1. First and foremost is some pretty big life news: after much searching and many applications, I’ve been offered a full-time teaching job with a traditional Catholic, classical education school.

The only slight catch is that it’s, ah, rather far. I live in Metro Detroit, and the job is in Phoenix, Arizona. Which means that I’m going to be moving to the southwest this summer. This is by far the biggest life change I’ve faced since at least college, meaning there is a lot to do and think about.

And so, Operation: 26 to 48 is officially under way.

2. The other aspect of it is just that I am now, for perhaps the first time, looking at the prospect of a job that I actually feel I can do well, am interested in, and would hope to be able to do long-term. That is, something I can actually settle into, rather than just a stop-gap measure to keep my head above water. Time alone will tell, of course, but I’m thankful either way.

3. I’ve started framing the US in terms of lists: States, Presidents, Articles and Amendments, etc. The reason is that I’ve found this is a way to cover and review two pieces of information at once. So, if I say something like, “12 was the last state to join the Confederacy,” I have to remember who ’12’ was. And remembering that it’s North Carolina tells me that not only was it the last state to join the Confederacy, but also one of the last states to ratify the Constitution (13 barely counts, since they sat out the convention. Because if any state can survive on its own against the rest, it’s Rhode Island), which creates a bit of a pattern of North Carolina tending to drag its tarry heels (though, ironically, they were the first to approve the idea of Independence. The one time, if any, it would have made sense to stop and think, they’re first out of the gate. Really, 12?).

Hence, 26 (Michigan) to 48 (Arizona).

4. I got out to see Godzilla x Kong this afternoon. It is pretty much everything you’d expect from a contemporary blockbuster: a lot of gaudy spectacle and explosions, lots of weak quips and humor, a paper-thin story with a lot of patently forced goals (e.g. the story would have been no different whatsoever without the subplot of Godzilla trying to supercharge himself…except that he would then have had no role at all until the climax), bad dialogue, obvious setups, utter disregard for logistics, a sense of being made-up on the spot, and a tendency to let absolutely everything go hang if there’s a chance for a cheap joke (e.g. Godzilla decides to curl up in the Coliseum like a cat. Isn’t it funny? Never mind that he’s a sea monster, shouldn’t feel comfortable in human settlements at all, and, in any case, somehow manages to get in and out without damaging the thing).

In a word, it’s stupid.

5. More than that, I feel they’ve missed the point in many different ways. The kaiju by and large act no different from normal-sized creatures, or even humans. The film opens with Kong fleeing from a pack of giant wolf-rat things, making the whole concept of the kaiju feel immediately less special and looking for all the world like a normal-sized gorilla. Later Godzilla goes running about in the bent-forward, dinosaur stance as if he weighed nothing at all. It all makes their size feel entirely arbitrary (this, by the way, was a problem in some of the later Showa films as well, but even then the fact that the monsters were played by people in genuinely heavy and cumbersome suits meant that there was an in-built barrier to that issue: they typically looked and acted heavy because they were heavy).

Kong in particular is more or less just a person now. In fact, he’s essentially become just Conan with more hair (part of this is modern Hollywood’s conviction that apes are really just people), and really nothing about his storyline would change if you swapped him out for a human barbarian. It probably would have been improved.

I also think that the ever-evolving backstory for the Legendary series is getting further and further away from anything recognizably Godzilla. Now there’s this whole convoluted history of battling a race of giant apes and hollow earth and who knows what else, with Godzilla’s nuclear origin fading further into the rear-view mirror. It’s beginning to feel less like Toho and more like just “whatever the hell the writers want with Toho labels slapped on” (which, again, is another trait of modern blockbusters).

6. All that said, I still had a fairly good time. I went in knowing exactly what to expect and so wasn’t really disappointed. The pulpy adventure aspect of discovering lost civilizations and the barbarian prince conquering the sadistic tyrant is pretty fun, even if attaching it to Kong is stupid.

In a word, it’s fairly harmless, ultra-light fare, and Godzilla at least remains fitfully in character (e.g. raiding a French nuclear plant is exactly the kind of thing he should be doing). And I had to laugh when, during an early skirmish in Rome, the only landmark to get definitely taken out was the Victor Emmanuel Monument (AKA ‘The Typewriter’). If you’re going to destroy anything in Rome…

7. Oddly enough, I thought Mothra pretty much saved the film. For one thing, it’s just good to see her again, and to have another classic Toho kaiju on screen. She gets to play an important and character-appropriate role, never gets made the butt of the joke, and survives the film with her angelic dignity intact. There’s a brief, but very nice moment between her and Godzilla that is easily my favorite part of the movie.