WAR ON CATERPILLARS

Friday evening the single greatest TV channel of all time, Turner Classic Movies, presents a tribute to director Ishiro Honda. It starts at 5 p.m. (Phoenix time) with Gojira (1954), followed at 6:45 p.m. by Rodan (1957) and then at 8:15 p.m. with...

Monster-of-the-Week: …Mothra (Mosura, 1962), the title character of which is this week’s honoree (note that she’s “ravishing a universe for love”; I might have thought that she was “ravaging” it). She’s a gigantic insect god who in the course of the story goes from egg to caterpillar to cocoon to full-grown moth, all while single-mindedly working to rescue two diminutive captive maidens (played by singing twins Emi and Yumi Ito, aka The Peanuts) who are being exploited by a greedy businessman.

This one’s worth catching, if you’ve never seen it. It’s one of the most beguiling of the Japanese monster flicks.