My Cultural Diet

Here’s the best way I can describe Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One, the 37th installation in the long-running movie monster franchise: it takes almost everything that’s beloved and celebrated about the Big G’s various incarnations, distills them down to their purest essence, and delivers a movie that’s filled with as much heart and conviction as it is kaijū spectacle. There’s none of the campiness that’s often associated with Godzilla movies, nor is there any cynicism or satire like 2016’s Shin Godzilla. Instead, it’s a deeply human and heartfelt story about guilt, sacrifice, and redemption that just so happens to also feature a giant lizard with atomic breath rampaging through post-WW2 Tokyo. Almost 70 years have passed since Godzilla roared onto the silver screen, and Godzilla Minus One is proof that he’s lost none of his potency as a cultural icon.