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QUICK SPOILER REVIEW

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Checked out "GxK New Empire" the other day, and it's overall a fun film that fully embraces some of the outright and comedic absurdity from the Godzilla Showa era. The human element is even more scaled back from GvK, and much of the focus is decidedly on Kong and Godzilla. Once again, it's much more of a Kong focused movie, with Godzilla bits here and there until the final battle. As far as the villain goes, the Skar King is alright and pretty much to the point. There's no sympathetic or understanding quality about him, as he is simply evil and it's very much black and white. Shimo, I was a little bit disappointed with as it's revealed this monster is kinda like Titanosaurus from "Terror of Mechagodzilla" and being manipulated by Skar King. Sure, it's a twist, but for me takes away a little bit from the final battle as Shimo isn't quite as a dominating force as I would have preferred him to be. I've read someone say that Skar King is essentially the Million Dollar Man Ted Debiase to Shimo's Andre the Giant, and that's apt I think (making Kong and Godzilla the Mega Powers basically).

For me, the rematch fight between Kong and Godzilla was very much the highlight of the entire film. With Godzilla performing a Goldberg-like spear to Kong right into a pyramid, Kong doing his best Bully Maguire and putting some dirt in Godzilla's eye, some ground and pound by Kong, and seeing Godzilla literally suplex Kong was absolutely hysterical. The addition of Mothra returning was pretty cool as well.

I wouldn't say I liked GxK, as much as I did GvK, but the Monsterverse continues to very much lean into being a modern day Showa universe that's primarily focused on spectacle. Where does it go from here? Welp, there's a Xilien UFO easter egg, so a alien invasion wouldn't be all that surprising at this stage since the hollow earth got focused upon much more so in this film.

7 or 8 out of 10.

Also, I love this gif. 

Wizard Magazine's B&R "Calling All Heroes" contest scans from 1997.

1981 advertisement for the original "Halloween" premiere on NBC. Coinciding with the theatrical release of "Halloween II".

Someone needs to give their gaydar a rest for once. Sounds like the same type of person who would blog about the notion that Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers are definitely in love with one another. I mean, one of Captain America's main objectives was driven by Bucky in the MCU. By trying to find and save him. Which is telling, right? Obviously they are gay! A platonic relationship that is affectionate, empathetic, but not sexual, simply doesn't and shouldn't exist in todays world. Is this critic associated with slate.com by any chance?

Plus, let's get real. If this movie actually took the step of literally taking the cuties route with no F's given, it's RT. That would have resulted in automatically alleviating the severe cases of red*ss among critics about the 2016 flick getting canned, and the critic score would undoubtedly be much higher, don'tcha think? Why would they hold back? They love that underage stuff. Mainstream audiences? Yeah, not so much, and for good reason. The dichotomy between the scores is more indicative to me that most people are simply not seeing what this critic is apparently seeing as an absolute. Maybe a lot of us watched a edited cut? Nah, probably not.

On the topic that the original Ghostbusters should have been focused upon in a new set of films, that we can agree on. It's one of those situations where you just know there was much more to explore with the original cast, but the years of developmental hell, Bill Murray, and unfortunately, Harold Ramis passing away really took the oomph away from what that could have been like. The fact that Sony willed the 2016 crap into existence really did a lot of damage to the overall brand. Hell, I have a Ghostbusters logo t-shirt, and stopped wearing it because I literally didn't want to give anyone the notion that I was a fan of what was then the 'current' ill-conceived iteration. Also, as I've stated before, I'm thankful for "GB Afterlife", as in no world would I want what we got in 2016 to be the ultimate bookend with "Ghostbusters" in the title. If "Afterlife" succeeded in any way by making the 2016 failure a distant memory for the new generation, sweeping it right into the dust bin of history, in addition to getting the bad taste out of everyone's mouth of which the franchise was left in, then, yes, it ultimately did it's job.

Batman 1943 gets a shout out with Lewis Wilson getting a name drop.

Now that's a teaser!

I'm not too proud to say that I got goosebumps seeing Beetlejuice reacquaint himself to Lydia (along with the subsequent OMG face)! With the original being one of my favorite movies with Keats, I'm very much looking forward to this one.

SPOILER REVIEW!

Just got back from checking out "Ghostbusters Frozen Empire", and before going in, I've read people comparing this to the 80's toon, and can say without a doubt, that comparison is very apt with "Frozen Empire". As there isn't anything egregious going on, such as being dismissive of the first two films, killing off one of the OG Ghostbusters, subverting expectations, or THE MESSAGE being up front and center. Honestly, it plays out as if it was a random episode inspired by the RGB toon. Whether that's a good thing, or bad thing, is up to one's perspective. The first GB was one of those perfect films that incorporated a lot of dry humor to great effect. None of the sequels that have ever been made has replicated that sort of approach with the humor. "Afterlife" had moments of it, but it's a very easy tell in seeing how GB2 and "Frozen Empire" took the route of being much more zany and RGB inspired. As a film, it's fine to just ok for me. This is the first GB movie that wasn't directed by a Reitman, and it shows. I didn't find much of the comedy particularly funny, and felt there were WAY too many characters and subplots, but did enjoy the nostalgia callbacks with characters/locations, and seeing much more of the OG Ghostbusters this time around. Actually, I was kinda surprised just how much Dan Aykroyd was in the movie. Ernie Hudson is also in this a good bit, but not nearly as significant as Dan. If I was a betting man, I would've thought it would be the other way around, but here we are. We do see Bill Murray pop up for a scene about midway, before joining the rest of the OG Ghostbusters and new cast for the final battle. The ghost villain was alright. It's just yet another one of those RGB comparisons that can be made, as this particular ghost comes across as a villain straight outta the '80's toon. Slimer returns as well obviously, whom was noticeably absent from "Afterlife", but surprisingly he's not treated as the mascot/pet as he was depicted from the RGB toon, nor is he the mischievous comedic ally from GB2. Rather, Slimer in "Frozen Empire" is more or less, portrayed as he was in the original 1984 film. As he doesn't really help or buddy up with the Spengler family, the OG's, or Paul Rudd. Somewhat antagonistic, but still humorous. Again, basically as he was in 1984. Which is an interesting route, considering just zany the proceedings are.

Speaking of RGB, I might have to break out my firehouse dvd set, and check out some episodes. I was hoping to have the newly released set of "Extreme Ghostbusters" in my mailbox today, but got informed it wasn't expected to arrive until Sun. "Extreme Ghostbusters" was one of those '90s toons I honestly didn't pay much attention to back in the day, thus I don't have any nostalgia for it, but I'm glad it finally got a official release and I'm interested in eventually getting acquainted with the series soon.

On where I would personally rank "Frozen Empire" among the 4 film GB movie franchise, unfortunately, I would have to place it dead last. It's ok, and not offensive (abiet too bloated honestly), but unlike "Afterlife" which was a very much needed course correction for the franchise, and something of a good palate cleanser following the whole Feig travesty, "Frozen Empire" by comparison just comes across as a episodic GB film. In my mind, it's similar to Ilya Salkind's statements of "Superman III" via his commentary track, which was simply a "episode" of Superman with Chris Reeve, rather than being something of a truly epic story as "Superman: The Movie", or "Superman II" was clearly aiming for.

Since RT was brought up (God I hate giving that site any clicks whatsoever), I see that the great divide between "critics" and the audience score on "Frozen Empire" is again polar opposites. I'm not even that crazy about this particular sequel, but I'm glad that people seem to have enjoyed it more than I evidently did. Course we saw this movie already with the critical reception of "Afterlife", as opposed to Feig's 2016 tripe. Sure, the RT "critic" score would very much like to have me believe that Feig's GB was the very best since the original (LMAO!), and I don't have any illusions there are "critics" that still to this day have a stick up their *ss about "Afterlife" wiping Feig's GBs clean from the slate of ever having a sequel (I'll forever be thankful to GB Afterlife for that!), but once again, this is just the dubious, rather than judicious, nature of RT "critic" score.

So what's the takeaway, kids? Make up your own mind of course.

Score: 6/10 seems just about right to me.

Nice piece of WW2017 artwork.

Newly released poster celebrating Godzilla Minus One's numerous awards.