Where I'll Be This Afternoon

In years past, I would see a movie on the big screen nearly every week--or, at least, every other week.

It helped a lot that I used to live within walking distance of three movie theaters: City North 14 (a megaplex on Western Avenue, which shows damn near every movie in wide release), the Logan (an older, smaller theater in, appropriately enough, Logan Square) and the Davis, the closest to La Casa del Terror and therefore the first choice when seeing anything at "the show."

But I don't live in La Casa del Terror anymore, and theaters (and pretty much every other business involving people gathering) have been closed for much of the past year.

So I haven't seen a movie in a theater for at least a year.

But that changes today.

I have bought tickets online (thank you, credit card!) for Godzilla vs. Kong showing at the Davis this afternoon.

I will buy popcorn. I will buy soda. And I will shop in the surrounding area after the show is over. (Hello, Laurie's Planet of Sound! Hey there, Quake! Yumm-o, Gene's Sausage Shop!)

Yes, I miss living in that neighborhood. Maybe I'll live there again someday.

But for now, I can visit via CTA--and I can go to the movies again.

Shocktober 10/27/20

Happy Birthday, Godzilla! Not looking too bad for 66 years young.

Shocktober 10/2/20

Did you know that, at one point, Godzilla was part of the Marvel Universe?

It's true: From 1977 to 1979, for 24 issues, "The Big G" occupied the same cultural space as Spider-Man, Captain America and the Fantastic Four--all of whom have cameos in this series, along with Jack Kirby's Devil Dinosaur and select agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., most notably "Dum-Dum" Dugan and Jimmy Woo. (Nick Fury pops up a few times as well.)

Doug Moench, better known for writing Werewolf by Night, wrote every issue, and Herb Trimpe, best known for his long run on Marvel's The Incredible Hulk, drew most of the issues, with Tom Sutton logging in for a chapter or two.

I was a big fan of the series when it first came out, and I had the Marvel Essentials volume pictured above--until I had to abandon La Casa del Terror (and nearly all of its contents) back in 2016.

But you know what? Ebay and Amazon Marketplace are wonderful places to visit. You can find damn near anything there.

Even a sorta/kinda treasured link to your past. Like this.

Shocktober 10/29/19

Shocktober 10/23/19

Godzilla 1962! (As in King Kong vs....)

Every Picture Tells a Story 2/27/15

Every Picture Tells a Story 2/20/15

Every Picture Tells a Story 1/27/15

Every Picture Tells a Story 1/22/15

The party upon my monitor right now.

Gobble Gobble 11/17/14

What better way to begin the countdown to Thanksgiving than with this fearsome faceoff atop my work monitor: Godzilla vs. Gobbles! My money's on the Big G--he can even roast the turkey with his atomic breath--but...have you ever seen a really pissed-off turkey? Gobbles may go down in the end, but he ain't going down easy.

Shocktober 10/7/14

Every Picture Tells a Story 5/16/14

Who's excited about the new Godzilla movie opening today at a megaplex near you? This guy!

Every Picture Tells a Story 3/26/14

Every Picture Tells a Story: 3/12/10

Shocktober, 10/29/09, Part 4

Do you think the advertising department at WGBO was being snarky or ironic when they used their tagline ("Chicago's Great Movie Station") to describe this movie? Probably not.

Shocktober: Creature Features Intro (sort of)

I was fortunate enough to grow up in Chicago, where I had many local TV viewing options when I was young and impressionable.

Not only could I enjoy the antics of Svengoolie (both the original, Jerry G. Bishop, and his replacement--still going strong after 30 years!--Rich Koz), but I could cower on the couch of what passed for our family rec room as the strains of Henry Mancini's "experiment in Terror" played over the intro to WGN's Creature Features, which played the classic Universal horror films from the '30s and '40s, as well as various sci-fi flicks and even the occasional Godzilla film.

The aforementioned creepy intro was accidentally thrown out by WGN ages ago, and no videotape has turned up (most people didn't have VCRs in the early '70s). However, an enterprising soul has re-created the intro on YouTube, using an audio recording of the program to add the spooky voice of newsman/voiceover guy Carl Grayson to the footage of the Wolf Man, Frankenstein Monster and Dracula stalking the night.

Enjoy.

Friday is Bring Your Irradiated Dinosaur and His Metallic Doppelganger to Work Day

Recently, I realized that, given all of the toys I've lugged from home for Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day, I had made a startling omission: I had never brought in even a single Godzilla.

Anyone who has ever been to La Casa del Terror knows of my abundant love of Godzilla, from the large figures guarding the top of my refrigerator to the smaller ones lining the ledge of my kitchen cabinets to the two titans atop my TV.

It was those two--the version of "The Big G" from his last film (to date, anyway), Godzilla: Final Wars, and his robotic imitator/nemesis, Mechagodzilla, who adorn my workspace today, much to the awe of my coworkers.

(For those wondering why I didn't bring in any Watchmen action figures, considering that today is the opening day of this long-awaited cinematic adaptation of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel: I only have two figures from the movie--both the classic and modern versions of the lovely Silk Spectre--and I'm not arbitrarily certain that my coworkers would appreciate toys of women who are standing there in little more than one would see in the average Victoria's Secret catalog.)

Review: Godzilla (1954)

It's hard to remember half a century and literally dozens of sequels later, but the original Godzilla was intended as a serious political statement against nuclear proliferation, most particularly by the United States.

When it was first released in 1954 as Gojira, the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't distant history, but still-fresh wounds on the collective body and psyche of Japan, and insult was added to injury by continued American test detonations in the Pacific. In March of that year, a Japanese fishing boat strayed into a U.S. bomb testing area, irradiating the crew (killing one) and their catch of tuna (some of which made it to market).

Director Ishiro Honda and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka took these real-life incidents (which are mentioned directly in the original Japanese version, but were cut for the American release in 1956--more on that later) and grafted them onto the same basic story as Warner Brothers' The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury (does that make Bradbury Godzilla's godfather?). In that film, a dinosaur awaken by an accidental nuclear explosion ravages New York's Coney Island.

In Godzilla, the size of the monster was increased to impossible proportions (164 feet tall) and in metaphorical significance--with its size, radioactive breath and utter disregard for humankind's weapons and, really, our very existence, Honda and Tanaka (along with co-screenwriter Takeo Murata, working from a story by Shigeru Kayama) made Godzilla a walking, breathing nuclear explosion--an atomic holocaust made flesh and blood.

After Japanese ships are attacked and destroyed under mysterious circumstances, an expedition heads to a nearby island to investigate and finds enormous, irradiated footprints--and, the next day, the monster that belongs to them, which subsequently marches on the Japanese capital of Tokyo and tears it and its people to shreds, proving to be immune to humankind's conventional weaponry.

Doctor Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) has an unconventional weapon, an "oxygen destroyer," that could do the trick, but he was deeply scarred (physically and emotionally) by the war and is fearful of letting such a terrible weapon be used. Can the woman he's engaged to, Emiko (Momoko Kochi), and the man she really loves, Hideto (Akira Takarada) convince him otherwise and save Japan--and maybe the world itself--from this terrible manifestation and melding of modern science and ancient, elemental fury?

There is much emotional power in the scenes of the conflicted Serizawa, who doesn't want to be responsible for loosing another weapon of mass destruction upon the earth, and in the scenes following Godzilla's attacks on Tokyo, with hospitals overflowing with battered, radiation-burned survivors. The Japanese cast delivers passionate performances that lend much weight and depth to the metaphorical subject matter, making their dilemas and heartbreaking solutions far less abstract and much more immediate and relatable. The score by Japanese composer Akira Ifukube is downright haunting and would be recycled over the coming decades. (Ifukube also came up with Godzilla's signature roar, which has become one of the most recognizable sounds in cinema history.)

Unfortunately, much of the movie's merit is undercut by the uneven special effects employed to bring Godzilla to life. The "man in a big rubber costume" approach (called "suitmation" by fans of Japanese daikaiju movies) works fine when the monster is photographed at a distance, smashing his way through detailed miniatures standing in for Tokyo. And there are burst of stop-motion animation (a la the Beats from 20,000 Fathoms), hinting that this might have been at least considered for the whole movie, but abandoned. (Publicity stills of the time featuring a more claylike Godzilla seem to back this theory up.) However, for closeups, an "electronic puppet" was used that looks a lot like Lamb Chop dunked in raw sewage and is just as imposing; the fact that this puppet is the first good look we get at Godzilla seriously damages the movie and makes it difficult to take seriously from that moment on.

Regardless, Godzilla was an mammoth hit in Japan and an immediate sequel, Godzilla Raids Again, was rushed into production and opened just five months later, even though the title monster is clearly destroyed at the end of the original. (In the American version of the sequel, Gigantis, the Fire Monster (not released in America until 1959), the monster's name is changed and it's explained that he just happens to be another member of the same species as Godzilla.) When Godzilla was exported to the United States, though, it was substantially altered. Large chunks of the movie were removed--including many supporting characters, most of the subplots and any comments aimed at American nuclear policy--and replaced with new footage directed by Terry Morse and starring Raymond Burr.

Up to this point in his career, Burr had spent most of his time playing bad guys and murderers (most famously in Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Rear Window), but he made the most of this opportunity to play a good guy, even if his role was being surgically attached to an already completed movie. (The original Japanese version runs 98 minutes; the edited/reshot American version is 17 minutes shorter.) It turned out to be a big career boost for Burr, who subsequently won the lead role in the TV series Perry Mason and went on to have a long, successful career--thanks, in part at least, to a large, irradiated reptile.

Godzilla has gone on to have a long, successful career as well--long may the "King of the Monsters" reign.