200 Items Or Less: Matango (1963)

A few thoughts: With much less of an emphasis on the monsters than on the human side of the equation, this is a surprisingly effective bottle drama of sorts that pits a group of friends and acquaintances against each other when confronted with a desert island scenario. I enjoy movies that demonstrate the crumbling of social structures, and while this isn't in the same league as something like 'The Exterminating Angel', the fact I can even bring it up in comparison with it is exceptional enough. Most of Honda's kaiju/monster movies use the human stories to essentially fill gaps, but this is one that works perfectly well on its own, but uses the monsters to aid the human story. I was very impressed, and the character interactions were dynamic and well-constructed. Watching people's survival instincts kick in in these different ways feels natural, and the acting is pretty solid as well. The mushroom people are just the icing on the cake. I never thought I'd be praising this movie so much, but it's really an intriguing watch.

200 Items Or Less: Space Amoeba (1970)

A few thoughts: The highlight of these kaiju movies is generally the monsters themselves, which puts this movie in the class of entertainment that does a great job at offering fans what they want but still somehow comes up a little short. There's a giant squid monster, a giant crab monster, and a giant turtle monster in this movie, with a scene involving a fight between the latter two, but without a decent human story to make it all mean much of anything, it all feels incredibly frivolous. Does that mean it isn't entertaining? Absolutely not, but the human parts are severely lacking. I like the effects here, though the lack of Eiji Tsuburaya's contribution to the rubber suits can definitely be felt here, particularly during the squid monster scenes. If you just want to see giant corny monsters stomp around and smash things, it may all be on a jungle island, but this movie offers plenty of that. If you want a little more in-depth of a story, this won't be the one I'd recommend. It's second-grade Honda, but I still enjoy it.

200 Items Or Less: Q - The Winged Serpent (1982)

A few thoughts: There are few types of movies I hate more than the kind that don't deliver on a promise. With a title like this and with a supposed decent amount of emphasis on the titular winged serpent, I felt terribly lied to when I watched this movie and found myself bored to oblivion with a focus on a lead character with some kind of speech impediment and relatively little fun monster action. This was meant to be the movie that helped me to decide whether or not I liked Larry Cohen. Turns out I don't like him. The acting in this movie is really rough, with a lead character who is barely ever understandable and seems to have flunked out from the Al Pacino school of acting, where you're taught that screaming = good acting. He was an annoying menace in a movie I already wasn't enjoying. The pacing is awful, at just over 80 minutes I felt like I was watching it for hours. The only reason I'm not giving this movie an 'F' is because I liked the winged serpent itself -- but its lack of screentime made waiting for it to show up all the more tedious. Lousy movie.

200 Items Or Less - Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

A few thoughts: While the first two in the series saw Paul Kersey take on individual thugs, and the third film had him taking on an entire residential block of criminals, it only made sense for the fourth to be the story of Kersey taking on and defeating drugs. Drug cartels, individual dealers, users, you name it. If drugs are near you, he's gonna shoot you. Pretty much a perfect example of the excess and violence found in Cannon films of the Golan-Globus era, there's really not much to say about this movie to set it apart from a good deal of the stuff they were producing at the time. Charles Bronson looks pretty tired of playing this role by this point, and with the series departing so heavily from its origins, there isn't much to say about the message or emotions of the story anymore. The third one, glorious as it may be, was the beginning of the end for this franchise. I enjoyed some of the corniness and the action is appropriately over-the-top, but the series was clearly stetched pretty thin by the time it came out. Still, solidly entertaining.

200 Items Or Less: Death Wish 3 (1985)

A few thoughts: After the well-rounded first entry and its slightly less restrained sequel, it only made sense for the third movie to take it a step further. Oh, sorry, did I say "a step" and not "50 miles"? This is where the series flies off the rails and then blows up the rails with a bazooka. Instead of avenging the rape and murder of a loved one, this one finds Paul Kersey falsely accused of the murder of an old friend, after which he becomes enlisted by a local policeman to help clean up the streets (particularly a specific apartment complex) as a vigilante. The ensuing plot is riddled with messy violence and a total glorification of bloodshed. It's glorious. Watching Bronson wander from place to place deliberately making himself look like a prime subject for mugging, only to whip out a massive handgun and blow people away is both hilarious and oh-so satisfying. The third act gunfight is among the most ridiculous and entertaining I've ever seen, as it escalates to insane levels and ends with some badass 'splosions. As insanely stupid as it is, I kinda love this movie.