monologues. No one’s here for any sleep, bathroom breaks, realistic trap preparation, or pauses for sympathy. There are more Nazis to kill.
The sure-to-be-unheeded warning found in The Last Temptation of Becky stating, “Be careful with her; she’s got spunk,” only makes us want to be around this character more. Call it comfort food dipped in sardonic gore, but, like Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy or even the long-running British Up documentary series, cinema would be so lucky to be graced with as many future check-ins to our champion Becky Hooper as the years go on, especially if the creativity for killing and cheering stays this enjoyable. Give us 33-year-old Becky in her prime, honed by her younger angst. Bring us 48-year-old Becky still slaughtering thugs with perimenopause symptoms. Let her tear up a nursing home of bad guys when she’s in her 80s. Count us in for all of it.
Powerhouse Films, in association with Screenbound Pictures, are pleased to be presenting the latest – and last? – feature film from maverick director Alex Cox, who will tour Dead Souls at special Q&A screenings in Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London and Oxford this month. The acclaimed, fiercely independent filmmaker behind Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, […]
