No Gods, No Monsters

We discuss the film's portrayal of spectacle and how it relates to capital, entertainment, our views on nature, and the history of paranormal phenomena. And we use a bit of Guy Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle" to do it. 

Godzilla is back in his first film of the Heisei era. He's bigger but so is everything else so we'll call it a wash. We talk Star Wars, nuclear proliferation, how the film envisions Japan within the structure of the Cold War, and Godzilla as the ouroboros.

When they brought Blair Witch to the suburbs, the filmmakers behind Paranormal Activity accidentally gave us a peak into the bubbling anxieties of upper-middle class America before the 2008 housing crisis, as well as the toxic masculinity that was normalized in the era. Scary stuff!

After a brief discussion of Gamera: Super Monster we each pitch our ideas for new Gamera films. There’s neoliberal greenscapes, bigfoots (big feet?), adrenochrome-eating space aliens, and… Gamera! We hope you enjoy this unique No Gods episode!

We discuss Riki-Oh, a kung fu movie set in a dystopian future where all government services—including the prison that’s the film’s centerpiece—are capitalist franchises. There’s a lot of gore, a lot of shirtless buff guys, and a lot to talk about. 

With a budget almost as big as its ape, did this reboot pull off the magic of the original? Listen in as we discuss this as well as the psychosexual anxieties, critique of capital, reactionary racism, and environmentalism in the film.

Spoilers! We extra recommend you watch this movie before you listen.

Content warning: discussions of sexual assault.

We attempt to unpeel the layers of this tight and witty horror flick, which plasters together themes of internalized patriarchy, gentrification, Freudian subjectivity, seeing through the lens of capital, and how a legacy like Reagan’s lives on after he dies.

We forgot to rate the film during recording, so here are our ratings:

RATINGS CONTAIN SPOILERS 

Barto: 5 out of 5 hairy bottles of milk

Rabbit: a tape measure pulled as far as it’ll go, that moment before it snaps back

Charlie: Rome

We discuss the Showa Era Godzilla and Godzilla-adjacent movies! If you like our episodes that cover those films, and want to hear us nerd out even more and rank them all, then this is the episode for you!

Here are some groups fighting for trans people in Missouri:

https://linktr.ee/promomissouri

https://www.stlmetrotrans.org

https://centerproject.org

If you know of other groups you think we should support, send us an email at [email protected]

We discuss the last Godzilla film of the Shōwa Era. Is it a return to the golden age of the early ‘60s entries, or a dud? Does Honda’s humanism have a place in the ‘70s cinema landscape? Does Mechagodzilla still work as a symbol of the modernization and outside forces affecting to Japan? 

Support the show: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/wilmbailfund

We talk conspiracy and paranoia, submission and resistance, cops and psychiatrists, and how conformity to the patriarchy, the mental health system and the state make it really hard to tell if you’re an alien.

New music from Barto:

https://armed-jouissance.bandcamp.com/album/stopcopcity

All profits go to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. You can donate directly to them:

https://atlsolidarity.org