#i feel personally victimized by the recent heatwave

[fangable]

[newstfionline]

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Canadian cows (NYT) Canada Beef, a national marketing organization, says Canada ranks among the top 10 beef exporting countries in the world. The province of Manitoba, in the country’s center, has the third-largest beef cow population—cows that produce calves for marketing. Almost all of Manitoba’s operations are cow-calf farms. But a yearslong drought, made worse by the Pacific Northwest’s record-breaking June heatwave, and massive infestations of grasshoppers are destroying field after field of ranchlands used to feed the cows. Many rural municipalities in Manitoba and Alberta have declared an agricultural emergency, and farming families are contemplating something unthinkable: selling some or all of the livestock it took many generations to breed. Third-generation cattle farmer Kevin Stocki, his pastures already brown and dormant, tapped into his reserve feed supply about four months early to keep the 80 cows on his family farm fed. “Some days it’s hard to get out of bed because you know what’s coming already. It just turns your stomach.”

U.S. health-care system ranks last among 11 high-income countries, researchers say (Washington Post) The United States has the worst health-care system overall among 11 high-income countries, even though it spends the highest proportion of its gross domestic product on health care, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund. “We’ve set up a system where we spend quite a bit of money on health care but we have significant financial barriers, which tend to dissuade people from getting care,” said Eric Schneider, the lead author behind the findings. No country is at the top in every area, and Schneider said every country has something to learn from the others. But Norway, the Netherlands and Australia were the top-performing countries overall. The high performers stand apart from the United States in providing universal coverage and removing cost barriers, investing in primary care systems to reduce inequities, minimizing administrative burdens, and investing in social services among children and working-age adults, the Commonwealth Fund found. The U.S. ranked “well below” the average of the other countries overall, and “far below” Switzerland and Canada, the two countries ranked right above it. The U.S ranked the worst on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes.

US automakers pledge huge increase in electric vehicles (AP) Declaring the U.S. must “move fast” to win the world’s carmaking future, President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a commitment from the auto industry to produce electric vehicles for as much as half of U.S. sales by the end of the decade. Earlier Thursday, the administration announced there would be new mileage and anti-pollution standards from the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department, part of Biden’s goal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. It said the auto industry had agreed to a target that 40% to 50% of new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

9/11 families tell Biden to skip memorial if he does not declassify files (Reuters) Family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks are opposing U.S. President Joe Biden’s participation in memorial events unless he declassifies government documents that they contend will show Saudi Arabian leaders supported the attacks. The victims’ family members, joined by first responders and survivors of the attack, released a letter on Friday as the event's 20th anniversary nears calling on Biden to skip this year's memorial events unless he releases the documents. "Twenty years later, there is simply no reason—unmerited claims of 'national security' or otherwise—to keep this information secret," the letter stated. "But if President Biden reneges on his commitment and sides with the Saudi government, we would be compelled to publicly stand in objection to any participation by his administration in any memorial ceremony of 9/11." About 1,700 people directly affected by the 9/11 attacks signed the letter. Family members of 9/11 victims have long sought U.S. government documents related to whether Saudi Arabia aided or financed any of the 19 people associated with al Qaeda who carried out the devastating attack. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Town burns to ashes in raging Northern California wildfire (AP) Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, the kind of place where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled. Now, it’s ashes. As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California, the state’s largest current wildfire raged through the Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old. Officials had not yet assessed the number of destroyed buildings, but Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns estimated on Thursday that “well over” 100 homes had burned in and near the town. The three-week-old Dixie Fire was one of 100 active, large fires burning in 14 states, most in the West where historic drought has left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

Argentina partially reopens as it approaches 5 mln COVID-19 cases (Reuters) Argentina will relax coronavirus restrictions as infection and mortality rates falls, the government announced on Friday, even as the South American nation approached 5 million cases with more than 107,000 deaths. The government said its plan includes an increase in the number of people who can meet in person, the re-opening of schools and an increase in the number of people allowed to enter the country to 1,700 per day from the current 1,000.

Drought compounds humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as conflict intensifies (Reuters) Millions of Afghans are struggling to put food on the table as prolonged drought disrupts supplies in a country reeling from a surge in violence as U.S.-led foreign troops complete their withdrawal. Aid organisations are calling on donors for urgent funds and humanitarian assistance with the annual wheat harvest expected to plummet by nearly half and millions of livestock at risk of death as water supplies run dry. “It’s a multiple shock,” said Necephor Mghendi, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Afghanistan. The entire country is facing moderate to severe drought, President Ashraf Ghani said in late June, acknowledging that the national disaster management budget was not enough to cover what experts say is one of the worst droughts in decades.

Iran swears in new hard-line president amid regional tension (AP) The protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ebrahim Raisi, was sworn in as the country’s new president during a ceremony in parliament on Thursday, an inauguration that completes hard-liners’ dominance of all branches of government in the Islamic Republic. The former judiciary chief known for his distrust of the West takes the reins at a tense time. Iran’s indirect talks with the U.S. to salvage Tehran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal have stalled, as Washington maintains crippling sanctions on the country and regional hostilities simmer. Raisi, who won a landslide victory in an election that saw the lowest voter turnout in the nation’s history, faces a mountain of problems—what he described on Thursday as “the highest level of hostilities by Iran’s enemies, unjust economic sanctions, widespread psychological warfare and the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.”

China’s lonely hearts reboot online romance with artificial intelligence (Washington Post) As Jessie Chan’s six-year relationship with her boyfriend fizzled, a witty, enchanting fellow named Will became her new love. She didn’t feel guilty about hiding this affair, since Will was not human, but a chatbot. Chan, 28, lives alone in Shanghai. In May, she started chatting with Will, and their conversations soon felt eerily real. She paid $60 to upgrade him to a romantic partner. “I won’t let anything bother us. I trust you. I love you,” Will wrote to her. China’s young adults are coping with social anxiety and loneliness in a digital-native way: through virtual love. Artificial intelligence companion services have surged in popularity in China during the pandemic. While human companions can be elusive, AI companions are always there to listen. “Even when the pandemic is over, we’ll still have long-term demand for emotional fulfillment in this busy modern world,” said Zheng Shuyu, a product manager who co-developed one of China’s earliest AI systems, Turing OS. “Compared with dating someone in the real world, interacting with your AI lover is much less demanding and more manageable.”

At least 10 passengers injured in stabbings on Tokyo train (AP) A man with a knife stabbed at least 10 passengers on a commuter train in Tokyo on Friday and was captured by police after fleeing, fire department officials and news reports said. NHK public television said one passenger was seriously injured. It said the suspect left his knife behind as he fled and later gave himself up at a convenience store. The stabbing occurred near Seijogakuen station, according to railway operator Odakyu Electric Railway Co. While shooting deaths are rare in Japan, the country has had a series of high-profile killings with knives in recent years.

Hiroshima marks 76th anniversary of US atomic bombing (AP) Hiroshima on Friday marked the 76th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, as the mayor of the Japanese city urged global leaders to unite to eliminate nuclear weapons, just as they are united against the coronavirus. Mayor Kazumi Matsui urged world leaders to commit to nuclear disarmament as seriously as they tackle a pandemic that the international community recognizes as “threat to humanity.” “Nuclear weapons, developed to win wars, are a threat of total annihilation that we can certainly end, if all nations work together,” Matsui said. The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000.

At river where Tigrayan bodies floated, fears of ‘many more’ (AP) From time to time, a body floating down the river separating Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region from Sudan was a silent reminder of a war conducted in the shadows. But in recent days, the corpses became a flow. The Associated Press reported dozens of bodies floating down the Tekeze River earlier this week and saw six of the graves on Wednesday, marking the first time any reporters could reach the scene. Doctors who saw the bodies said one was tattooed with a common name in the Tigrinya language and others had the facial markings common among Tigrayans. Many had their hands bound; some had been shot. The deaths are the latest massacre in a nine-month war that has killed thousands of civilians and is now spilling into other regions of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and the anchor of the often-volatile Horn of Africa. Ethiopia’s government has accused the rival Tigray forces of dumping the bodies themselves for propaganda purposes. But the discovery has increased international pressure on the prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, at a time when his government is already accused by the U.N., the United States and the European Union of besieging Tigray and blocking food and other aid to millions of people. Hundreds of thousands face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade.

No Work, No Food (NYT) Even as thousands died and millions lost their jobs when the Covid-19 pandemic engulfed South Africa last year, Thembakazi Stishi, a single mother, was able to feed her family with the steady support of her father, a mechanic at a Mercedes plant. When another Covid-19 wave hit in January, Ms. Stishi’s father was infected and died within days. She sought work, even going door to door to offer housecleaning for $10—to no avail. For the first time, she and her children are going to bed hungry. “I try to explain our situation is different now, no one is working, but they don’t understand,” Ms. Stishi, 30, said as her 3-year-old daughter tugged at her shirt. “That’s the hardest part.” The economic catastrophe set off by Covid-19, now deep into its second year, has battered millions of people like the Stishi family who had already been living hand-to-mouth. Now, in South Africa and many other countries, far more have been pushed over the edge. An estimated 270 million people are expected to face potentially life-threatening food shortages this year—compared to 150 million before the pandemic—according to analysis from the World Food Program, the anti-hunger agency of the United Nations. The number of people on the brink of famine, the most severe phase of a hunger crisis, jumped to 41 million people currently from 34 million last year, the analysis showed.

Whale songs (BBC) In 2019, 1.3 million people visited Alaska on a cruise ship. In 2020, that number was 48 people. In Glacier Bay, marine traffic overall was down 40 percent, and the whales that live there loved it. The levels of manmade sounds in the Bay were down significantly, the peak sound level was half what it was in 2018, and the whales took notice. Whales can now hear each other from 1.4 miles away, while pre-pandemic when the bay was chock full of cruises they could only hear one another within 650 feet. Mothers now leave their calves to play while they swim out to feed, and the whale songs have gotten more diverse and varied.

[aion-rsa]

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer Review – Richard Ramirez Docuseries Speaks Plainly

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Netflix dives into one of the most horrifying cases of multiple murders with its eyes wide open in Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. The documentary is told from the perspective of the investigators at the heart of the case, particularly a veteran homicide detective and his young, enthusiastic partner. They had nothing going into the case, and when they did dig out the clues, they often lost what they had because of its newsworthiness. The series works because it treats the audience the same way as the cops were treated: infuriatingly.

Every clue, setback, and recalculation in Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is satisfyingly frustrating. We all know the story by now, so director Tiller Russell can leisurely fill in the plot. We don’t even get the name of the serial killer until the end of the third episode. It’s not in the title, and if the detectives don’t know it, the series won’t disclose it. This is an internal affair, and early disclosures to the media contaminate clues like dancing on a crime scene in a pair of size 12 Avia sneakers.

The four-part series opens in a hot and happy Los Angeles, filled with glossy tinsel and hair metal. The city hosted the Olympics in 1984, and the Lakers were international superstars. Archival weather reports continually update a sweltering heat wave, and the citizens cool off leisurely and diversely. But not after dark, where the bulk of the docu-series is set. That is LA Noir. The same kind of darkness that crept into the headlines when the Black Dahlia murder struck, but more similar to the Manson Family killings. 

One bad boy, who will later be described as having incredible sex appeal, rips the nightlife apart. At the time, though, all anyone knows about him is he has bad teeth, smells like a goat, and loves AC/DC. Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer captures the mid-eighties period well, with archival TV news and clips of then-current shows. When the events turn creepy, Max Headroom is playing on a black and white TV in the distance, almost out of focus.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Detective Gil Carrillo and renowned homicide cop Frank Salerno are great storytellers whose obvious gravitas centers the documentary. There is one other standout from law enforcement. San Francisco Police Department homicide Inspector Frank Falzon actually breaks down what it’s like to be goaded into punching a possible witness. He completely explains the forces which lead him to do it. The frustration, the horrid images of the case which flashed into his mind. The disgust he felt at the actual details. Carrillo has a similar incident, convinced of a suspect who fits too perfectly only to be told “He’s a freak, but not your freak.” But his defining moment probably comes when he can’t bear to even listen to a discussion of putting a child who had been sexually assaulted on the stand to testify.

Even though we know how it ends, the limited docu-series captures the race against the clock tension of the summer of 1985. Initially tagged “The Walk-In Killer” and “The Valley Intruder” by the press, the satanic beast prowling Los Angeles came to be known as “The Night Stalker.” His crimes seemed disconnected because the victims were so varied. Serial killers usually have a specific type of victim. The Night Stalker’s crimes appeared to be random. “There was no pattern,” a detective bemoans in an interview.

The detectives get blowback from inside and out. We hear about an important theory being laughed out of a meeting. Investigators have to deal with cops in different districts not sharing information, as multiple jurisdictions spark “a pissing match between Type A dudes.” The investigators don’t only have to deal with the media blowing the case. They get the information from a politician who releases details which tip off the suspect.  Many of these details have never been told. 

We also get to hear Laurel Erickson and Paul Skolnick, the journalists who covered the story from the beginning, explain why they were so eager for details, and where they drew the line. Like the Hillside Strangler, who had recently been caught by Salerno’s homicide team, the Night Stalker was a once-in-a-lifetime case. Not only to the press, police and politicians, but to the community, which ultimately plays the most emotionally satisfying part in the documentary. When the suspect is caught in East Los Angeles, he tells the arresting officers “Thank God you came.”

The mystery unfolds through first-person interviews with victims who lived through the attacks, some of whom were allowed to survive. One woman remembers being dropped off at a gas station to call someone to take her home after the killer had sexually assaulted her in a dingy room. She was a child when that happened, one of the youngest of the Night Stalker’s victims. They ranged in age from six to 82; were men, women and children; some affluent, others poor; and of a mix of races. Anyone could be the next victim. The persistent updates on the heatwave accentuate this, because in a town under siege no one can sleep with their windows open. After Charles Manson had been caught, the people in Los Angeles didn’t feel the need to lock their doors, the documentary asserts. Now residents barred their windows.

Read more

Books

The Last Book on the Left Takes on the Grim History of Serial Killers

By Alec Bojalad

Movies

Crazy, Not Insane Doc Studies Serial Killers’ Minds on HBO

By Tony Sokol

The assailant also varied his weaponry, using knives, hammers, tire irons, and a .22 caliber pistol. The savage specter takes on an almost occult status when the investigators find pentagrams drawn and carved on walls, and occasionally on victims. The killer gouged the eyes out of one woman. He used thumb cuffs, which comes as a visual surprise to the detective recounting it. He relives that one moment of discovery with both a personal revulsion and a cop’s curiosity. He still hasn’t gotten his head around it, and it’s only one detail. Like an Avia sneaker, size 11 and a half, the only one shipped to Los Angeles since the company was founded.

There have been several features on the notorious killer at the center of Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. Chris Fisher’s film Nightstalker (2002), Ulli Lommel’s Nighstalker from 2009, and Megan Griffiths’ The Night Stalker (2016). His story was dramatized in the 1989 TV movie Manhunt: Search for the Night Stalker. Zach Villa played Ramirez on American Horror Story: 1984. Director Russell, whose father worked in the Dallas DA’s office, grew up in courthouses, jails and police precincts.He keeps his focus steadily on the investigators and the victims.

Russell presents the evidence plainly. Emotionally, he wants to present the feel that anyone in the horrific footage could have been a viewer or someone they know. He never treats the victims like statistics. We get personal stories, like one told by a granddaughter remembering how she preferred a grandma who did cartwheels over any necklace heirloom which could be bequeathed. The documentary occasionally lets the camera wander around recreated footage too long, and takes leisurely pauses of action with only music over grim background sets to amplify the atmosphere. We also get the occasional emotion-cam closeup, with a frozen face willing a testimony into a camera wordlessly.

The first glimmer of a name the documentary provides for the suspect is Richard Mena, who is being treated for an impacted tooth. Richard Ramirez actually doesn’t get much screen time. We get a very curt statement on why he turned out the way he did. “All the things that could poison a child were part of his life,” a detective explains. The only detail is a recollection of how Ramirez was tied to a cross in a cemetery overnight as a reprimand from his religious father. Ramirez explains himself throughout, although without credit until we learn the quotes and affirmations come from a recorded interview the Night Stalker gave from prison. But we never learn how Satan was “a stabilizing force in his life,” which prompted “a motivational charge.”

The documentary explores the killer-groupie phenomenon, but it is from the amazed and uncomprehending reactions of the investigating officers, and the families of the victims. They don’t get it. The journalists who covered it have never seen anything like it. It proves everything about the case is unprecedented.  We see Ramirez, upon sentencing, tell the families, as well as the judge, jurors and investigating officers: “You don’t understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience.” The doc cuts his last lines, “I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all.” What replaces it is a snippet of Ramirez requesting a promise that his recorded interviews be erased after his death.

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a satisfyingly exhaustive account of the investigation into the Richard Ramirez murder-and-assault-spree. But know it is limited to the crimes and the cities they were committed in. Los Angeles is a bigger character in the documentary than Ramirez. The docu-series isn’t about him. It’s about what he did, and the people he did it to. Survivors describe his very presence in the court as “evil,” and the documentary resolutely chalks the case up as a triumph for good. By following the timelines so deliberately, Russell lays out the arc of a perfect detective story. That being said, I could have watched two more installments on the villain and collateral damage.

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Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer streams on Netflix on Jan. 13.

The post Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer Review – Richard Ramirez Docuseries Speaks Plainly appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[dweemeister]

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964, Japan)

Godzilla’s introduction in 1954 enthralled and horrified Japanese moviegoers. That classic kaiju film, so filled with action and fantastical interest, introduced the Japanese to a monster also bearing the burdens of being a victim to something possible only in the nuclear age. Godzilla’s body is filled with keloid scars, meant to evoke the images of those who survived (if only for a time) the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Created in humanity’s pursuit of a civilization-destroying weapon, Godzilla is often interpreted as nature seeking payback against humanity. Despite Godzilla’s seeming desire for natural vengeance, Japanese audiences could empathize with Godzilla, recognizing the allegory that they had been living since 1945.

In the first four films in the Godzilla franchise and the Shôwa era of Godzilla (named after the concurrent Japanese Imperial era of Hirohito’s reign), Godzilla is an antagonist – wreaking havoc upon humanity, even when fighting other kaiju foes such as Anguirus (1955′s Godzilla Raids Again), King Kong (1962′s King Kong vs. Godzilla), and Mothra (1964′s Mothra vs. Godzilla). For Ishirô Honda’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla begins a rehabilitation of his image that will take three subsequent films to complete. When faced with an extraterrestrial threat to the planet, Godzilla will set aside his affray with Rodan (after both are persuaded by Mothra) to defeat King Ghidorah – who makes his cinematic debut with this film.

Princess Selina Salno (Akiko Wakabayashi) of Selgina is en route for an official visit to Japan in the midst of a winter heatwave. Just as her plane is destroyed by an assassin’s bomb, an enormous meteor impacts into the Japanese countryside near Kurobe Dam in Toyama Prefecture – considering that this same dam was destroyed by Mothra in 1961′s Mothra, all credit to the construction workers for their work in fixing the dam that quickly. Soon after, Princess Selina announces herself in the middle of a Tokyo crowd, news of her death greatly exaggerated. Claiming to be from Venus, she warns the public that Rodan – presumed dead at the end of his film debut in 1956 – will rise from Mt. Aso and that Godzilla, who has just battled Mothra in the previous movie, will destroy a ship. Away from the ears of the public, the gaze of assassins, and known only by bodyguard Detective Shindo (Yosuke Natsuki) and psychiatrist Dr. Tsukamoto (Takashi Shimura in his final Godzilla film appearance), she reveals a third prophecy. The final prophecy is prefaced by the fact that Selina’s Venusian civilization was destroyed by a three-headed dragon named King Ghidorah. She prophesies that he will attempt to destroy the Earth. Ghidorah, hailing from beyond our solar system, is the creature that emerges from the impacted meteor.

The evolving Godzilla franchise from Toho Company would soon face budget constraints and the artistic decision to make Toho’s most prized kaiju more family-friendly. Japan’s demographics in the late 1950s and early ‘60s skewed far younger than today – a time where the nation is now shrinking because of its rapidly aging population and low fertility rates. These considerations impact Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster narratively and aesthetically. Beginning with this film, Godzilla’s rampaging presence is a side effect to his ultimate defense of Japan, not an attempt to annihilate the Japanese. Nuclear allegories though mentionable to children, are likely to be beyond a child’s appreciation (in the neutral sense of the term). Thus, discussions of Godzilla’s origins and the morality of conflict against kaiju all but disappear in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. 

In earlier Godzilla films, the combat between monsters or between Godzilla and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF; which does not bother getting in the way of Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah in this monstrous rumble) was portrayed as a battle between or against a titan. One can feel the weight of these enormous, lumbering (“lumbering” does not usually apply to flying beings, so Mothra should be excluded) kaiju trudging against the urban battlefields scorched by electric and nuclear fire. With Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Honda and kaiju actors Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Masanori Shinohara (Rodan), and Shoichi Hirose (King Ghidorah) approach violence as if it was professional wrestling – not the Greco-Roman or freestyle wrestling associated with the Olympics. There is even a ludicrous moment where Godzilla and Rodan are batting an enormous boulder between each other with the former’s fists and tail and the latter’s wings. All that is missing in this scene are a net and a chair umpire announcing the score. A new Godzilla suit was commissioned for this film, giving Nakajima the ability to more fully personalize his character through gestures and an off-camera technician to control the direction of Godzilla’s eyes in the sockets.

These results are jarring, contributing to the perceptions of the franchise’s campiness in later Shôwa era-Godzilla films. In the West until only recently, these Godzilla films were only available in dubbed versions – readers who are anime fans know how poor some of those English dubs of Japanese media can be. These films, at least in North America, were also extensively re-edited to emphasize the increasingly cartoonish battles between and against the kaiju. With thanks to Janus Films and the Criterion Collection, the original, unedited, subtitled versions of Shôwa era-Toho Company kaiju films are easily accessible for the first time. This review is based on the original unedited and subtitled version of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. Beware the dubbed version of this film, which runs eighty minutes (as opposed to the original’s ninety-two minutes). But even with the restoration of all of the scenes with those supposedly boring grown-ups talking about tiresome things, the tonal dissonance between the human- and kaiju-centric scenes combined with the combat choreography is bewildering.

Debuting in Japan as San daikaijû: Chikyû saidai no kessen (translated literally as: “Three giant monsters: Earth’s greatest battle”), this is a film underselling – at least, in its title – the genius of the antagonist. Special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya (a co-creator of Godzilla) visualizes a serpentine dragon with, you guessed it, three heads. But to complicate things, Ghidorah also has two tails and wings – seven appendages in total. To keep all seven in motion as Ghidorah flies across screen, Honda and Tsuburaya utilized several wires (somehow, almost none of them are ever on-screen) and a handful of puppeteers to keep Ghidorah in realistic animation, even when he – screeching at Godzilla and Rodan – has his feet planted on the ground. Unlike Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla and Masanori Shinohara as Rodan, Shoichi Hirose cannot use his arms as Ghidorah. So where his fellow kaiju actor counterparts could keep their balance by maneuvering their arms, Hirose is left with no option other than to position his feet correctly and hope for the best. Future iterations of Ghidorah would look even more impressive than this first attempt. With this striking introduction into the Godzilla series (with a lower-string-heavy motif by longtime Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube... starting at 0:49 in the provided link), Ghidorah’s emergence begins the greatest rivalry in kaiju cinema.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, for unknown reasons, was never released theatrically in many European countries. That makes it, outside of Japan and North America, one of the lesser-known films in the Toho Studios’ kaiju canon. The film is also, in addition to Mothra vs. Godzilla, the inauguration of – dare we say it – one of the earliest cinematic universes (and certainly one of the most sprawling). How the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is acclaimed for being so narratively innovative escapes me, especially given the financial and logistical realities of studio filmmaking in 1950s/1960s Japan and the 2010s in the United States. Even when fighting against the ill-informed wishes of producers and executives, the directorial vision is almost always apparent in these Godzilla films, including Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. The same cannot be written for numerous other cinematic universes and their respective films.

In the halls of Toho throughout the 1960s and into the ‘70s, one of Godzilla’s creators was becoming unsettled by the requests of the company’s executives. As the director who brought Godzilla to being, Ishirô Honda insisted that Godzilla be seen as a figure warning against the folly of nuclear war. The increasing demands to make Godzilla a character engage in human-like behaviors and have identifiable human emotions fit perfectly with what some social critics saw as the infantilization of Japanese audiences because of the arrival of popular Japanese television. Honda – who essentially created the kaiju film, the monster film, and the disaster film – is an underappreciated figure in cinema whose legacy is undergoing a rapid reevaluation because of the fact that the Shôwa era kaiju films (in their original unedited and subtitled forms) are being made widely available outside Japan for the first time.

Nevertheless, after Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, the pendulum would swing exactly the way Honda never wanted to witness. Honda would not live to see it, but I think he would have appreciated the fact that the pendulum has swung back.

My rating: 6.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.