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“Godzilla Minus One”
Stream it on Netflix.
Despite surprisingly strong box office takings at the end of 2023, this moving and often poignant portrayal of one of the most famous cinematic monsters of all time was suddenly pulled from theaters. It then disappeared from streaming services for months, only to suddenly appear last week without any promotion. In fact, Godzilla himself kind of appeared out of nowhere. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the film is set several years after World War II, when a traumatized Japan is slowly recovering and trying to overcome the physical and mental devastation caused by the atomic bombings. The protagonist, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), is a former kamikaze pilot who somehow managed to survive and is wracked with guilt, but of course, it’s easy to argue that the actual protagonist is the title monster. Koichi joins a makeshift unit assembled to stop Godzilla from destroying a chaotic Japan, and the final battle at sea is brilliantly directed by Yamazaki, who also oversaw the Oscar-winning visual effects.
Incidentally, a stunning black and white version of the film, “Godzilla Minus One Minus Color,” is available to watch on Amazon and other platforms, and will be available on Netflix this summer.
“The Mill”
Stream it on Hulu.
It’s a common trope that the average man must survive in a harsh environment by any means necessary, and this is especially true when the environment is a single location: a boat, an elevator, the trunk of a car, a phone booth, or, as in Sean King O’Grady’s “The Mill,” a gloomy courtyard surrounded by a severe wall. Joe (Lil Rel Howery) wakes up there one day. His only friend is an unseen neighbor (voiced by Patrick Fischler) who he hears through the ducts. Food and water are shoved through a crack in the door. Soon, Joe is told that he has been sent to “advanced vocational training” due to his poor job performance. His job is to turn at least 50 times a day in a large flour mill. He is yoked and reduced to a beast of burden, forced to make a mindless effort. To make matters worse, he is forced to compete with other prisoners housed in a similar courtyard. Howery effectively plays the average Joe, who has to get through each day and understand what is going on. Though the ending feels rushed (but suggests a possible sequel), “The Mill” is a tightly wound sci-fi thriller that argues for collective action over individualism in the face of faceless corporate power. It’s no Ken Loach, but it might appeal to a wider audience.
Can’t decide whether you want to see a movie with tentacled aliens or magicians? Wire fu or time travel? How about creepy spaceships? South Korean director Choi Dong-hoon has it all and more to satisfy you with his two-part epic, Alien. Part two begins with a helpful summary to help newcomers get started quickly, but the overall experience will be better if you’ve seen the original, Alien (2022).
This outrageous action juggles the 14th century and 2022 Seoul, where an alien menace calling itself the Controller is emitting a deadly gas to kill the entire population. The key to defeating the Controller lies in the past and involves a weapon called the Divine Blade. More importantly, the actions of a ragtag team that includes the feisty Ian (Kim Tae-ri from “Space Sweepers”) and her potential love interest, Mulk (Ryu Jun-yeol). Choi keeps the pace steady while sprinkling in goofy humor and surreal touches, like Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” playing at key moments. Narrative coherence is an afterthought in the “Alien” world, so it’s best to just go with whatever weird scenes the movie throws at you. The important thing here is pure fun, and this one delivers.
Leah Braich’s heartwarming debut isn’t so much a science fiction film as it is a film about what science fiction means to many people: the genre of escapism that helps us overcome personal anxieties and find community. Being a high school senior is stressful enough in itself, but when Leah (Isabel May from the TV series “1883”) loses her beloved father Peter (Nat Faxon) to cancer, she digs through his computer and finds that he’s written a science fiction screenplay called “Space Chronicles: An Epic Story of Life, Loss, and Love in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.” Lo and behold, Leah decides to turn it into a film as a tribute to her father’s obsession with home movies, and submit the result as part of her application to New York University. She partners with Simon (Miles Gutierrez Riley), a nerdy AV club classmate she previously ignored, who was the only one to believe in the project from the get-go. Though “The Moon and Back” is about high schoolers, it has a slightly younger audience and a good-natured enthusiasm that overcomes the drawbacks of a low budget.
“Bionic”
Stream it on Netflix.
Set in 2035, this Brazilian film offers an interesting look at the fusion of humans and robots. In sports, equal opportunities and unfair advantages are eternal concerns. Maria (Jessica Corres) has always wanted to follow in the example of her mother, a champion long jumper, but her feats pale in comparison to those of her sister Gabi (Gabs), who, after amputation, has been fitted with prosthetic limbs and has superhuman abilities. While Maria is forced to train on a dilapidated track, Gabi’s performance and popularity soar. She is one of the athletes competing in the Bionic Games, a competition dominated by athletes whose performance has been artificially enhanced. The audience doesn’t care, as long as the feats are exponentially more spectacular. “They say self-harming is the new doping,” handsome con man Heitor (Bruno Galliazzo) tells Maria. Maria maintains high moral standards until she gets her hands on a high-tech prosthetic limb. About that con man: Afonso Poyart’s film adds a heist plot. This is a self-defeating mistake, as robotics and sports alone are interesting enough subjects to fuel an entire movie. Nevertheless, while “Bionic” may have its flaws, I still think about some of the issues the film raises.
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