Cranky T-Rex's Blog

Ah Rampage , a game I spent untold hours playing on my NES as a kid, mainly because it had no save option so either you played it until the end or you had to start over.  Since punching every building in the United States to rubble takes a few hours, it was exceedingly rare that I got to play long enough to see the end. I also never expected to see it turned into a movie.  After all, it's a pretty sparse story. Humans get turned into giant were-monsters and devote themselves to leveling America.  I guess that means you're not especially confined by existing narratives when creating the movie, but it's pretty hard for that not to come across as a goofy Godzilla knock off. After all, that was kind of the point of the game, to be a goofy Godzilla spoof. But hey, as I said on Twitter at the time, if anybody could make a good video game movie, it'd be Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.  He's kind of the king of ridiculous action flicks today, and he was teamed up a...

As something of a giant monster myself, it was a foregone conclusion I'd get out to see Kong: Skull Island opening weekend.  Unfortunately, the last time my hairy friend got to appear on the big screen, he was murdering innocent dinosaurs just because some cute blonde showed him she could juggle.  Given what Hollywood has done to Godzilla in the past, I can't really blame the guy for that, so I had high hopes he'd find some redemption in this one. From the trailers, it certainly appears they learned something from the painful slog that was Peter Jackson's King Kong , since it looks like my man gets to throw down early and often with everything from pesky humans to Godzilla-wannabes, with nary a dinosaur in sight.  Speaking of Gojira, that's actually the polar opposite of the last Godzilla movie, which I enjoyed thoroughly but was received poorly by a lot of people for not having enough Bryan Cranston or kaiju on kaiju action.  So does this second entr...

"They are all...perfect." Typically when I sit down to write one of these reviews, I take a quick look around the Internet to see what others have said so as not to sound repetitive and help crystallize my own thoughts. With this new Godzilla film, it seems opinions are all over the place. I, for one, thought it was awesome. Perhaps the most commonly cited criticism is that we don’t get to see enough of the titular monster wrecking stuff. They’re not wrong that the big man’s actual screen time front and center is rather limited, but in this case it’s actually a good thing because destruction porn is getting old. The reliability of CGI has shattered any limits as to what a filmmaker can put on the screen, and unencumbered by those limitations, they’re never forced to figure out how to sell the movie’s world to the audience. Instead of trying to one-up each other with better stories, characters, or emotional moments, they do it with longer, more explosive action sequences...

The Godzilla Award was founded in honor of my cousin from Japan, who unfortunately took his own life in 1998 after he was tricked into starring alongside Matthew Broderick in one of the worst American films ever made. One of Godzilla's most famous traits was his ability to do massive damage with just the power of his breath, and so we dinosaurs have created an award that recognizes the biggest blowhards we can find. This week's winner is... Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA)! Senator Specter wins for complaining about having to use his precious time to answer to his constituents, especially since they've been foaming at the mouth as a result of the health care debate. Senator Specter said: "I’m encouraging constitutional rights. I’m encouraging constitutional rights by coming to Lebanon to talk to my constituents. I could be somewhere else. I don’t get any extra pay — I don’t have any requirement to be here. But for somebody –" Naturally, Senator Specter is cut off by ...

The Godzilla Award was founded in honor of my cousin from Japan, who unfortunately took his own life in 1998 after he was tricked into starring alongside Matthew Broderick in one of the worst American films ever made. One of Godzilla's most famous traits was his ability to do massive damage with just the power of his breath, and so we dinosaurs have created an award that recognizes the biggest blowhards we can find. With all of the Congress critters running around calling protestors angry mobs and nazis, it was a tough pick this week and a very close vote. But, in the end, one nomination stood above the rest. This week's winner is... Linda Douglass! Ms. Douglass wins for telling everyone not to believe their lying eyes. “Hi. I’m Linda Douglass. I’m the communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, and one of my jobs is to keep track of all the disinformation that’s out there about health-insurance reform. And there are a lot of very deceiving headlines o...