JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

54. The Railway Man. Harrowing true story of a British POW in a Japanese labor camp in Thailand in WWII. We did not see this stuff in Bridge on The River Kwai (which we saw on Betamax because it stars Obi-Wan Kenobi).

55. Godzilla 2014. See Godzilla Vs Napoles.

56. Mean Girls. A contemporary classic, even better ten years later. Tina Fey understands the subtle ways in which girls destroy each other.

57. Valley of the Dolls. Noel made us watch it for the theme song.

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The funny parts work. The dramatic verbal confrontations and sonorous recitatives about hope, not so much.

We are past the limit of our comic book superhero adaptation endurance and will leave it at that. Recharging.

Some guy seated behind us was reciting the lines along with the actors. Fortunately someone made him shut up before we could gag him with a cardboard popcorn tumbler.

Godzilla 2014 is a thrilling blockbuster that updates the monster metaphor. As Ken Watanabe’s scientist points out (and he has to, because this is a popcorn movie after all), humanity in its arrogance and greed thinks it can control Nature. We are not the alpha predator in this scenario, merely the insects scampering out of the combatants’ paths. Godzilla emerges to restore balance in a world that man has plundered and fouled. Although you could miss that and still enjoy the movie.

And what of the Philippines, where the remains of a primordial beast lie? For many months we have been gripped by the investigation into the dealings of Janet Lim-Napoles, who has been charged with defrauding the Philippine government of billions in pork barrel funds. The two lists allegedly naming politicians and media who had received money from Napoles, whether they are true or not, paint a picture of a system steeped in corruption.

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

Kevin is fascinated with dinosaurs and Godzilla. He’s been a fan of Gojira since he was 5, having discovered the Japanese Godzilla movies on YouTube. His YouTube handle (for when he actually posts a video one day) is GodzillaFan8889 (Dorski, his mother, has no idea why). He has eight Godzilla figures so far, the newest addition being Godzilla 2014 with Atomic Roar (a blue flame shoots out of his mouth).

Warning: Contains spoilers. (We’ve redacted the biggest ones, but still.)

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Opening Credits
Here it is…I think this is it…(with a tinge of doubt as newsreels are shown)

Title
Oh my gosh, yes! It’s Godzilla!

15 minutes in
Ewww. They’re kissing! (the people)

00:20:00
Muto! IT’S THE MUTO!

00:30:00
It’s been 30 minutes and still no Godzilla.

00:45:00
Yes! I see his huge tail!

01:15:00
Ewww. They’re kissing! (the others)

01:30:00
Wow! It’s an epic battle! Fight!

01:45:00
I hate this movie.

02:10:00
I love this movie!

We totally agree with Kevin. Godzilla brings back the Godzilla we love. (We have no memory of the 90s Godzilla, just the urge to stomp something.) Director Gareth Edwards’ approach is Spielbergian without the rampant sentimentality. Bryan Cranston is its emotional core. True, Bryan Cranston can do no wrong in our eyes—we don’t care if others see him as a ham sandwich in a fright wig. Any chance he could be in Game of Thrones? (If Mycroft Holmes can be in the Iron Bank of Braavos, couldn’t Walter White be Jon Connington? The Three-Eyed Crow? The Mad King?)

51. Saving Mr. Banks. Just a spoonful of Emma Thompson makes any movie go down well, although we heard terrible things about the recent one with Pierce Brosnan.

52. Four Weddings and A Funeral. On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, we re-viewed the movie to see if we would still enjoy it. We did, although with age comes certain questions like “Charles (Hugh Grant), you dolt, why are you mooning after the American when Fiona (Kristin Scott-Thomas) is on the premises?”

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After Juan mentioned that the number one movie in Australia last week was not The Amazing Spider-Man 2 but Chinese Puzzle, a French movie starring Romain Duris, we remembered our membership in the Romain Duris fan club (since 2007 when we saw The Beat That My Heart Skipped). We feared we had been remiss in our duties and watched Romain’s 2010 film Heartbreaker (L’Arnacoeur).

Heartbreaker demonstrates that the French can make a rom-com as silly, fluffy and improbable as any Hollywood product, but since we’re kept busy reading the English subtitles we don’t have time to pick holes in the plot. Romain plays a man hired by disapproving relatives to break up relationships they deem unsuitable. Why the father of Vanessa Paradis’s character would want to disrupt her forthcoming nuptials to the perfect man played by Sheriff Walking Dead, we have no idea; we thought all parents were on the side of rich, safe and boring. Romain’s plan: to exploit her fondness for George Michael and the film Dirty Dancing. Seems a stupid plan, until we see this.

47. A Thousand Times Good Night. Not even Nikolaj Coster Waldau’s presence could keep us interested in this well-meaning drama about a photojournalist who finds her duty to the truth in conflict with her duties to her family.

48. 47 Ronin. Not as bad as we expected. Always happy to see Keanu.

49. Summer in February. Cousin Matthew left Downton Abbey for this?

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Images from Nerdcore Movement

While dosing myself with caffeine in order to stay awake at the entertaining but over-long Amazing Spider-Man 2, it occurred to me that the main difference between 1970s-80s pop culture and today’s is the target demographic. In the past, movies, TV, music and books were made mostly for the adults, who decided how the family’s funds would be spent. Today the decisions are made by the teenagers and the pre-teens, whose parents are absent, too tired, or too busy to argue with their kids’ choices.

Thus, producers and publishers pander shamelessly to the teen market. It’s a very practical and successful approach, but somewhat short-sighted and cynical. They flatter the target audience, telling them that their life-experience—limited as it is, since they haven’t been around very long—is the most important experience any person could have. At the point when teenagers are basically driven by hormonal impulses, they are told that their feelings will decide the course of history. Nothing else matters! “You are the center of the universe,” popular culture declares, and what teen still living under parental authority wouldn’t enjoy hearing that?

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

43. The 39 Steps. We always watch Hitchcock movies when we’re under the weather. This one is rather kinky, especially when the hero gets handcuffed to the hostile witness and they’re forced to shared a bed for the night.

44. Notorious. Another of our favorite Hitchcocks (A list of non-favorites would be shorter. I Confess and The Paradine Case would be on it). Readers of spy stories factual or fictional are familiar with the honey trap—using sex to manipulate or trap a source or enemy. Notorious has a double-honey trap: a secret agent (Cary Grant) makes a Nazi agent’s party girl daughter (Ingrid Bergman) fall in love with him, and then sends her to Brazil to seduce one of her father’s cohorts (Claude Rains). It’s sexy and twisted, and Hitchcock got away with a very long kissing scene. Watch it yourself.

45. The Way We Were. Strangely enough for someone who hangs out with gay people 98 percent of the time, we had never seen The Way We Were in its entirety until the other night. So that’s why the baklas love it: You could replace Barbra Streisand’s character with a gay man, and it would work. One could argue that she was playing a gay man. Robert Redford was probably the most beautiful earthling of the early 1970s. No wonder his Great Gatsby didn’t work: What was the point of pining for Daisy Buchanan when he was lovelier than she was?

Nakakasira ng ulo.

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Transcendence is not. It’s flat, static and lazy; we would’ve been better off reading back issues of Wired from 10 years ago. Johnny Depp phones in his performance as a genius AI research scientist. Paul Bettany, who plays his colleague, actually phones in his performances as Jarvis in the Iron Man and Avengers movies (We learned this from the DVD commentary track), but he’s a lot more lively here.

Speaking of the Marvel Universe (Rebecca Hall was in Iron Man 3 playing basically the same character), we’ve heard that Johnny Depp is being courted for the role of Doctor Strange. Given Transcendence’s dismal critical and commercial reception, Depp might find an offer from Marvel more attractive now.

Does anyone have old Doctor Strange comics we could barter for? And basic sets of Lego blocks. They’re all sold by theme now, and cost arms, legs, spleens.