News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Friday December 19th 2025
Movie corner: ”˜Godzilla”™ muddles along
By HOWARD McQUITTER II
oldschoolmovies.wordpress.com
howardmcquitter68@gmail.com
“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (2019)Â
** of 5
Warner Bros.
San Francisco, a city that”™s become one of exorbitancy in recent years, where homelessness is all too common and billionaire corporations line the skyline like ducks in a row, five years ago had to rebuild the city costing billions of dollars and several thousand lives because of one humongous lizard called Godzilla. He roamed through the city doing as much damage as an earhquake or a tsunami. With all the military might against the beast he left the city on his own terms. Godzilla years earlier would attack Japan leaving so much havoc the scientists there spent every ounce of their brain power to come up with a way to kill Godzilla.Â
Thanks to director Ishiro Hondo, who created the Godzilla (Gojira in Japanese) in 1954, in black and white ”“ though, not to be outdone, other Japanese directors made Godzilla movies adding some monsters like Morthra, Rodan and Ghidorah. (I”™ve been a fan of Godzilla, a creature growing out-of-proportion because of nuclear tests by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. [now known as Russia].)Â
I cannot endorse Michael Doougherty”™s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” if for no other reason than some of its main character, such as the Russell family Mark (Kyle Chandler), Dr.… Read the rest “Movie corner: ”˜Godzilla”™ muddles along”
Mind-numbing Janjaweed
By PETER MOLENAAR
Peter Molenaar
On the western fringe of Alley News territory, there exists yet another progressive church. Was it more than 10 years ago that Plymouth Congregational (1900 Nicollet Ave.) hosted a sizeable public meeting in response to the Darfur Genocide? Indeed, events in this western province of Sudan, Africa had provoked the presence of such notables as Tim Walz and Keith Ellison.
The genocide was carried out by the Sudanese government”™s “Arab” militias, known as the Janjaweed (translation: “devils on horseback”). The Janjaweed systematically destroyed Darfurians by looting and burning their villages, murdering, raping, and torturing”¦ and then, polluting their water supply with decomposing bodies. Over 480,000 were killed, 2.8 million displaced.
Why, at the present time, would one choose to write about these things? Well, the stench of burning Janjaweed has returned now to waft among the reeds of Khartoum”™s Nile, and because the overlords have seen fit to notch a fresh death toll with their refusal to reveal their “deposed” leader and their refusal to allow elections in the near term. Oh, but the crocodiles smile.
Hey, we have Sudanese neighbors living close by and we are blessed with the knowledgeable concern expressed by African immigrants from numerous nations.… Read the rest “Mind-numbing Janjaweed”
Cano: Here are four things to do to show we all matter
By Rand Retterath
Rand Retterrath
This issue I”™d like to focus on a comment made regarding my 2020 article. Nicole H. posted this response to that article: “This is such a crock. Neighborhoods are not representative of their residents (say what?). The city is requiring work to be done to get money. You act like the money is expected or entitled. (This isn”™t for me personally, it”™s for the communities and part of the participative government experience that has existed in this city for decades.) ”¦. You should write about how the white power base are losing power and have created false narratives. Every single one of your points can be argued yet you will never see it because you are full of the kool-aide. (I assume she means that I am white and it mitigates my ability to understand much of anything.)
I agree with Nicole. I should talk about the white power base losing power; we all should.
But to do that means that we must discuss her comment in light of achieving racial and socio-economic parity for all.
The assault on my ideas and opinions is unrelenting not because they are flawed, but because I am (fill in the black).… Read the rest “Cano: Here are four things to do to show we all matter”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
