Join us at the Rio Theatre on Monday, January 29 for a very special #MonsterMonday double bill featuring a 70th Anniversary screening of the 4K restoration of director Ishirō Honda's original 1954 Kaiju classic GODZILLA (a.k.a. "Gojira") with the 2023 blockbuster GODZILLA MINUS ONE/MINUS COLOUR.

Doors 6:00 pm
Godzilla (1954) | Movie 6:30 pm *Start time subject to change. Please arrive on time.
Godzilla Minus One: Minus Color | Movie 8:30 pm *Screening as part of a double bill. Start time subject to change.

We mash our way into #MonsterMonday first with:

GODZILLA (1954) the undisputed roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama, made in Japan at a time when the country was reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing in the Pacific. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning almost thirty sequels.

One of the longest-running series in film history began with Honda's grim, black-and-white allegory for the devastation wrought on Japan by the atomic bomb. As his visual metaphor, Honda uses a 400-foot-tall mutant dinosaur called Gojira, awakened from the depths of the sea as a rampaging nuclear nightmare, complete with glowing dorsal fins and fiery, radioactive breath. Crushing ships, villages, and buildings in his wake, Gojira marches toward Tokyo, bringing all of the country's worst nightmares back until an evil more terrible bomb -- capable of sucking all the oxygen from the sea -- returns the monster to its watery grave. The original 1954 film is chilling, despite some rather unconvincing man-in-a-suit special effects, and brimming with explicitly stated anti-American sentiment.

We take a brief intermission between films to "evacuate the city" and restock doomsday supplies at concession. Then we rebuild and come back with:

Takashi Yamazaki's awe-inspiring, explosive reboot of the kaiju icon, GODZILLA MINUS ONE: MINUS COLOR.

Hailed by critics and audiences alike (it is now the highest-grossing live action Japanese film ever in North America), its path of destruction is set to continue with parent company Toho's glorious black and white re-release, the brilliantly titled GODZILLA MINUS ONE: MINUS COLOR.

"It’s the rare kaiju movie that cares this deeply about the inner lives and motivations of the people scurrying out of the way of the monster’s ginormous thudding feet." (Slate)

"You wouldn’t believe a monster movie could make you sob, as well as think, but Godzilla Minus One does." (Financial Times)

"It puts the trauma of history at the very centre of the story, ultimately crafting a story about human beings pulling together to heal and defeat an inexplicable force of destruction." (Guardian)

"This may be the only Godzilla movie that will make you feel verklempt by the time it concludes." (Hollywood Reporter)